We're so excited ... we have baby chicks.  They started hatching yesterday.  First one died, not even dried off.  It was fairly large but not sure what happened to it.  Just cold laying near the hen.  It probably crawled out from under her too far or she decided to get up for whatever reason and it got hypothermia.  We disposed of its little body, then started checking for more every few hours.  By last evening we had four in the house getting warm with food and water we'd added electrolites to.  When we returned them to the nest before dark, there were several more.

We decided to leave them all there and let momma chicken tend to them.  She's very sweet, a good mom and was getting a little testy with us lifting her up so often.  There is another clutch going on in the little chicken coop we bought last summer.  My daughter actually lifted the flap covering it a couple days ago and a hen was sitting there ... they scared each other pretty good!  We have 10 eggs in there now, but this hen doesn't seem to take her job as seriously as our first hen.  We'll see.  Most eggs are fairly large but there's one that's about a big as a green olive.  So funny.  I'm sure there's nothing in there.  We've had those before.

Our border collie mix Dexter still continues to worry our rooster.  He's herding him, but only the rooster and not the hens.  I think Dex thinks he is in need of some help.  Rooster Cogburn (I'm thinking of changing his name, he's so ornery) never attacks Dex but saves up all his anger and anxiety for one of us when we walk out to the pens.  His favorite trick is to attack from behind.  And it Hurts!  I've been told to spray him with vinegar in a spray bottle.  Maybe that will work.

The goats are nearly all combed now.  Egypt and Smokey feel better, only GE is left.  I saved him for last because he doesn't have a collar to hold on to and his fiber is very thick with very long guard hair.  Its going to take some doing to get him done in a couple days.

Our weather is still cold, in the 30's at night.  We had snow yesterday along with a lot of rain and hail.  Typical spring weather for us.  Our weather person on TV did say it should be 75 by Thursday this week, but then back in the 50's a couple days later.  As I've said before, our summer really doesn't get started until after July 4.  Its not very long, but is spectacularly beautiful.

I promised to post some pictures today when I headed out to the pens.  We wondered how many chicks made it through the night, and how many more there are.  My daughter checked this morning and she saw two under momma but heard a lot of chirping.  At last count this evening we had eight little chicks and still have four eggs in that nest.  The second nest in the little coop looks the same except there's one more in there now bringing the count to 11.  Hope these hatch too but they've been cold a lot for long periods of time.  I would put them under the first hen but she's getting so thin from not eating much and sitting on her little clutch of eggs day and night.