They were born yesterday. Six lively little fluffy balls of different colours, eager to see the world. On the upper nest, a few more tomorrow if we are lucky.

Every time it gets my heart. I melt like an ice cube in the sun. I could spend hours just watching them in complete wonder, without any agendas, all chores waiting.

Same with the fish in the pond. I have my morning coffee there. The new pump is cleaning the water and they can be seen much better darting in and out of the irises.

There are about three different sort of fish in there with ordinary gold fish that is not ordinary gold anymore but rather black and gold, red with a white tail, blue white and red, orange back and white tummy, albino with a yellow nose  or a slash of red, and a new one that I call the pajama one, that is red from head to waist, then a white belt and a black tail…very small still and so pretty.

Then we have the three koi carps; one gold all over, one orange grey and white, and one black and yellow. They move slowly and confidently around. They are so chilled.

Then the two Golden Orfe, fast and furious when feeding, and generally fast anyway…they behave and look like sharks, jumping out of the water to disperse the food around, making a mess of it all.

They all make such colourful patterns while swimming around having a good time.

We love them all…

Recently we added some water snails to help maintain the water clear of algae. It seems to work.

A gentle tap on the side of the pond and they all come for breakfast or dinner. It’s like meditation… Sylvie stops by sometimes when walking her dog. She sits on the pond side and we chat for a while. Who could wish for another life?

The three chicks born two months ago, are now half the size of their mothers and self-sufficient. Two of them from the same brood were let go by their mum as early as four weeks old. The third and only one from a different mum, is still following her everywhere as well as sitting with her in her nest while she is covering the next batch of eggs. I am so pleased the first three of them are girls.

When the donkey field was finally opened to them a few days ago, they were the first to find the opening and oh! Joy! Such a big expanse to explore. They were nowhere to be seen all day and needed a little persuasion to get back in the evening… Since that first day they come back when called. When the buzzard high above turns up and circle around, they all run back to the coop for safety.

Melanie at the grocery store has seven hens, the ones that are good egg-layers with no incentive to be mums. She has seven eggs a day, she told us. Our girls being a mix of different breeds, tend to give us one egg on average every other day. That’s plenty. We have a small surplus that we sell to our neighbours.

With the new chicks, the number of customers for our eggs need to grow from September.

Or we’ll be eating a lot of eggs!  Ah ha!