I won a clutch of Serama hatching eggs on eBay Monday night so Eleanor would have eggs on which to sit. They arrived in the mail today.

Wouldn’t you know it. She hasn’t been on her nest since Wednesday morning. I put the eggs in the nest anyway, in hopes she will find them and decide she still wants to be a Mommy.

If she doesn’t pay any attention to them within 24 hours, I guess it’s up to my faithful incubator to hatch them. Oh I hope she wants them for her own. I really am not in the mind-set right now to maintain eggs in the incubator for 3 weeks.

Even though I made a deal with Mike that I would re-home my Seramas if Felicity could have a kitten, they are still here. The friend that was going to buy them just hasn’t gotten here to get them yet.

Eleanor has been broody for 6-8 weeks with a small break, but she continues to want to be a Mommy.

Thus far, we have been eating all the eggs that she and Lily lay. We aren’t ones that can manage eating the fertile ones, so we crack each one individually before using them to check for that “red spot”. Both gals started laying in May and we have not seen any ominous spots yet.

Until today.

I keep taking away the eggs that Eleanor tries to confiscate for her own, and put them in the refrigerator. I last took eggs from her on Thursday or Friday. I planned on cleaning their cage this weekend, and just forgot to watch for eggs.

Today, Felicity and I got ready to clean their cage. We put all three birds (Roosevelt, too) out in the backyard for a little scratching time. After that, Felicity got 2 eggs out of the area where Eleanor “sits”. I told Felicity I wanted to open them, just to see if Roosevelt’s work is “working” yet. (She has no idea what I mean) We opened up the first one, nothing, as usual. The second one OMG! I wanted to cry. There was a bunch of blood area and a teeny tiny chick moving around!!!! It was about 1/4″ long, and if the egg started incubation on Thurs/Fri, it would have been 4-5 days developed. Seramas generally hatch at 18 days, so it was almost 1/3 of the way “done”.

I decided that if Eleanor wants to be a Mommy, she can. So I went to the store and got some things to put together to make her an actual nest. She loves it and has only gotten out for a couple of minutes to eat since I put her on it.

I told Mike that I will uphold my deal, but not until Eleanor is over her spell of wanting to be a Mommy. Funny though, I think Lily is getting the same idea as Eleanor

This is something our family is learning everyday. Everyone has their opinion on simple living, and many think those of us living this lifestyle (or learning to live this lifestyle) are quite um…nuts.

I read this post by Amy over at Homestead Revival this morning. She really has hit the nail on the head with this wonderful post. Please go over and read, you’ll be glad you did.

If you are not already on the same page as those of us living simply, or working toward our goal of Simple Living, do take all of the information to heart and really think about what is being said. You just may change you mind.

Felicity has a new kitten, as I mentioned a few days ago. Friday, Felicity wasn’t feeling well, so I was able to take a photo of them.

I brought home a container of meal worms today for my Seramas. They loved them the last time (a couple of weeks ago) I did this. I thought they would put on the same show they did last time, but didn’t. I did a video anyway :/

In war and milk!

On the left is the um, 14 pound, fella that adopted us in December. His name is Smokey and he’s awesome!

On the right is the new little addition to our family, Marshy.

Smokey isn’t too fond of the new baby in the house. But I guess he thinks he can tollerate the little whipper-snapper as long as cat-milk is involved

My first attempt at the Sourdough Starter ended abruptly yesterday. Mike found a fly in it. YUCK! Down the toilet it went.

I started another batch right away, which seems to be doing very well. The ingredients made the jar exactly half full. I took photos, starting about 1 hour after starting the batch.

This photo is right at an hour after starting. You can see the jar is nearly full.

Within about 15 minutes of the first photo, now you can see that it went down quite a bit.

Then about 10 minutes later, it’s way up again. We were afraid it was going to over flow out of the jar.

Then I quit taking pictures.

Here it is this morning. I’ve stirred it already, though it still looks separated. This is the level at which it all started in the jar yesterday.

So, we’ll see how it goes this time. I’ve put the lid to the jar on top of the cloth to keep anything from getting into my starter again.

On another note, here’s a great photo I took yesterday of one of my sweet Serama hens, Eleanor.

She is so tiny and so sweet!

Have a great Sunday.

I have found a new fantastic author, photographer and blogger! Her name is Olivia Collins. I found her on, of course, my favorite online forum, Backyard Chickens. I found a thread about a book she had recently published, Fatima of the Gold-dust Feathers and immediately fell in love with her writing and photography. In this thread, she gives “blurbs” from each chapter of the book as she writes it. I was hooked immediately! I will be ordering my copy of the book this week. Below is a photo of the cover of the book, used with Olivia’s permission.

Olivia also has a blog that you can visit here, if you like.

Olivia is quite a gifted young lady. Do click on over and read the blurbs from her book, and order yourself a copy! I know you will enjoy her writing and photography as much as I have.

Tonight as Gregory was playing with the Seramas, he motioned toward the camera to let me know he wanted to be a star again with the Seramas. Lily wanted to show us how she can dance

He does love those birds! He doesn’t pay much attention at all to the 3 dogs or the cat. Go figure.

Here are some still shots I took after the video was done.

We definitely have some unique chickens, eh?

I just figured out how to film short films on my camera and download them to YouTube!

Gregory is autistic and put on quite a show for me without being promted to do so and I love this!