Simply Living Is not Always So Simple...

So this week has been off to a wonderful start! I am serious too. My Dad has been over at my house working all last week on building a goat and chicken pen for my mom and I. Monday was the day we were to have it all done and ready to go with the rest of my siblings and their spouses coming over for an old fashioned "barn raising" only we called it a Pen raising.

The kids and I were up early trying to get their chores and schooling done so we could go meet up with Grand-ma to pick up some chickens. I called my friend Brooke who is the person we bought our goats from and let her know that we would be picking them up later that evening. She told me that one of her Nigerian goats had babies on Saturday and that we should come see them. So... chores were dropped, school was being substituted for a field trip to see the babies. They were so cute. It makes me so excited to have our own in the next several months!

From there we went to meet up with Grandma and Aunt Louisa to go chicken hunting! Of course I had been up late the night before searching out the best chickens to get, the most heat tolerant, best layers, and most friendly, so I felt I had my list narrowed down and was ready to have each child pick out one of their own. Well that did me a whole lot of good! When we got to the feed store they had so many to choose from and they were all so cute that we went from getting only 4 to getting 5, and Grandma bought 4 others for mother's day gifts to my sister and sister-in-laws, plus my younger brother and his wife were bringing my mom some already laying ones for her Mother's day gift. I don't know how many will be heat tolerant, I don't know if they will all be great layers, and I can only hope that they will all be friendly. The kids just picked which one they liked the best. hopefully that will suffice!

Well I could go into the rest of the crazy day, but I'm going to shorten it up... My mom and I spent the rest of the day shopping for all of our supplies while the menfolk were working on finishing up the majority of the pen for later that evening. We picked up our cute little goats- mine is a Nubian with the longest, cutest ears- we've named her Snickerdoodle, and Mom got a Nigerian and named her Willow.

The night got crazy, tempers and endurance's wore thin and finally all the guys came in to take a break and watch a specially prepared Mother's Day video my sister made my mom. The animals were all left outside. The movie was almost an hour and at the end I went into my kitchen and saw that our sprinklers in the backyard were on. I rushed out to get the little chickies and move them out of the water, but a few were already really wet, whether from the sprinklers or their water dish I don't know. I put them in a box and moved them to the garage where I found much to my dismay that 3 of the chicks (2 of my kids and one my sister's family) were looking really bad, hardly moving at all. The kids were all around me and I told them some of the chicks aren't looking like they are going to make it. It broke my heart to see those poor little faces, my 5 year old son went into his room and just cried over his poor Blackie, and my 8 year old son was crying too. How my heart wanted to break! I felt so horrible for this tragic accident. I was able to use it to one advantage. I showed my kids that even when things seem hopeless we can still turn to our Heavenly Father and plead with him to save our chicks and give us strength and comfort. My sweet 5 year old said the sweetest heartfelt prayer asking for our chicks to be saved as he cried to his Heavenly Father. When we finished I told them that even if our chicks don't live, I know He heard our prayer and I strongly felt that everything would be okay.

Well the family all went home on a sober note, and I was checking the chicks periodically through the night while my dad and husband put finishing touches on the pen. Soon, I noticed that my 8 yr. olds chick had changed positions, and that my nieces chick was trying to eat and get water. Poor Blackie still wasn't doing much and after about an hour he really was finally gone. My poor boy was broken hearted, but strong. We went to bed with hope for the other two.

This morning I woke up and checked on them, the other two had made a miraculous recovery and were up eating drinking and chirping away with the other 2 in the box! So while we may have lost one, we know that our prayer said with such simple faith saved our other two. My kids were overjoyed with the news and my sister's kids were too (because of course I texted her with the news and a picture at 6AM)!

                                         (Our miracle chicks, the 2  bunched together were our survivors, Rascal and Jimmer)

So I guess sometimes the simplest of life is not so simple and yet we can find strength through some very simple things.

I did take my little boy today to get a new chick which he named Star, and of course I couldn't buy just one (the other chick would be lonely on the drive!) so now Daddy has a White Silkie chick we named Wiffle!