Fireplace eggs, and real rain

Last night's cold front (which stretched from Oklahoma to south central Texas) brought us some real rain (just over .5") between 10:30 and 1 last night. Luckily, I'd brought home a new rain gauge (the donkeys destroyed the other one) from the local big-name farm supply store, so I could actually report the good news. My son and I were there to pick up an incubator and an auto-turner that was being held for us; we also bought the gauge and a bag of scratch grains for the chickens since they were handy. We've been out of the scratch for at least a week, but not for lack of effort to obtain it. DH had done a feed run last week, and did not realize until he unloaded everything that the scratch hadn't been included. We weren't able to go back to the feed store in a timely manner, so we had to eat the loss. I really hate to not support the local businesses, but this is not the first time they've held back goods or given us the wrong item.

Anyway, we are now incubating 2 dozen eggs in our fireplace (it really is the safest and most convenient place in the house, with 3 cats and a toddler to worry about), and we'll find out if we'll have chicks in at least a week and a half (if not sooner). Part of me is hoping that we don't get the full two dozen out of this venture, as we really don't have the room (in the henhouse) to triple our flock.

This is where I'd be posting a picture of the strawberry I just picked from one of the two plants in our garden (as I was out looking for the rain gauge), but none of our digital camera battery packs are charged (I think they are losing their ability to charge fully), and I could not find the cord for the dc adaptor. So, I had to settle for taking a picture with my Fuji dinosaur, and I'll post it after I've found 10 more shots to snap, and have the film developed/digitized. Anyway, it was a good breakfast *wink*