My friends and family are all worried about our chickens being outside during the winter. It's gotten pretty cold here, so it's understandable, but I'd like to put everyone's minds at ease. The chickens are doing great! Our outdoor thermometer got down to almost 0 degrees Fahrenheit a few times last week, but the birdies don't really seem to mind. When the temperature is over 20 and/or it's sunny, they wander around the yard like usual spending time in any sunny spot they find. They are even still dust bathing. When it's colder than 20 and/or it's cloudy, they tend to huddle together near the house on our porch. We keep a close eye on them to make sure they aren't acting weird or getting frostbite and so far so good! We did read online that if you let your birds acclimate to the weather as it gets colder, they will be prepared for it, so unless one of them seems sick or frostbitten, they won't get a heat lamp. Not to repeat myself, but so far so good.

On a different note, our Leghorn has taken to jumping higher and higher though. We have to clip her wing this weekend. I found her on the fence looking into my neighbor's yard this morning. I don't want her to get any ideas. The other three pretty much stick to the ground and don't go up until they go into their hen house at night.

Smile often, keep a song in your heart, and be happy with who you are.

I just wanted to say "hello" to all my loyal readers (of whom I know of 1) who have been patiently waiting my next entry. It's been over a month and I've been busy, morning sick, and just plain lazy. The morning sickness has just about gone away. I still feel queezy if I don't eat for a long period of time (over 2 hours) or if I eat certain foods. I'm starting a list to keep track of which foods make me feel yucky, so I can avoid them better. So far the list is Ravioli and Orange Juice. I am almost 14 weeks which marks the end of the first trimester (yay!). We spent the week before Thanksgiving in Las Vegas and Los Angeles visiting friends and family. Had a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home and are gearing up for Christmas. We put up our Christmas lights and got our Christmas tree cutting permit and have started baking cookies. I am going to get back into the habit of writing at least once a week, but I've got to get busy now.

Smile often, keep a song in your heart, and be happy with who you are.

I know it's been awhile since I've written, but I haven't been feeling well. I've had morning sickness, except it lasts all day and is awful. We found out I was pregnant about 3 weeks ago, and I started feeling ill about 2 weeks ago. It feels longer than that. I have found a few things that work for me though and I will share them in case anyone else is in dire straits.

1) baking soda water
2) lemon water
3) food


Continue reading "Morning Sickness"

Lets see...what to write about today...I guess I will write about a website I like. www.naturalchild.org It has all sorts of articles about raising children "treated with dignity, respect, understanding, and compassion." I truly believe most of what is written there. This website introduced me to Attachment Parenting, Co-Sleeping, breastfeeding babies for more than 1 year, diaper-free babies, and Unschooling. Unfortunately I don't have a baby yet to try it all on, but hopefully soon. One article that has really stuck with me was about diffusing the power struggle between parents and children. If you take the time to find out what you child really needs, why they are arguing with you, you can solve the problem fairly between the two of you with neither one feeling like they lost. There was an example of a child who was on the top of a slide at a park and wouldn't come down, she was blocking other children from sliding down also. In the article, the father tries several tactics to get the child down, after figuring out why she wouldn't come down, and is eventually able to work through the problem without either him or his daughter getting angry. The article is called "Down the Slide, or Up the Anger Escalator?" by Inbal Kashtan.

Smile often, keep a song in your heart, and be happy with who you are.

Last week when started thinking about writing a blog, I had many ideas flowing through my brain. Now, I can't think of anything to write! Lol, not quite true, but I don't know how interesting it is. This week has been a typical week for me. Doing laundry, caring for my chickens, cleaning the bathrooms, changing the sheets, baking casseroles, and of course watching all the TV shows that have returned to TV this week. Before I get into TV shows, I want to share an anecdote about my chickens (I moved this story to the post called "Chicken Story" for ease of categorization)... Back to the TV shows I watch. We don't have cable, but watch TV shows online (cable is not worth paying for). My favorites are Castle, Psych, Warehouse 13, and Eureka. I also enjoy Bones, NCIS, NCIS: LA, and sometimes Glee.


Continue reading "TV Shows"

I was going to combine the two posts today, but thought for categorization purposes, I should separate them, so here's my Chicken anecdote:


Continue reading "Chicken Story"

We started raising chickens in our backyard earlier this year. We built a hen house for them out of scrap wood we got for free on Craigslist and Freecycle. It took a long time to build. We started the hen house last summer, worked on it through the winter and finally finished it and got it into our backyard in May or June of this year. Last June, we attended a class to learn a little bit about keeping chickens and decided it would be fun and nice to get fresh eggs! We don't have eggs yet, but the hens are fun. We read online that we'd get eggs as early as when the hens were 5 months old, but then a friend told us her hens didn't start laying until they were a year old, so we're waiting to see when we get eggs. Our oldest hen is 24 weeks old.


Continue reading "Chickens"

Today I'm going to expound on my website's name.

Several years ago, I started Dontbflat.com as a music website. It had music history info such as a time line and information about composers and music eras. It also had a teacher/student section with quizzes on composers and music eras. I had a friend who taught music try it out, but no one else has used it. Anyway, it's been a few years and I couldn't bring myself to close down the website (I love the name: dontbflat), but I didn't want to keep paying for it if I wasn't going to be updating my website, so I decided to completely change it and now it's my blog. I'm sorry to anyone who did a Google search and linked to my website looking for music info, but if you write a comment, I may be able to help you find what you need.

Smile often, keep a song in your heart, and be happy with who you are.

I just couldn’t wait to get my next entry in, so here goes. I’m not planning on giving you a list of my favorite and least favorite things. I figure if you are interested in me you will read the blog and anyone who wants a quick summary about me is out of luck. It doesn’t work that way in real life (at least it didn’t use to work that way) and it won’t work that way here. If you want to get to know someone, it takes time and effort--a commitment of time and energy. If you are willing to commit the time and energy to read my blog then you will get to know me eventually.


Continue reading "Second Entry"

    Hi! My name is Willa Leigh. (I know it’s a bit cliché to start my blog that way, but who cares?) I don’t know if anyone will even read this, but since it’s the age of technology and everyone and their brother has their opinion out there, I’m joining the cacophony. If you don’t like what you read, feel free to go find someone else’s blog to read, I won’t be offended. I’m going to try to write with minimal editing. I will fix spelling and some grammar, but mostly I just want to write what I think without worrying about whether it will offend someone or not (Unlike the media, who seems so afraid they might offend someone …(excuse me a minute, my chick is crying and I need to see if she’s ok…Yup, she’s fine, she just wanted some company.) Anyway, the media is so afraid they might offend someone, that they mostly just say inoffensive things that everyone can agree with.) Oh, I had to catch myself. I was just about to delete that part about the media, but as I’m trying to speak my mind without editing, I will leave it in.
Continue reading "Blog número uno!"