Fifteen More Photos of Fifteen Chickens

If you managed to bravely slog your way through the first fifteen photos of our new chicks, then here, for your viewing pleasure (or, more likely, as another challenge for you to overcome), are the last--for now--fifteen photos.

I'm a little more dicey on the names of some of these chicks, as some of the breeds and the chicks within each breed look identical to me, and the kids are at sleepaway camp and so can't look at me like I'm a fool while they remind me, once again, of each individual chick's name. Anyway, I'll do my best!

We've got three of these. Syd named them Toast, Crisp, and Crunch, because they remind her of buttered toast.

This is Speckle. My aunt got to name her from afar, because she loves the Barred Plymouth Rock, which I *think* this one is.

We've got three of these mostly black ones with white accents. I can identify Spot, who I showed you yesterday, but we also have White Wing and Warrior, who I can't tell apart.

We've got three of these, which we call our "quail chicks," because their facial markings remind us of quail. One is Dan Quayle (you saw her yesterday), one of these is Featherbutt, and I don't remember the name of the third. Or maybe Featherbutt is one of the black chicks and Warrior is one of these?

Although the hatchery was great about refunding the chick that they shorted us (especially because when Matt called to inform them, the person to whom he was speaking said that she thought they'd actually put in an EXTRA chick for us!), they, of course, didn't send them labeled for our convenience, and so identifying which chick is which breed has proven very challenging, especially because we can't rely on how many of each breed Will ordered, since we don't know what breed the missing chick was!

If you'd like to play the home game of chick identification, here is Will's original order:

• 3 unsexed red sex-link (especially challenging, because I'm told by Will that males and females of this breed are different colors)
• 1 black australorp female
• 3 unsexed Easter eggers
• 1 barred Plymouth rock (I feel like I've successfully identified this as Speckle, above)
• 1 single-comb Rhode Island red
• 1 welsummer (Dang! I'd thought that Marshmallow and Hermione were welsummers, but Will only ordered one of these!)
• 3 black Jersey giants
• 2 speckled Sussex

Complications are as follows:

1. We don't know which chick is the missing one, so we can't go by numbers. Although Hermione and Marshmallow seem to be the same breed, for instance, we can't automatically identify them as our two speckled Sussex, because what if the missing chick was also of their breed, and they're actually Easter eggers, or Jersey giants?
2. Red sex-links apparently look different based on sex, so the one yellow chick that we have could be a red sex-link, or one of the breeds that Will only ordered a single chick from, OR the breed that Will ordered two of, along with the missing chick.
3. If the hatchery thinks that they added an extra chick to our order, it's also possible that they indeed threw in an extra of something, and in fact we're short by TWO of what we ordered. So we could potentially have an extra chick in any breed, and be missing two chicks from among any of the breeds that we ordered. 

So... yeah. This is apparently how we're all practicing our logical reasoning this summer.

Fifteen Photos of Fifteen Chickens

The human population of our home is now so well outnumbered as to leave no doubt about who/what is in charge, with the long-anticipated arrival of Will's chicks. You might recall that this is Will's own project--she proposed the idea and received permission, picked out exactly which breeds of which sexes from which hatchery she wanted to order (I am not personally comfortable with ordering chicks by mail, but I am not my child, alas), and is the final authority on their care (I wanted to start letting the chicks outside in our small coop, for instance, but was overruled--"The care sheet says four weeks," she decided). She has a lot of help, of course, especially in these early days, but there's plenty of time later to negotiate our roles and benefits as primary investors when her egg business gets going.

For now, however, we have thirteen (you may remember that we ordered fifteen chicks--our order was shorted by one, and one died the day after they arrived. This was super sad, but also a relief to the adult human population, as we needed seventeen chickens even less than we need fifteen chickens) beautiful, sweet, funny babies to adore.

Knowing us as you do, you will not be surprised to learn that we have spent the past week doing "chick portraits" every day. I have a truly shocking number of photographs of our chicks, and I am going to insist on showing you every single photo, on account of I am besotted by these babies, but in order to not stretch your patience too far, I'll confine myself to fifteen photos per post, in honor of our total flock number (can't forget our Fluffball and Arrow, now can we?). I'll also try to give you their names, although to be honest, only the kids can really tell them all apart, and I'm pretty sure that sometimes they're just making that up:

I'd like you to meet Featherbutt. 

This is Hermione. 

Here is Dan Quayle.

And this is Marshmallow.

I believe that this is Spot.

And here is Sun.

That's a few of our chicks. There are many more to come.

Why, you might ask, did I permit my child to buy thirteen more chickens, when there are only four people in our family? That is a fair question, Friends. Matt and I don't want fifteen chickens. Frankly, if these thirteen are as friendly and tame as the first two, I don't know how we're going to manage so much as walking unmolested in our yard, much less backing out of the driveway (I already have to station a kid outside the garage when I back out, to keep clueless chickens and carefree cats from wandering behind my wheels).

Seriously, fair questions all. And yet, the answer is also an easy one.

Why, you might ask? This is why:


The look on that kid's face? That kid who usually finds it such a struggle to get outside her own head, to let her tender heart show? That look is worth a lot more than just fifteen chickens.

