I’ve finally given in to temptation, and a dozen and a half Araucana eggs are on their way to my house, hopefully to arrive tomorrow if the Post Office does their job well – not a given! We’ve had Americana chix before, and they were beautiful birds, but out of two dozen we had one that laid a pink egg, one that laid a “sort of” blue egg once in awhile, and the rest laid various shades of a mostly drab green.

I’ve always wanted true Araucanas, but after having such grief attempting to hatch shipped turkey eggs, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend the money for the precious blue eggs.  Now, with the better incubator and our recent successful turkey hatch, guess I’m hoping I’m on a roll, and am going to give it a try.  Wish me luck!

Half of the eggs will be from Lavender Araucana birds (as you might expect from the name of our farm, I’m fond of blue/lavender birds), and the other half will be ordinary Araucanas, although I find little ordinary about these birds!  With the sometimes fatal double tufted gene, and the eggs being shipped across several states, I’ll be pleased with a half dozen healthy chicks, although I am dearly, truly hoping for more!

By next spring, I’m hoping to have blue eggs in my laying nests!  What fun it will be for my granddaughter, who loves to come to MiMa and Poppi’s house and gather eggs.  This breeder has a very good reputation, and the photo of her eggs shows aqua, turquoise, and blue eggs, so I’m hopeful to have nice colors of blue at last!

Autumn has fall-en here with a huge plop!  After a brutal hot summer, one of the worst I remember, all of a sudden the last few days have turned cold, windy and cloudy with lots of rain.  Today while I was driving across the state to visit a friend, I saw some of the maple trees starting to put on their bright fall colors.  I’m not ready for fall yet!!  I’ve LOTS to do in the garden before frost hits, the first thing being to put out a trap for the raccoon who is in my squash and pumpkin patch eating up my yummy squash as soon as they ripen!  Next year, we may have to put some electric fence up in the “back garden” area for the squash, and I’d love to try growing some sweet corn.  Thank goodness our coops are fortified like Fort Knox (that’s where the gov’t keeps its gold reserves) so the raccoons can’t get into my girls at night.