Our chicks and ducklings are enjoying their first day in their outside pen and coop! Moving up in the world. A lot more space, covered areas, room to run and stretch their wings and legs. They seem pretty darn happy! What a gorgeous spring day to make their move to the outside world. The kids and I are going to spend our day in the yard doing some more clean up and working in the gardens. Ah, I love waking up from a long winter’s nap and stretching my own wings once again!

A nice gentle spring rain is falling outside, so inside activities are what’s on tap around our home, Hearth Haven. James is making chocolate chip cookies and I have bread dough rising. Joe, Topher and TJ are working on their Odyssey of the Mind column structure project for the state competition which will be held at Wingate College on April 10th. Their team won first place in the regional competition, so they get to compete at state! If they win that, then they will head to the world competition. Go Team Kane!

Miss Shayla came through her surgery last night with no signs of cancer! Apparently the radiation had caused some scar tissue to develop which became infected so they had to remove a few inches of her bowel and her appendix. She’s still in pain and needs her rest, but no signs of any other cancer, so that’s wonderful! The power of prayer and positive though is amazing.

Now that spring is upon us, it’s time for us to get some more baby chicks. We’ve reinforced their pen and coop area to keep the raccoons at bay (sadly, raccoons massacred our small flock just before Christmas). The boys cleaned out the coop yesterday. Now that we have our new pup, she’s going to be given the job of protecting our girls, too, along with Roscoe, our Great Pyrennees. Thankfully, a friend of ours just down the road has a huge flock, so we’ve been able to get ‘real’ eggs during our own lapse.

Along with checking out chicks, it’s time to start planning the garden, ordering seeds, etc. I love spring and all that come with it!

So many eggs. Our girls are in overtime mode. Love those fresh from the coop brown eggs with their golden yolks but in reality, there’s only so many we can eat at one time. Solution: quiches. We’ve been making quiches and putting them in the freezer. What a great way to use the eggs and store them. Quiche Lorraine, asparagus quiche, broccoli quiche, spinach quiche and my newest creation, arugala quiche! Oh, my, the arugala quiche is to die for! Even the kids love it. With our spring crop of arugala, it’s a great combination. I use it in place of the broccoli or the asparagus. Eggs and arugala. Yeah, baby.

Good morning everyone! Another beautiful Spring day here in western NC. Hearth Haven is bustling, as usual. We’ve gathered the eggs (11 this morning! Go girls!); watched the bluebirds catching grubs for their babies after the rain. The kids and I have dough for 3 loaves of bread rising in the pantry. Will probably do dough for 3 more loaves in a little while. Might have to make some more quiches to freeze to keep ahead of the eggs the hens are providing. Today the triplets, Meghan, Topher and TJ have their first reconciliation and then tomorrow morning, they will have their first communion. No baseball or softball games this weekend, so that’s a nice little break. Meghan is now the catcher for her team and doing an awesome job! No idea whatsoever where she got her athletic ability.

Going to get the rest of our garden planted this weekend, too. Our arugala, green beans, leaf lettuce, onions, beets, swiss chard and potatoes are all up and doing well. Going to plant more green beans, tomatoes, squash, carrots, cucumbers and herbs today. All our strawberry plants are growing splendidly. Can’t wait to start enoying the fruits and vegetables of our labors. The kids get so excited when the seeds they’ve planted break through the ground. What a learning experience for them. Our apple trees all seem to be doing well, too. That will be so awesome in a few years. In the meantime, we will continue our autumn tradition of going out to Hendersonville to Justus Orchards and picking apples for our applesauce, pies and apple butter.

One of our girls

Yippee! Throw your hat in the air! We’ve got eggs! Our girls (the chickens) have started laying. We’re so excited. They just started yesterday and so far we’ve gotten half a dozen farm fresh, totally organic, beautiful brown eggs. Oh yeah! We’re going to try them this morning when all the kids get up. The girls have built their own little nesting areas in two of the corners of their house. Apparently they decided not to use the wonderful boxes that Joe made for them. At least not yet. Maybe in time. But wherever they want to lay, we’ll take it.