Wednesday, May 28, 2014

About Our Chicks Week 2

Now we have had the chicks for 2 weeks and they've been growing a lot, here's their growth chart (we were able to get weights!):
Day 3:

  •  Cream color is 1.8 oz and 3.75 in.
  • Light Orp is 1.3 oz and 4.5 in.
  • Dark Orp is 1.1 oz and 3.5 in.
  • Red+Stripe is 1.3 oz and 4 in.
  • Dark+Stripe is 1.1 oz and 3 in.
Day 5:

  • Cream color is 2.1 oz and 4.25 in.
  • Light Orp is 1.6 oz and 5 in.
  • Dark Orp is 1.3 oz and 4.25 in.
  • Red+Stripe is 1.3 oz and 5.5 in.
  • Dark+Stripe is 1.3 oz and 4 in.
Day 7:

  • Cream color is 2.3 oz and 4.5 in
  • Light Orp is 2 oz and 5 in.
  • Dark Orp is 1.5 oz and 4.75 in.
  • Red+Stripe is 1.6 oz and 5.5 in.
  • Dark+Stripe is 1.3 oz and 4.5 in.
We also have data from day 9 but I will save that for week 3.
A highlight for this week is that we can start taking them outside for short periods of time. By taking them outside we have found out more about them! We have some pictures to show you:
Our Chicks grouped together!

Our chicks up close!

Dark Orpington
Notes:
All: Gaining wing feathers!
Dark Orpington: Quite brave! It keeps leaving looking for bugs while the others are huddled up in a group.
Red+Stripe: Really noisy. I wondered if it was either one chick being loud or them taking turns chirping, until I saw this one's mouth opening up a lot while I heard the noise.
Others: No notes.

Monday, May 19, 2014

About Our Chicks Week 1

By Joshua

A few years ago, Mom wanted to start chicken farming though we lived in Virginia Beach, VA and it's not allowed inside city limits so we couldn't start... yet. But now we can since in the city of Marysville, WA the only rules are:

  1. You can't have a rooster (so it doesn't fertilize the egg(s) that will make chicks.)
  2. You can't have more then 6 chicks/chickens.
So a day before I wrote this we got 5 chicks and they were these types:

Our chicks!

We don't have names for the chicks yet and we forgot which is which (except for the Orpingtons) but we do have their heights!

  • Cream Color is 4 in
  • Dark+Stripe is 3.5 in
  • Red+Stripe is 3.75 in
  • Dark Orpington 4.5 in
  • Light Orpington 3.5 in
Notes about the different chicks:
All: Extremely Cute and Cuddly! They're 5 days - 1 week old
Cream Color: Especially cooperative and normally stays out of the area that the others are in.
Both Striped: Loves jumping into the food until we changed it from a bottom of a red solo cup to a co-op bought feeder.
Orpingtons: Extremely fidgety (when we measured them they kept running away!)

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Stamps and the Art of Collecting Them



Before stamps people didn't like the whole letter sending system so at the beginning of stamp history a guy named Rowland Hill invented a different system and at the same time he invented the 1st stamp, the "Penny Black!" It started off in 1840 and only 7 years later the U.S. released it's 1st stamps, the 5 cent Benjamin Franklin and the 10 cent George Washington stamps. In the same year that the first stamp was made people started stamp collecting and since then the "Penny Black" has always been a favorite since it was released! There are currently millions of stamp collectors out there so chances are you know one for example, FDR was a very famous stamp collector with 35,000 stamps! (Not very many people have more then 35,000 stamps and I've been collecting stamps for 2 years and I don't even have 1,000 stamps!) Stamp collectors want to have really old and/or very rare stamps. For example one extremely rare and old stamp is the "24 cent Inverted Jenny" which was accidentally printed upside down and only 100 were made. Recently they made $2 copies that are extremely common!
24 cent Inverted Jenny
(Image found here)
I have a stamp to show you that I own which is from the late 1800's!

It's for the John Ericsson Memorial 86 year anniversary.

I like stamp collecting because I like finding the history behind old stamps!

Friday, May 2, 2014

Real Washington in my Experience

by Joshua

When people think of Washington EVERYONE (except people who have lived in Washington before) say that it looks like this,

(Image found here)

ALL. DAY. EVERY. DAY.
What the people who have lived in Washington before say,
"It really looks like this:
Day 1,

(Image found here)
Day 2,

Day 3,

When it DOES rain it rains for a few hours, then it is cloudy, then it repeats"
We've lived here for 1/2 a year and so far they were 100% right!