Update

The van died before it had a chance to get stolen. :(
It won't change gears out of park. Unfortunately, we have no choice but to pay to get it fixed now, we need to get to work and school... and Calgary to leave for Kenya! $$$

May's little problem in the back end miraculously fixed itself. When we got back from Kenya, she was back to normal! What a relief! Must have been that honey! ;) She still has not laid an egg since, so we are hoping that the problem does not reappear when she does lay again.

And... we still have no referral. I must get asked 5 times a day about it.  I have nothing - no information. at. all. We were told 3 weeks ago that they were expecting it in 2 weeks. I emailed our agency last week and still have not heard back from her. Ugh.

Canadian adopting friends of ours in Kenya found secure, affordable housing in a new development. 2 bdrm apartment for 400,000 KSW. Fourways Junction Phase 1. Check it out! The grocery store is 2km away, so walking distance at least. ;) It's not furnished, but to completely furnish it will cost approximately $2K, which you can recoup when you leave by selling it. We like this area and many of our friends live around there - so I think this may be a good option for us.

I'm still waiting on the kids' updated passports, then I will be able to confirm flights and apply for visas.

NAC meeting has not been confirmed yet, but they are hoping it will be on the 11th - if not, the 19th. ;)

Honey up a Chicken's butt.

Aside from the odd stumbling onto a pile of fresh chicken poop in your bare feet... 

There is one thing I NEVER thought I would do. 

What is that?

Stick my finger up a chicken's butt. 

Yep. 

Let me put the cherry on that by telling you I also inserted honey up that chicken's butt.

Have I lost you? Perhaps you think I've lost it...

Let me back up and explain myself. 

This is May.

 Do you remember when we first got her?

She is an Ameraucana Bantie and lays small green eggs that we love!

She was born on Muffin's bday, and was her birthday gift. 

She is very much loved in this house. 

A few weeks ago, we noticed that she wasn't laying regularly. Shortly after, I noticed that her butt was covered in 'white'. I brought her inside to clean her up and investigate the situation.

Prolapsed vent. (I will spare you the photos of that.)

This can sometimes be remedied, but often times not. It can cause infection, egg binding and will eventually lead to death.

I know... she is just a chicken, and we eat chicken. I can't tell you the irony of treating a chicken by bathing it with tender love in a giant roaster while a chicken roasts over my BBQ. One gets a medicated finger up the butt, and the other a beer can. I get how silly that all is... and perhaps it sounds naive. However, she is our pet and we need to give her a good shot at overcoming this.

The remedy? (Honestly, this may not be of any interest to you at all - so please do not read any further, unless you are interested in the gruesome details. ;)

Well we first put her in quarantine. A large dog kennel with clean shavings and a blanket to cover her at night. This kennel restricts the amount of sunlight... keeping her in the dark so she doesn't get the urge to lay anymore eggs.

Then we give her a good long warm water soak (yes, a roasting pan works perfectly! lol). We follow that up giving her a bum a good scrubbing to get all that poop off. Then I spray her with an expensive vet spray antibiotic.

Here comes the good part... are you ready?

This is wear I put on my latex gloves and gently smear her prolapse with Preparation H... yes, hemorrhoid cream to encourage shrinking. Then even more gently... push her rectum back inside while Muffin keeps her in a trance by softly stroking her head. We then follow that up by applying Preparation H inside her vent.

Then, we get up in the morning and do it all over - because it's hanging out again.

One week, and we have not been able to fix her. I have now moved on to using honey instead of Preparation H. Don't ask... I don't know why honey - it is just what 'they' recommend.

I fear that this is not going to work. I believe what she really needs is a stitch. I think she may have torn her vent a little somewhere along the line and that is what is causing her butt to fall out. (Very technical terminology)

But what adopting parents can afford a couple hundred dollar vet bill? Ugh... Dan and I have seriously spoken about how or if we could do it ourselves... but I don't think there is a youtube tutorial for that one.

( One more week of treatment before we abandoned hope. Well wishes appreciated - as I have a little girl who has had two hamsters die of cancer, dog die of cancer... replaced with a bird for her (thinking  long life span, low chance of cancer), to have the bird bond with her brother only... she can't get near him without him biting her. So she is very sad. Out of the 3 chickens we have... hers was the one who gets ill. )

My Boy...

Who says gender roles/identity isn't something that is biologically determined at birth? This boy grew up with his sister's dolls and 'girl' toys... and look at him now.

Leaf blower extraordinaire! 

Cutting down all the dead fall.

While this looks very dangerous due to all the dead foliage, I assure you that it was safe, as the ground and debris was soaking wet. (Even approved by the Fire Dept who showed up at our house! lol) We literally have a creek running through our backyard right now due to run off! 

Limb Walker?

