Chickens, quail and others, oh my!

I haven't talked much and have never introduced our newest additions to the farm family. Right before Christmas, we adopted a pair of Coturnix (Pharoah, Japanese) quail. This pair had been living with a lady who loved birds, but found she just couldn't take care of them anymore and was interested in giving them to someone who would be willing to incubate their eggs. Coturnix hens are prolific layers, usually laying one egg a day. We've had two hatchings (6 babies) of their eggs, but sadly none of the babies have survived. Tomorrow starts our third round, so hopefully by Valentines Day we might have some babies that will be strong enough to survive. Around the time of the first hatching, our friend contacted us about a pair of chicks that someone brought to her door. She asked us if we'd like to have them, so we brought them home and housed them with the quail until they got so big they were in danger of hurting them. They are now outside in the duck pen. We've named them Thomasina and Henrietta. The two quail are Fred and Ethel. I have a few photos of the chicks online at the following link - http://photobucket.com/albums/e128/jausenclaus/?action=view&current=henrietta.jpg
I still need to take updated photos of Fred and Ethel. They are looking tons better that they did when we brought them home.

This weekend, we are also expecting to receive about twenty-five quail from a rescue operation in California. The birds are just a small number of over 5,000 quail that were found in deplorable conditions at a slaughter house there. They are coming by van to deliver the birds to us. So, we have to get cracking on building pens for the ducks, quail and chickens. It has been a fun month or two, we hope everything will go smoothly when we move to the farm.

House update: Our granite countertops are in and are very pretty. The type of granite is Volga Blue and is very dark blue with peacock color blue shiny pieces randomly through it. I have yet to take a photo of it that shows it to its best advantage. In fact, that is one of the reasons I don't have current photos of the painted rooms yet on the blog. Its very hard to get good pictures of vacant rooms, especially in small spaces, so I'm goint to try to work on them. Charles has laid the floor in the master bedroom and hallway. It's looking really pretty. John's room is adorable and the two upstairs baths look great, just the way I thought they'd look. The master is still missing the clawfoot tub though. It will be installed with the rest of the plumbing fixtures. I meet with a wallpaper hanger on Monday, so hopefully we will have all the wallpaper finished next week.