Today

I walked into the bathroom to see this. Goggles again! Flippers! I am convinced they were worth every last nickel of the dollar I spent on them, and then some.

We only have a dozen hens. Half of them are currently broody, and I've avoided candling the eggs for a couple of weeks now, as it seemed like every day, a new hen succumbed to peer pressure and hunkered down to hatch some eggs. We even have a double-decker set of broody hens! One sits on top of the other, who sits on top of the eggs. I need to do something about this.

Anyway, a few days ago, I candled them and discovered that we have hens sitting on over 50 fertilized eggs, though I don't have hopes (maybe some fears) of that many hatching. This morning the first one tapped through. See its legs?

And this afternoon, we had a ball of fluff to coo over. Here's to 50-odd more! (Not really. I hope not. Our dilapidated coop can't handle that many.)

Oh, and at bedtime, I took the girls to the crick again. It's hot, I tell you!