Lucky the Mourning Dove

This is Lucky Bird! My mother-in-law rescued it from their backyard in Yuma, AZ. So, what to do when they came home for the summer? Bring it with her of course! She has been hand feeding it and all the way up to the Pacific Northwest it sat in her lap or on her shoulder or in it's little box. The bird is really cute but we like to give her a hard time about being the CRAZY BIRD LADY! Here is Jacob holding Lucky. Every time Grandma would walk away and the boys would go over by him, he would start cheeping and ruffling his feathers. By the end of the night he was a bit more relaxed around the boys.

Here is one of Lucky sitting on Josh's hand.

Josh thinks he has died and gone to heaven. He has been wanting a bird and now we can live vicariously through Grandma (aka CRAZY BIRD LADY). He was trying to convince me to buy it from Grandma but the poor little bird follows her around and thinks she is the mother. I couldn't bear to take it away from her - and, for the record, she won't give it up. Now the only problem is what to do with Lucky when we go camping in a couple of weeks.....she didn't think of that when her soft little heart got her into this predicament.

This whole situation kinda reminds me of a story Ken's parents tell about Ken when he was younger. He was on his way home from school and found a poor chicken in an alley in town. The chicken didn't have any feathers and had been played with/chewed on by the neighborhood dogs. Ken (and his soft heart - wonder where Josh gets his compassion for animals?) rescued the chicken and brought it home. His dad said he could keep it if it lived (and all of us parents know.....that is not a smart thing to say because the love and care of a child can bring anything from the brink of death back to a rip-roaring life!).

Well, guess what?! She lived and Ken named her Henrietta. Well, Henreitta was quite the part of the family. She would ride on the back seat of the station wagon while they traveled to see the grandparents. WHAT A SIGHT THAT WOULD BE, huh?! She even made friends with the family German Shepherd.

Soooooo, all that to say.......no wonder we are where we are!

Oh, and I just happened to find the book "Are You My Mother?" at a garage sale this weekend and thought it was appropriate for the situation. My mother-in-law got a good chuckle out of that one!

DEEP FREEZE Precautions

Well, life on the farm is a bit different when the temperatures are in the teens and twenties. The "outside" dogs have now moved inside which makes life a bit interesting. They are large enough to "share" things on the counter. We just lost a bit of butter out of the butter dish that was left on the counter after breakfast. They don't even have to jump - just reach their little (well big) noses right over the counter. That really frustrates me since we haven't had to train them not to do that. It is like having 2 100 pound toddlers poking around the house. YIKES!

Jacob sure enjoys them in the house though....but he doesn't like the doggy hair that they leave behind. They also need to have baths REALLY badly. I just don't really want 2 100 WET dogs lounging in my house!

We brought Velvet inside Saturday night and she is now "living" in a small dog crate in the bathtub. The mice are still growing (ANYONE WANT A CHRISTMAS PRESENT OR TWO?) We had to separate the boys and girls so we don't get more babies......There were 7 baby boys and 7 baby girls, so we actually had 14 babies instead of the 11 I first thought I counted. And the fish are just swimming around in the aquarium totally oblivious to the FREEZING weather outside.

Frozen Eggs but not Chickens (yet)

Boy is it cold here! The boys have been going down to the chicken coop and taking wet (versus frozen) water down to the chickens 2 or 3 times a day. Yesterday they went down and got 4 eggs. One egg was split open and frozen - I think the others were probably frozen but they hadn't cracked. We put those in the fridge and will see how they turn out later.

BUT.....what is a homeschool family to do with a frozen egg????? FIRST, try to see if it will break or explode if thrown off the deck and onto the playhouse roof. Results.....the shell continued to crack but the egg stayed together - even after 5 throws.

SECOND, see what a frozen egg looks like inside......the boys pulled the shell off and the egg white was a yellowish color. Here is the shelled egg and the boys.Then they took a knife and cut it in half. Pretty cool and slimy as it started melting in our hands. Jacob is such a goof!After it completely melted we gave each half to Hunter and Kodiak. They seemed to like it. I'm not a fan of raw eggs but they sure liked it!