Barbie Fashion Photography

One of Syd's grandmas gave her new Barbie dolls and clothes for her birthday--just take a moment and visualize my child's glee at that gift. Now multiply it by a power of ten, and you've got it about right.

Syd loves dressing up her Barbies, loves making clothes for them, loves having fashion shows for them in all their outfits, so I suggested fashion photography as something else that she might like. Would she like to try it?

She would.

We only did a couple of photos, because I wanted to look at them on the computer and see what I needed to change about the set-up before I let her loose to do all that she wanted, but here's what she shot:

Yeah, I think this activity is a winner.

I'll share a tute another time, when I set it up again for Syd to use, but the basic set-up is a big sheet of paper for the backdrop, something unobtrusive for the Barbie to lean against, and a REALLY low tripod already set up so that the kid doesn't have to do a lot of camera fiddling to get her perfect shot. I actually don't have a tripod that goes so low, so I used a couple of cinder blocks, which wasn't totally ideal since it wouldn't hold the camera at an angle, but it clearly worked. 

Next time, I can also guide Syd into thinking about poses, and the difference that it makes when your subject is looking at you vs. looking away. It'll be a nice little hands-on photography unit, don't you think?

And maybe I'll do this one, myself!

Secret Bookmarks: A World of Girls Take Action Project

One of my favorite things about Girl Scout badges is that the badge books always encourage the girls to use what they've learned to perform service. They're asked to think about how they can use their new skills and knowledge to do something for younger scouts, their schools, their communities, or the larger world. I love that emphasis on helping others with your own unique talents and skill set, love how it's integrated into everything that the children achieve.

It's an elegant and effective way to raise good, strong women.

Some of these service projects can be quite large--my two built a bookshelf and held a book drive for a local food pantry last year, and my troop has some big plans for a big moviemaking project with our local animal shelter later this year--but not all of them have to be epic. The badge books emphasize that even small acts of service count.

Syd's small act of service for her recently-completed World of Girls Journey was the creation of "secret bookmarks;" she handmade several bookmarks and sneaked them into library books. Here they are:

Syd's reasoning for this Take Action Project was that 1) children would really like to discover special, homemade bookmarks in books that they were reading; 2) having bookmarks of their own would encourage children to read more; and 3) having bookmarks of their own would encourage children to use them, thus keeping the library books in better repair.

For what it's worth, I think she's right on the money on all counts.

This project was also a great opportunity to have a brief discussion about archivally-safe materials and techniques--I'm finally getting some use out of my Master's of Library Science degree! When you're shopping for your own archivally-safe materials, look for the terms "acid-free" or "archival quality;" that will ensure that if a bookmark does happen to stay in the same spot in a book for, say, twenty years, it won't stain or pit the pages that it touches.

Syd didn't create many bookmarks, but the ones that she did create were thoughtfully designed and painstakingly drawn:

That one on the middle right is a zombie. To my knowledge, my child has never been exposed to any media containing a zombie. I *may* often speak about zombies, however...

I love the positive messages that she put in some of her bookmarks! I also need to reinforce "you're" vs. "your," clearly. 

... and capitalization at the beginning of a sentence. I'm impressed that she spelled "piece" correctly, however!

The book reads, "Once upon a time ther was a child who read a book whith these words "Once upon a time ther was a child."

After the kids get back from camp, we'll be having a bit of a "badge boot camp" instead of school for a few days, as at the beginning of the year they had picked out some specific badges that they had the goal of earning before they both Bridge to the next level, AND I bought those badges for them. Our Bridging Ceremony is early next month, but when your mother spends money on you as part of your goal, then you WILL reach that goal!

My Latest: Rain, Bones, Feathers, Candy, the Ocean, Density, and Aluminum

June has been bustling--as usual! I've been creating lots of etsy orders, as well as working on house and garden (poison ivy is EVERYWHERE, and I've discovered that we have tons of black raspberries hidden behind tons of multiflora rose and honeysuckle!). Homeschool continues throughout the summer, as does Girl Scouts, and therefore so do lesson plans. We snuck away on a short weekend trip to Arkansas, and also, we have chickens!!!

In the midst of all that typical chaos, here's what I've been working on for Crafting a Green World:

a tutorial for making upcycled aluminum and washi tape pendants

a tutorial to make my 55-gallon plastic drum rain barrel

a tutorial for whitening bones

an essay about the illegality of collecting/crafting with many found feathers

a tutorial for making a candy wrapper-embellished picture frame

a definite Pinterest fail

a tutorial for having kids explore density by making their own discovery bottles

and a round-up of other discovery bottles to make for kids

a tutorial to make a plastic jug watering can

and a tutorial for making mixed-media beeswax collages

Coming up, I've got some books to review, a chalkboard project to tell you about, some nature crafts to try as soon as I stock up on colorful yarn, and I'm thinking of learning how to make video tutorials. The kids and I are exploring earthquakes, so I'm planning the construction of a shake table, and we're finishing up our study of Georgia O'Keeffe, so I'm setting up a still life for us to paint today, and I desperately need to label and pack all the things for the kids' next week at sleepaway camp!

But right now it's raining, so I'm going to go make myself a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich instead of weeding the strawberries. Yay!