A Pip!

I thought I would be writing this morning about how none of our little eggs were hatching. We began with nearly 30 eggs and each week have candled and eliminated some. We lost two to an accident when removing the egg turner on Monday and finally, there are 11 eggs left in the incubator. It has officially been 21 days and 12 hours. I woke this morning to a little "Peep, Pip pip". It could have been the early morning robins or not, I don't know. What I do know is that I rushed into the bathroom and found one little egg with one little hole with one little beak sticking out. It's one of our Mille Fleur d'Uccles. I quietly went downstairs for breakfast. Mmmm, strawberries, I love this time of year.

About 30 minutes later. I heard a scream upstairs followed by a desperate, "Mom, Pop, come quick!". I would have been worried if I didn't know what the boy had found. We rushed up and there her was, naked, in the bathroom, all teary eyed, showing us that one of his chicks was hatching. He was so excited he cried. He puffed with pride when I told him that he was about to be a Papa. Only one is trying to escape so far and she hasn't done much damage to her shell yet. I'll be checking all day and night. I'm so excited. We're a family full of instant gratification seekers so this waiting is a real challenge for every one of us.

Mr. Science is on it: Jonathan is checking the temp regularly and has figured out how to increase the humidity with a sponge.

I'm waiting and talking about it.

The boy is anxious and quiet about the whole thing.

Oh, and speaking of this time of year: The tomatoes have finally come in. It's tomato sandwiches for lunch and eggs with tomatoes for breakfast, tomatoes on the salad, tomatoes with mayo (Jonathan's fav white trash snack). We lost a lot of plants to the chickens so it's really nice to enjoy at least SOME of them.