Party Time & Preparations

Kohen and Brennan check out the cakes.

PARTY TIME: So we celebrated Kohen's 4th birthday today. It was a great party with family and friends. Kohen's best friend, Brennan, from daycare, came which made the day for him. The theme was fighter jets. Captain Kohen even wore a flight suit! The cake was a runway shaped like a 4, with Blue Angel jets taking off. I also used the scraps to create a fighter jet cake for Kohen. He liked it. The kids also got to frost some plane cookies, and play a lot. He received some great gifts, and has been playing all afternoon. Gramma Jan had arrived from Rochester last night and was a great help in getting everything ready for the party. She always gets stuck on KP duty.

PREPARATIONS: They are predicting a big storm to hit us tonight. Nate made sure that the donkeys, sheep and ducks all had plenty of food and water. After the party I headed out to the coop and spread a new layer of straw on the floor and in the nesting boxes, and cleaned the waterer. We have been losing a lot of eggs to freezing. Yesterday morning it was -31 when I left the house at 7 am! Of the eight eggs in the boxes today (2 days worth) 5 were frozen. My chickens have never been ones to lay at a consistent time, and with being gone from 7 am till 5 pm the eggs don't always get collected in a timely fashion. We do have a red heat lamp on all the time in the coop, along with a white heat lamp on for 6 hours in the evening. The waterer is also heated. Unfortunately, some of my hens like to lay in the nesting boxes furthest from the heat, and on the outside wall of the boxes. It isn't too bad, I'm just happy they are laying again!

So we are ready to hunker down and watch the snow. Nate and Jason spent some time cutting wood so that the woodshed is ready too. Hopefully I'll have some good northern Minnesota snow pictures for tomorrow!