The chicks arrived on Thursday, 51 of them, all lively and chirping away at the post office when I picked them up at 7:30 a.m. They are in the kennel building with a heat lamp, feeders and water and I honestly believe they have grown since then! I'll be surprised if they still fit in the little kiddie pool by this time next weekend.

Also on Thursday, I drove over to Phyllis' house to visit with Susan and Noche' and to let Trouble work sheep a little bit. One of the old ewes at Phyllis' house had milk fever and was doing poorly - I brought her two lambs home with me yesterday and they're on milk replacer and creep feed now. I rounded out the day by taking Solo to Warren's for training (french ringsport) - it was his first session since last December and he was hot to go! It was great! Then yesterday we went to Eau Claire where we trained obedience at a new site ~ we're entered in trials this month and he needs de-sensitizing to all the commotion that comes with indoor spaces and lots of dogs and kids.

Today we worked around the place, Jim hauled hay out to the pasture where there are some dry-er spots for the ewes and lambs. The barnyard is a mess of course between all the melt-off and rain and the less time they need to spend there, the better. We are up to 28 lambs now; it has been a relatively uneventful lambing season (thank goodness!)

We sat down with pad and paper this morning to figure out our costs for the chickens - it used to be that they were cheap, cheap, cheap...but last year between buying the chicks, buying feed and paying for processing they cost us about $12 each. That's expensive. On the flip side, a chicken will last the two of us almost a week since they tend to be BIG and, of course, tasty.