Yep, as you can see, this weekend was all about yard clean-up!! Felt good to finally get working in the gardens etc, now that the snow (most) is gone!

Koda... seriously... he's so cute. 

I don't think I ever posted photos of our finished backyard Coop. Just needs a little more paint inside!

The chickens also enjoyed the weekend... lots of free ranging to hunt for bugs and worms. 

Where was my 'girl' you ask? She was at the neighbors, playing house. ;)

The stink has left the building!!

Dan's arm is still not 100% - in fact, he can only lift 5 lbs with it... so tackling a chicken coop on his own was just not going to happen. However the damn chickens were not only stinking up my house, but they were getting way too big for their small cage. I begged my Dad to come and help Sat. am. He came over early and they managed to tackle one side of it before we had to leave for a FD brunch with Dan's Dad. We had to build it in 2 pieces so it could be moved in the future.

The cage part done. You can see Dan favoring his right arm.

Day 2 - Father's day. Dan never asks anyone for help (but is always the first one to help others)... so most projects just do not get finished. You know the shoemakers kids have no shoes thing?... Luckily, a friend and employee of ours stopped up to drop his son off (whom we were hiring)... and saw that we were in over our heads with the task we needed to accomplish - and jumped right in to help. I am so grateful. Without him, this would never have happened.

Part 2 - the coop.

Leveling the ground was not an easy task either!

The kids were getting in on the action... building their own coop.

Muffin sporting great work clothes!

Mister drilled steady for 2 days! (One look at this pic, and I think about birthing that big 'ol head - and you guys wonder why I want to adopt the next one... pfft! ;)

At around 4:30 - we decided to push to just get it chicken worthy. It was framed to have a window, a laying nest, sliding door, and a big door with a window on the front... We just boarded it all up for now. It will do for a week or two, until we have time to finish and paint!

The inside... framed for a window, the laying nest and the outside sliding door - but just boarded up for now until we can  finish it.

The end project... not finished, but finished enough to house chickens. (That structure off to the Right is the treehouse that this blog was named after - it too is unfinished...don't even ask when it was started... lol)

Beer worthy!

Happy Chickens! (5 weeks old - look how big they are!!)

Thank you to all that helped - I am ecstatic to have the stink out of my house!!

**EDIT - It appears that I may have painted an impression of an indoor barn in my house! Ha. Perhaps some further explanation is required. Chicks need to be kept very warm and therefor are often kept in the house until they are old enough to withstand colder temps. These chicks were kept in a cage, in an unused room. No different than guinea pigs or parrots. Their shavings were changed daily and the room had ventilation via the window. They are not disease ridden fowl. They have all been vaccinated upon hatching... and have never been in a barn, outside, or with any other farm animals etc. They only remained inside for 4 weeks... and there was absolutely nothing unsanitary about it. It's not like we had them up on the dinner table, with our cats, dogs, turtles and parrot! Come on now! HA!

Spring Backyard City Chicks...

We have 4 new additions to our menagerie! I know... our household just keeps getting crazier and crazier by the minute!!

Yes, we do live in town. But... we have a secret. A quarter of our back yard is CPR property. There used to be railway tracks right behind our house. Can you imagine? They have since turned this track into a walking/biking/skiing trail. However, this means that beyond our lot line... we don't have to follow town rules. So we can have an open fire pit... and chickens! We won't be keeping our neighbours awake with any roosters mind you! Hens only. We aren't the first to do this - many of the properties that border the town have chickens. In fact, I'm almost shocked that we aren't allowed to have a few backyard chickens in town here! This city is very crunchy and green.

So without further ado... I would like to introduce you to my personal favorite: Cotton.
Cotton is a pure bred Ameraucana chicken. She will lay green eggs! Cotton is very curious and adventurous. She is the least afraid of all the chicks. I love her for her fuzzy, fuzzy cheeks!

Next up is Missy. Missy is an Ameraucana mix. She has a gentle go with the flow personality and gets the pretty award. She always looks nicely groomed.

Then we have the funniest of the bunch. Ossy... which is short for Ostrich. This bird does not look like a chicken! It has a small head and a long neck. It's a noisy little thing too - I suspect it may be a rooster. Ossy is a Cuckoo Maran (we think) and should lay dark chocolate brown eggs if she is a she.
 

Last but not least, is the youngest of the bunch. May. May was born on Muffin's bday. She is a pure bred Ameraucana Bantie. She will be half the size of a standard chicken and should lay blue eggs. She is small and sweet.

May not only pooped during her photo shoot - but she got very vocal. Because she is the youngest and the smallest, she gets cold very easily. She was not happy, so we quickly had to put her back into the sauna cage.

They grow so fast... so we are enjoying the fuzzballs as much as possible. As you can imagine, the kids absolutely adore them!! I will post update photos as they grow... ;)