The difference of a week

Gone is the winter jacket, snowpants, boots, hat and WINTER gloves...

Replaced with spring hoodie, shorts, tennies and a SOFTBALL glove.

Recall the picture from last Saturday in almost the same location of the yard ;)

This morning's rain subsided and left us with a dreary Spring day, but we're not complaining too much. The snow is almost melted, and the ground is fairly dry, so the girls are outside enjoying some snow-free entertainment.

Caitlyn was asked to feed the goats with some bread scraps we had in the kitchen.  I think she heard "tease the goats" instead of 'feed the goats.'  

Goofball!  When they jumped up on her, she partly squealed and screamed, so Candace went a'runnin' to her rescue.

Eventually, Caitlyn stopped teasing them and they were each rewarded with a slice of bread.

The chickens are out-n-about somewhere in the tall weeds.  They have only been venturing out of the coop for a few recent days; otherwise, they stayed cooped up literally all winter long.
There are only 4 remaining hens after we lost some of the hens last Fall to predators... and then we lost our rooster last week.  :(  We never were able to determine how he died.
The hens we have are laying eggs again -- YAY!!! Farm fresh eggs can finally take over those bland store-purchased ones!

Wait----scratch that!  We have FIVE hens!  In the fall, when White Mama hatched out 4 babies, ONE of them ended up surviving; only after we put it in safe-keeping with the ducks.  Three of the other babies all died, and we never were able to determine why/how they died either, although my hunch was that either the rooster or the other hens were SOMEHOW involved >:{

Today, the duck-raised-hen was introduced with the other hens;  I hope those girls treat her nicely and allow her to work her way into the clutch.  She's been laying eggs this past week too!  So, all five of our girls are doing their job.  BUT, without a 'man' in the group, we know there will be no more babies being hatched despite having two known brooders.  Therefore, Paul went out and brought home 10 baby chicks yesterday (5 Rhode Island Reds and 5 Barrocks).  We actually are hoping at least one is a rooster!