:: Friday Night Fun : 3D Target Shooting ::

It was a super windy day out today so we tucked down into the timber while the boys were at school and created a little 3D Archery course. We've been talking about doing it for awhile. It's something we can do together as a family & anytime we want! The boys were SO excited when they got off the bus!

We had 12 targets to shoot at including a Rinehart Apple target I got Aaron for Christmas last year. I thought it was just too funny & would be a good challenge. 

Obviously, he was the only one who could hit it! 

We had a couple of hanging from the trees too!

We laughed at how silly we look using our kisser buttons. LOL!

Little Miss Sass does pretty darn good for only being 5! Of course she's shooting a Ted Nugent flew flew arrow so that ups the cool factor! 

It was a fun simple evening together & something I foresee us doing a lot more of this Summer.

:: Coop Poop | Cleaning out the Chicken Coop & adding to our compost pile ::

Our chickens are free range which means they mostly distribute that precious fertilizer around the farm on their own. Of course their coop still takes the brunt of it during the winter months and in the evenings when they go up to roost. We do what is called "deep bed" over winter. It basically means be just keep adding more straw/bedding on top until Spring comes and then do a major clean out. This helps keep it nice and warm in their as well! However, their laying boxes get cleaned out & fresh wood shavings constantly.
Our boys are hard little workers and definatly earn their weekly allowances.

Tractor bucket load by tractor bucket load it's all hauled to our compost pile.

That too is nothing fancy, just a corner between the fences where we can pile it up until it decomposes enough to spread on the garden.

Once all of the "Coop Poop" is piled up we add a few bucket loads of water to get the process going. It's then covered with a tarp and all set to "stew".

Do any of you have a compost pile? If so, do you have any types or ideas you'd like to share?

:: Chicken Lady? Well Maybe ::

I often get teased that I'm going to be dubbed a "crazy chicken lady" because well, if you follow my photos you know we have a "few" running around your yard. Hence the name "Growin & Crowin".

(Illustration found HERE)
But I'm here to say, I come by it honest & here's proof. Hee!
This is once again a peek into my grandparents farm & look at how many chickens my grandma had! My grandma's chickens were all gone by the time I was born, but man am I thankful for the photos she took of them!

A little update on the baby chicks we've been hatching in our incubators : the 2nd batch starting hatching yesterday and we are up to 16 so far today! Our first hatchings went to a friends farm & we picked up our McMurray meat chickens from the post office on Saturday. So as of today, our total baby chicks under heat lamps right now comes to 53! Needless to say, there's a lot of peeping going on around here!

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

:: It's after Good Friday | Are your potatoes planted? ::

We don't always go by the "plant your potatoes on Good Friday" rule. But it's typically around Easter when we are first able to dig into the dirt and get the garden started for the year.
 Around here, there are no cute Easter dresses or hats, just boots, dirt, and a lot of family time. It's where we think about how grateful we are for what He has given us.

 We are planting Yukon Gold potatoes again this year. We will have 3 rows of them which will hopefully provide us with plenty for the entire next winter and then some.

 A little side note : I've been going through some of my grandparents' old photos with my mom and can't wait to share them with you. This one is a photo of my grandpa and uncle working on tiling up the garden. It was taken in 1952. Family history makes me happy!

The view of the pasture just North of the farm house in 1963. This pasture would later be where the house I grew up in was built.

Something I also loved about going through the old photos was how many of them my Grandma was IN! I'm the first one to say, nah I'll just take the pics. I'd rather not be in them. So, today I handed my camera over to our youngest son Chase and he had a little fun behind the view finder.

 We also put in two rows of onions. A third one will be put in as soon as I can find some red onion bulbs.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and got to dig in the dirt a little!

:: The birth of Cindy : A Baby Chick ::

For 21 days now we've kept watched over our incubator full of the eggs we collected from our coop & it's been exciting to do some research on their development. Our boys were lucky enough to hatch eggs when they were in 3rd grade so they were able to answer a few of our questions. I'm so thankful for their teachers taking the time to do this for the kids!

Yesterday morning we woke up to an egg with the littlest peck hole. The boys begged to stay home to see it hatch (um, no). LOL! Finally, around 2:30 in the afternoon, the first chick arrived. Ella & I watched with amazement.

Lucky enough for all of us, the 2nd chick didn't arrive until around 7pm and we were all able to see!

The 1st chick (which Ella named, Tippy Toes, giving it a little encouragement.

Finally, progress!

And here we go!

The boys and I ran out the door to their 4H meeting and when we came home it was up and walking around with "Tippy Toes".

Since then, seven more have hatched with hopefully more to go!
And although we don't know if she is a "she" just yet; we welcome Cindy to the farm...