new family members

[Cayte]

Hi everyone,

    You might not know that I am a country or farm girl. I have started to raise chicken for a couple of years now.  My South American breed lays coloured-eggs which are slightly pink, blue, and green - unusual colours I have never seen before. Anyway, I just welcomed 7 new chicks. A mother hen (a brooder) had been sitting on 10 eggs for 21 days before the chicks hatched. I have one completely black from head to toe, two yellow, and four yellow-brown mixed. I will have to wait until they grew up a little bit before starting to name them according to their characters. I'm not sure how to distinguish between male and female unless they are full grown.
    As much as they are cute to look at it, they will become very demanding. Right now I can hardly go anywhere longer than 4-5 hours because they need to be fed every couple of hours. Even though they can roam around the property picking insects and grasses to satisfy their hungers, they enjoy indulging in grain, wheat, fresh fruits, and their soupy-chicken-food. I mixed water with their dry food (found out by accident that they love it wet).


   

[Kouki]

Hello Cayte,
I've already known you might live in country from your former message, but I didn't know you were keeping chickens. It seems to be very difficult to raise chickens, but also seems to be fun from your message.
I never have had such an enjoyable farm life, my grandparents have though.
It is inconvenient to live in country, but we could get many benefit from the earth.

Thank you for a sweet message,
Kouki

[Cayte]

Sorry for disappearing for a little over a week. I have just recuperated from my illness. Luckily, nothing was  serious.

My chicks have already been 2 weeks old and have started to develop the feather on their wings. It's very cute to look at some of them jumping on their mother's back. They are old enough to try a solid food so I have given them chopped fresh and food mixed with water. They seem to go a little cuckoo about it.

It's getting a little warm here, which means it's the fireflies season. After the sunset, they will start to come out and they make the whole yard sparkling like the lights on Christmas tree. Learneng can vouch me on this even though she doesn't live in the country. I'm sure she enjoys seeing them in her area.  I remember I saw the fireflies during summer as I lived in the city. I didn't spray or use any chemical on my lawn at all for I wanted to preserve the little lives of these insects. After becoming the country girl, I even stay away from everything that can harm the nature.  Sometimes it's difficult to draw the line between letting deer and rabbits make themselves at home in my garden or I should put something to scarce them away. Whatever method I decide to use, these creatures can always beat me. 

[Learneng]

Yes, Cayte..I also live in the country (It's 60 miles from Boston and we call it village since it has just one grocery shop in the whole town). And I'm also enjoying the light show almost every night. Fireflies are everywhere from my lawn to the hill I have in my backyard. Because of dogs we also stay  away from chemicals therefore fireflies enjoy our lawn along with beetles and other bugs.

BTW Kouki, I heard there was an earthquake in Japan, I hope everything is alright with you and your family.

Learneng

[Cayte]

Learneng,

     Whoa! 60 miles, hah? I live very close to a border line of three counties, in the middle of corn and soybean country, 25 minutes away from everything. Sometimes I wonder if 911 will be able to locate us in case of emergency. Does your cellphone work well in your area? Mine doesn't. A friend of mine called one day; I had to climb up on my kitchen sink and had my face close to a window in order to hear her. It is the only one spot that the signal is just tiny bit Strong but it doesn't last very long.

     We have started to have a high-speed internet for one a half year now. Before that we had a dial-up followed by satellite dish services. Since Sprint phone company decided to jump into the cellphone business, they dropped the local phone service and sold it to a new company which offers DSL service. The closest city where the decent jobs are available is in Dublin, 38 miles or 45 minutes from my house. 

     It seems that you're in the remote area than I do. Even though my town has a post office and a private library, there is almost nothing else except one small pizza shop. To do our weekly grocery, we drive to either Marysville or Bellefontaine.

     If you have to travel by air, do you drive to Boston or there is another airport closeby? I have to drive to Columbus Airport around 1 1/2 hour from my house.

     Cayte

[Learneng]

Cayte,

My phone works fine. The only problem I face is that I have to pile up all the groceries. I can't afford to forget a single thing when I go shopping. I don't think we have any signal lights in our town...but now it is developing and builder are making many new houses. Locals aren't happy with all these progress, according to them, we are making everything expensive and now they can't afford it. We do have a library,  post office, pizza shop, dunkin donuts, and a small grocery shop (very expensive with limited supply). The neighboring town is slightly bigger and has quite a few restaurants.

I work in a Biotech industry and most of them are near Boston. When we bought this house, I was working at a nearby company. It was only 16 miles from my home although it used to take me 40-45 minutes to cover the distance but at least it was close by. And same was with my husband but later on both the companies undergone some changes and we had to change the jobs. So now we both travel more than an hour to our new jobs. I might sell this house in a year or two but now I'm worried with the current market condition whether I will be able to sell it or not.

Yes, I go to Boston airport, which is almost 1 1/2 hours from my home. There are some small airports nearby but I don't think any major airline comes there. Anyhow, the closest one is 40 minutes from my home so it doesn't make any sense for me to go there.