Mouse House Update

The babies are now 2 weeks old and are really starting to wriggle around. A few have "escaped" the nest and are pretty fun to watch as the crawl around since their eyes still aren't open. We did see one last night that had open eyes. They sound like little birds when the squeak. I finally cleaned the cage last night. The mommies were a bit nervous but I made sure not to get any of the babies into the garbage!

Mous Baby Update

The babies are now 1 week old and the mommies have moved them into 2 different spots in the cage because we kept peeking at them. They now have eyes instead of little black bumps but they are not open yet. The moms have made a nest in one of the tubes of the Critter Trails. Today we were watching and one of the babies rolled out of the tube. In a couple of seconds the mom stuck her head out of the tube and sniffed around and grabbed the baby by the scruff of the neck and arm and pulled it back inside the tube....It was pretty funny. A few minutes later 3 of the babies and rolled and wiggled out of the tube and were squirming around the entrance of the cage. Out popped the mommy's head and one by one she grabbed them with her sharp little teeth and pulled them in. I am amazed at how gentle her grasp must be on their tender little skin. There is a little bit of fuzz on them now. I will get a picture next time they "fall" out of the nest.

THE BABIES ARE HERE!

Sorry the picture is blurry - it makes me a bit sea-sick looking at it but it was the best picture I could get with them burried.

The babies were born Tuesday night. We have 11 tiny, pink, hairless mice that are making faint squeeks! They are so cute but the mommies have them hidden really well and don't like us to uncover the babies. We just peek in once or twice. Today the black and white mommy nipped at me while I was trying to get a peek.

We are not sure if Josh's mouse had babies too or if they are all from the black and white mouse. If they are, Josh's mouse is a great NANNY!

Here is a picture of Jacob's mouse on Tuesday night before we went to bed. She could hardly fit through the tunnels and was trying to "run" on the wheel. You can see her little tummy bulging.

EGGS!!!!!!!

Today the boys went to check the food and water for the chickens and GUESS WHAT???!!! They came running up the steps and just about broke the door down! There were 3 eggs! It sure makes the "trek" to the chicken coop worth it when they leave us treasures!

Mouse House Update

Well, I promised a picture of the completed Mouse House and HERE IT IS! The mice really seem to like it. Josh's mouse is in the blue box on the left and Jacob's mouse is running on the wheel. They also like to be held and are very curious exploring the house in their little run-around-balls.
We have also added a Daddy mouse to see if we can have babies. So, if/when that happens we will have furry friends to share! We may have a Daddy mouse to share after our first batch of babies as well. We don't need to keep making babies but would like the experience of it one time.

Not for the Faint of Heart

Well, Jacob found quite a surprise when he walked out the front door today. A DEAD (thankfully) rat. YUCK!!!!

Yes, I know that we did just purchase mice for pets - but they are FANCY mice, not just the everyday run of the mill mice. But we did NOT invite this little fellow into our yard.

Ken figured it smelled the yummy peanut butter smelling mole poison that he is tempting our pesky mole with. I guess it works for rats also.

Jacob had to put gloves on to dispose of this furry invader and of course we had to take a picture!

Yes, it's true - we have 2 new additions to our family!

I KNOW, I KNOW , I KNOW! We have enough animals here at Britton Barnyard - 3 dogs (2 outside and 1 inside), 4 chickens (for eggs - not meat), 2 rabbits (for pets - not meat), and 6 fish (no - I don't let the boys practice fishing in the tank)! Well, now we have 2 more little girls! I went to Cenex yesterday to get straw for our chickens' laying boxes and out we came with straw and 2 adorable little mice.

Now, before you scream, "YUCK!" just look at my boys' faces. They are absolutely radiant!
















So, yesterday for science we set up the Mouse House (habitat if you want to be very scientific). As many of you know my boys are really into Legos so we found a little mouse wheel that they had to build and of course there was a matching "playland" that they also put together. While they were doing that I was diligently cleaning out the tank from when we had frogs this summer. The little girls LOVE the wheel. Last night they were both in it and while one was running the other was doing loopdy-loops.

Today I had to keep reminding the boys that they couldn't play with their mice until their schoolwork was done. ~THEY SURE DID WORK HARD AND FAST TODAY~ I think the other thing that helped is that we were studying fish and the food cycle which is another one of our family obsessions - well, really the boys and Ken have the obsession....I just get to go along for the boat ride and read and take pictures of the catches of the day!