Baby Chick!

I know I have been a little bit absent for a few weeks. Some big changes in the Chaos house! I started working a new job, in addition to going to school. Grandparents moved in with us. And our computer crashed and burned hard. Also, we went on a vacation and I misplaced my camera. No comp = no blog posts (boo). But now we're settling in to a routine and the computer is back from being repaired (yay)! I have still been packing lunches though, so I'll be playing blog catch up again for a few weeks.

I have mentioned before that we raise chickens and ducks. We also had a rooster, until a few weeks ago (no worries, we didn't eat him. He was getting too loud and obnoxious for our suburban neighborhood so we found someone to take him). So when one of our hens went broody at the end of the summer, it was not a surprise. We didn't really think much would come of it, since it was our first broody hen and it seemed like she sat there for a long time. But just when we were starting to think that it was time to pull the eggs and throw them out before they began to stink...Lulu and Bean went out to feed the chickens one day and heard tiny peeping!

Out of the whole clutch only one egg hatched, but OH! What a CUTE egg it turned out to be! It was Lulu's turn for naming, and she wanted to name the chick after herself. After a few days of confusion, we settled on giving the chick her nickname instead. If I can find my camera, I will add pictures of little Lou!

To celebrate, I packed this sweet little chick lunch for Lulu to take to school:

She has a "CHICK" half sandwich snuggled into a nest of lettuce leaves, with the letters spelled out in colby-jack cheese. She also has a hard boiled egg, baby corn, and a little chick stuffed with gummies for a treat. In the top section she has cheese crackers, baby carrots, cucumber slices, and a peeled clementine.

Lulu loved showing off her little chick lunch and telling her second grade class all about little Lou. She said it was her best show-and-tell day ever!

Now a few weeks have passed and little Lou is getting a lot bigger. Free range chicks are much hardier than human-hatched chicks. She lives out in the yard with her mama, Princess the hen. They spend their days scratching for treats, snacking on bugs, and running around through the garden. During the high garden months I keep the chickens and ducks in their large pen, but during the autumn and winter and early spring they free range, turning the garden soil and keeping it fertile and soft for planting. One of the many benefits of keeping backyard chickens!

Affiliate links to products used: