At Home in the Mountains

 Maddy had her Easter program performance on March 20th. The kids did a great job. They preformed a musical play called "Back to the Cross". Maddy had a solo in the song "Back to the Cross". She did a great job! We all enjoyed desserts together after the play was over.

 Whew! 38. That happened fast. Good thing I had such a great birthday celebration to counter-act feeling old as dirt. The day before my birthday we worked on our chicken run project and then my mom made an amazing birthday dinner of grilled chicken, veggie kabobs, salad and bread. My parents and Tam and Jeff got me ski googles for my bday. I hope I get to try them out before ski season ends.  On my birthday we went to Costello Street Coffee House in Florissant. I got a breakfast burrito. Maddy got biscuits and gravy, Kelsay got a bagel and Aaron got a burrito. We also had blueberry pie, a cinnamon roll and a peanut butter cup. No one felt hungry for lunch that day. We then went to the fossil beds and did a short hike and the girls did the Jr. Ranger badges. I bought them a vest to put their badges on. They were very excited about that. we went home and finished the chicken run. Then we had spaghetti for supper. The meal was prepared by Aaron and the girls. Later ...

 Back in the fall we lost several hens and roosters to some predator. We've been good about shutting the chickens in at night but at the end of February we slipped up and left the coop open at night again. We lost 2 hens to something. I was thinking coyotes but they didn't carry the bodies off, just took off the heads. I've heard this is typical of  raccoons. Also, our neighbor said that he gave his chickens away because he couldn't keep the coons out of them. The loss of the two hens was more painful this time because they had started laying eggs on Kelsay's birthday and so that was a loss of a couple of eggs a day. Still, with the 7 hens we have left, we get more eggs than we know what to do with. Another problem was that the hens would fly over the little fence we had around the yard. The girls and I had several good chicken chases and I was getting tired of having to keep an eye on them and go get them back in the yard. So I decided my goal for March was to ge...