Growing

Our sweet little chicks are growing up. They are in what I call the teenager stage. They aren't as cute and fluffy as they used to be, they are harder to catch, and you're sort of ready to get them out of the house.  In fact, I'm thrilled that this past weekend we got them out of our basement, since they were starting to stink up the whole house.

The chick coop is now sitting beside the chicken coop, their future home.  The chicks were nervous about leaving their little box at first, but with each hour they spend outside, they venture a few more inches out into the yard.  They curiously peck at the weeds and scratch the ground for bugs.  Any of our sudden movements send them flapping and scurrying back to their safe place.  Our two adult chickens don't seem interested in these chicks at all.  A few of these spunky young ones have tried to challenge Little Blackie, which she mostly ignored before finally putting Daisy in her place.

These little gals are a prime target for predators (we are even cautious about our cat getting near them), so we have to keep a close watch on them during their outside time until they get a bit bigger.

The chicks are growing... and so am I.  I'm 10 weeks pregnant now, and my tummy remembers how to pooch out pretty well by now, so it's doing its thing.  It has been a challenging time to go through the first trimester as Justin was gone most of the last month taking care of his Dad and his Mom, and then as we began to grieve his Dad's passing.  When Alan, Justin's dad, got back to the states on Thursday, February 23rd, 5 days after he had a stroke on the way to Columbia, I got to go see him and hold his hand.  He looked at me and smiled when I walked into the room.  He squeezed my hand.  We went ahead and told him that I was pregnant... I felt like it was too much to tell him right then with everything going on, but now I'm so glad we did.  He smiled and squeezed my hand again.  To me his eyes seemed to say, "Another one! That's amazing... but I wish I wasn't confined to this bed."  It wasn't long before he couldn't communicate at all with us; what a blessing that I got to see his smile one more time and tell him about yet another (his 14th!) grandchild.  

The chicks are growing, I'm growing, the flowers and plants are growing... it hasn't all been pretty or easy.  It has been stinky, nauseating, grief filled, and set back with frost, but still we're growing.  I'm thankful.  I'm thankful for the lessons we are still learning from Alan (we just learned that he was known by the workers at the Fairburn Chick-fil-A because he was so friendly and he would buy other customers their food... we had no clue! but this is just one more example of how he showed love in all places).  I'm thankful for another baby joining our family.  I'm even thankful for the chicks pecking around the bushes entertaining me right now.