Track and Field with homeschool flavor-

So my kids may never do track and field. I can honestly say that is the ONLY thing about them not attending school that I am sorry about. But for now we have the next best thing-Homeschool Field Day! The highlight of our academic year, I'm sure-

The long jump:


Sack race:


3-legged race:


There was pie-eating, lego building, water balloons, and of course some unique games that I really have no idea what they were or how they were played, but put a bunch of homeschoolers together and that's what you get! Oh, and of course, the requisite potluck with WAY too much food-

B dug the juggling bag out of the garage last night. We're going to the IJA convention in July and thought it best to start getting back into shape. See, I may identify as a juggler over there in my profile, but the truth is, B and I do very little juggling nowadays. Lucky for us you can't really "forget" to juggle, but if you could we certainly would have forgotten by now! I opened the bag this morning, and there before me was a heartbreaking sight. All of our juggling balls, the good ones, the $8 a piece ones, were nothing but scraps. Birdseed was all over the bottom of the bag, along with mouse droppings and shredded paper. So our juggling bag was a mouse home and buffet over the winter. And now the only juggling balls we have are the 5 new ones I bought B for Christmas (a purchase I hestitated on, but now I am really, really glad we have them!). It's not a huge loss-I only juggle 4 balls anyway, B will do 5, when we pass we mostly use clubs. But those were the balls that we learned to juggle with. They were our first big equipment purchase. B and I were still dating when we bought those and they sat on the mantle at our wedding. They were getting too soft, and some of the material had gotten thin and a little stretched out. One ball even had a piece of tape on it covering a hole that one of the kids bit in it at one time. So they needed to be replaced anyway. But the loss reminds me of the years that have passed, and the days when those balls never would have been shoved in the garage. Juggling balls have been replaced with errands and cleaning and teaching and the full days of working and parenting. I guess it is significant that bit by bit we are losing the material possessions of our past, as we are continually growing and changing ourselves. But the memories that linger of those days......so hard to let go.

Race results, and some more new babies

Well, I am pretty happy. I ran my 5k in 23:41, faster than any of my 5k times last year. This race was the smallest race I have ever run in, there were probably less than 30 people running. I had absolutely no one to run with for the entire race. Three men were way ahead of me, and the rest of the field was way behind me. It was a lonely, lonely race, and it was tough because usually I can keep up my pace better when there is someone alongside me or right in front of me but I had to do that all on my own which was not easy. My splits were pretty good, 1st mile was 7:33, 2nd mile 7:37, last mile with the extra tenth of a mile was 8:30. I did slow down that last mile, and that's where I think I could have maintained my pace better if I was not running alone. But anyway, I did win first overall female, and I have never done that before, so I feel pretty good about it even if it was by default :)

Pics of our hatchery babies:

Golden Comet, "Penny"


Easter Egger, "Fluffy"


Delaware, one of three, no names yet


It is amazing to us how much hardier our incubator hatched chicks are compated to the hatchery chicks. They are growing faster, they seem more energetic, what at difference.

First race of the season

I feel I have to post again because tomorrow I run my first race of the season. I am excited about this 5k because I feel stronger than I did last year, and my goal is to really trim down my 5k times this year. My times last year were so pathetic, I am embarrassed to even post them. It was my first year back after having my third child so it was a rebuilding year. Actually though, I think of this season as my rebuilding season because I don't have to start again from scratch, I am already fit and strong and I just need to be conservative about laying on the miles. I know that the speed will come, I'm just not sure how quickly that will happen for me. After tomorrow I should have a much better picture of what I can predict for myself time-wise. My goal for tomorrow is to break 24:00, I would love to break 23:30. I realistically think I will fall somewhere inbetween the two times. My goal for the season is to break 23:00.
Oh, and there's a kids run! A first for us-

Final count

Final count from incubator hatch stands at 13. Six of those babies will be sold and the remaining 7 we will either keep or eat depending on sex. We received 5 hatchery chicks a few days ago as well, so yes, we are overrun with baby chicks at the moment!

The incubator hatching experiment was a great elementary lesson in genetics for my little ones. We predicted the appearance of the chicks as well as their appearance when they are mature, based on our knowledge of dominant traits our rooster and hens posess.

We knew that our White Plymouth Rock rooster and White Plymouth Rock hens would produce pure White Plymouth Rock chicks, so no mystery there.
We predicted that our rooster and our Barred Plymouth Rock hens would produce barred chicks because we learned that barring is a dominant trait-we were right:

The crossing of our rooser with our Easter Eggers was a toss up. We didn't know what to expect since our Easter Egg hens are such a mix of genes anyway. We did predict that our buff colored EE hen would hatch out a white bearded chick, and we were right! Check out that cute little fluffy beard!

Our other EE hen is dark with a little brown and no real dominant traits, so we thought the chick would be a little of this and that coloring, and I guess we were right there as well as she is a mix of brown, white and yellow.

Now we are trying to predict which chicks are male and which are female. But believe me, we won't be doing any vent sexing in this homeschool-

THEY'RE HERE!!!