The Farm, May 23, 6 p.m.

Some recent boy-related pastimes

Chickens: Full Speed Ahead

What with rising food prices and gardens in need of de-bugging and de-slugging, the time has come for us to find us some chickens! The beauties you see above are the breed I've been most impressed with in my research. They're called Barred Plymouth Rocks and they're an outstanding dual-purpose breed (egg and meat birds) with easygoing personalities (I admit I have no idea what this means when talking about a bird) and hearty constitutions. Though we do have the bones in place for a good permanent chicken coop, it's far from ready, so with the help of this website http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html we're going to build a chicken tractor! A chicken tractor is a mobile chicken coop of sorts that you can pick up and move all around your garden or farm. If anyone has any tips or ideas for us please don't be a stranger! We need all the help we can get.

We're goin' on a peeper hunt...

The peepers are out in full force and every evening the chorus of chirping is quite the concert. It's a beautiful spring ritual and something that Ellis was thrilled to learn about. Today, we went on a family walk out back where the creek turns to marsh to spy on the peepers with high hopes of getting close enough to have the pleasure of catching one. Unfortunately for us, those peepers are keen to the sounds of people approaching, so they went unseen. But it was an adventure nonetheless...

Dance Party!

I think you'll agree that these boyz have got some sweet moves: