Happy/Sad day

I am fearing that Sicky Chick will pass tonight. It's been pouring

down rain and he got wet, DS found the 4 chickens standing on top of him. He said it looked as though he was having trouble breathing. I told him to go back out in the pouring rain with a towel and wrap her up in it and put her in the coop. We prayed about it and ask the Lord to go ahead and take her, since we wanted her here for selfish reasons (we fell in love with that chicken) and if she passes she won't be suffering any longer. The Bible does not say if animals have a soul or not, but I don't believe that they are capable of understanding the need for our sins to be paid by the death of Jesus or our need for a Savior, though I do believe that they know that God is their Creator.

This is our dear little Sicky Chick with her slippers on. We think she may have had Bumblefoot.

Isaiah 41:10 "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

 So we know that our Sicky Chick is in the perfect hands. We are also rejoicing in the first egg from Xtra Crispy!!!

Our first EGG!

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" Luke 13:34

I like what Barnes' Notes on the Bible has to say about this verse. I think we need to heed this in our every day life. "We should be on our guard against crafty and unprincipled people. They often "profess" to seek our good when they are only plotting our ruin. Even those professedly coming from our enemies to caution us are often also our enemies, and are secretly plotting our ruin or endeavoring to prevent our doing good."

Yet, in the end we must remember that "The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down." Ps 146:9 AMEN to that!

This is our girl Xtra Crispy, we are pretty sure she was the egg layer, she was very worried when we took the egg away. She was searching all the nesting boxes and pacing back and forth.

Life on a chicken ranch

Well my husband finally had time and patience to separate the chickens. So we now have roosters in one area and hens in another. Along with a few that we don't know if they are boys or girls yet. There was lots of commotion, but things have settled down today. And everyone seems happy now. We are hoping for eggs to come in the end of this month or early August.

The above picture is of one of our Wyandotte chickens.
In the coming month we have 4-H, this will be the first year of showing chickens, now we just have to figure out who to show. We had a few in mind but upon closer examination we have some odd balls, one adorable rooster with 5 toes on 1 foot.....lol. Another striking Rooster (Rhode Island Red, he is gorgeous!) but his tail is not show quality. And a bunch of Wyandotte, we don't like them because they escape and you cannot catch them! lol. The kids call them "Jail Birds" because they are black & white stripped like the cartoon characters in jail. They are as sweet as can be, but are so sneaky and have huge legs that don't tire easily.

My first gluten-free & dairy-free grilled cheese

I got my bread machine from Amazon.com the other day and thought I should try it out. I made a loaf of white sandwich bread that was gluten-free, wheat-free and casein-free. My guys gobbled it up! It tasted just like bakery fresh Italian bread, crusty outside and soft chewy inside. My son told me "Mom you out did yourself."
This morning I thought I would try to make a grilled cheese and it was good. Everyone was eyeing it.