Chickens and Shoeboxes

Our Babies Started Laying!

Our big (funny) event this week was that our young chickens started laying. I looked out the back window into the yard on Wednesday afternoon. There, standing on the laying box was ‘Little Peep’, one of our golden chickens (we got two yellow orpingtons at Easter this year to add to our existing flock). Little Peep was trying to find her buddy, ‘Jelly Bean’, and had narrowed her location down to the laying box. Later, when my husband came home from work and went out to check for eggs, he discovered two large eggs and one little one! Jelly Bean has joined the big leagues!

Raising chickens teaches my children animal husbandry but more importantly it teaches them responsibility in a way that goes far beyond caring for a cat or a dog. Caring for livestock is such a different experience. And chickens are special in our house – my father-in-law was a state vet who also taught in the big agricultural college in our state and his specialty was, yes you guessed it, the chicken. So my children are learning about the business of raising and caring for the animals their grandfather dediated himself to. And that makes chickens special in our house.

Getting Shoeboxes Ready…

We are getting ready for shoebox season. It is time again for me to gather up all the empty shoeboxes I gathered over the last year and start to fill them for Operation Christmas Child. Do you pack shoeboxes with your children? My son loves to go deliver our boxes each November so he can take a look at the piles and piles of shoeboxes. For him, each box represents the generosity of a kind soul and also the promise of happiness and revived faith for a child and their family in a part of the world that is not free enough to allow people to believe in God openly.

Posts & Reviews This Week

https://www.byebyebrickandmortar.com/2017/09/28/saving-marty-not-really-pig/

Great Homeschool Products we are trying out:

• The Brinkman Adventures
• CTCMath

Books We Are Reading:

Where We Belong by Lynn Austin