I read this and thought how true, “most people sell because of the well-known four D’s: death, departure, divorce and debt, but there is another: downscaling.” The lady that sold the house to us was the death factor, her husband passed away and she sold her house to be closer to family. As for us, it’s downscaling, hard to believe that the house outgrown us and it’s most likely the other way around for most people.
It has been extremely stressful in the last 2 months. Bo and I worked around the clock to get the house ready, and it finally went on the market last week. The house is in a move in ready condition, in a good school district and good neighborhood. I’m hoping that we’ll get lucky.
I never knew how a minimalist live until now, and I have to say that it takes some getting used to. Our house is lived in, and now I have to be a clean freak, can’t wait to get back to normal again. 🙂
I’m glad this part is done, now we’ll have time to work on the new house. I have a painting project, and looking forward to painting Lee’s new room, the office, the hallway, bathroom and deck.
Bo’s project is putting down the hardwood floor and he has several rooms to do.
We expanded the existing fish pond and moved the fish about 2 weeks ago.
They are happy in their new home. The new pond is soupy green at the moment and it should clear up in a week or so.
The quails are extremely happy in the backyard
The female never laid eggs before, and they are the mail order birds that Bo purchased via the Internet.
She started laying eggs when we moved her to the new house.
Max loves the acreage, and his freedom to roam in the woods.
I was surprised to see the Mountain Laurel flowers in the backyard, I just didn’t expect to see it in our area.
Bo’s mom gave him 41 eggs about 3 weeks ago to hatch since the last batch of incubator hatching chicks in September of last year was a success. Our bathroom became a place where we place the incubator.
The temperature has to be a consistency of around 100 Fahrenheit, the eggs started hatching so Bo added water to add moisture for the hatching environment.
The first egg hatched on Sunday, it still amazes me to witness the chick kicking and coming out of its shell.
Bo hand rotated the eggs.
The second chick looks healthy.
Bo uses a red bulb heating lamp this time, and heat lamp works great for giving a warm and necessary environment to baby chicks. They will be living in the cardboard box/bath tub for 4 weeks before we could transport them to Bo’s mom chicken farm.
So far 25 of the 41 eggs hatched. There are a few more that will hatch, and some are not fertile eggs so they won’t hatch at all.
Even though their moms are not here, but I think it’s comforting to see many baby chicks around.
At this stage they pretty much just eat, poop and sleep.
It has been about 3 weeks since I took these photos of the quails. They live outside and have heating lamp to keep them warm at night. Ideally I think we need to live in a farm, I started looking last year but couldn’t get Bo and Lee sold on the idea that living in an old farm house with lots of acreage is better than living in the city limit.
One of Bo’s friends gave him 2 more mature quails and they lay eggs. I think the ones that he hatched in November of last year started laying eggs also, he collects about 3-4 eggs per day now.
We have 8 quails total, there’s plenty of room to roam around since this cage could comfortable house 80 quails. When Bo was younger he had about 80 quails, and had to let them go when he went off to college. It must be a sight to see them take off and fly away.
This is the reason why I think we need to live in a farm, Bo purchased 2 more Gamble quails by mail. I’ve never heard of a mail order bird before, only heard of a mail order bride, and not sure if it worked the same way as the bird. They came from Auburn, California and it took 2 days to get to North Carolina by Express Mail. The shipping charge was $46. The post office called last Friday morning for us to go pickup the package, it’s amazing how they had traveled in this cardboard box for 2 days.
They had food and water inside. I was at work so I didn’t get to see them until I got home that evening.
They are timid, and ran back and forth trying to hide from me.
This looks very masculine comparing to the drapes that I sewn for the hatching quails in December. It’s obvious that I couldn’t and don’t want to take credit for this one. Bo thought it would be out of sight, out of mind for Max but I’m not so sure.
This is a picture of max I took tonight, he was extremely curious when he heard the quails calling.
I think they feel more at home now and sleep on a roost. It’s so interesting to see them do quail calling, Bo turned on a youtube video of quail calling, and they quail calling back.
The one on the left hand side is a female, and right hand side is a male Gamble quail. These photos were taken late at night, with low lighting, so there’s some digital noise.
The male Gamble quail is colorful and a lot more prettier than the female Gamble quail. This made me think of a Thai Proverb, “Chicken are beautiful because of their feathers, women are beautiful because of their make-up.” It’s obvious that this male Gamble quail is a lot prettier than the female Gamble quail, this is what I call a natural beauty.
Now you see why I think we need to live in a farm, but Bo doesn’t know it yet.
