Coupon Codes and more!

I feel like all of my blog entries include "and more"! I think that's because I am down to one blog entry a week and I want to cram as much into it as possible!

First... we recently signed up for Groovebook at the recommendation of family. Here's the jist: It's an app that you pay monthly for that allows you to upload up to 100 photos in one month. They then generate a cute 4x6" book (with perforated edges) that is mailed to you once a month. Brilliant! For all of those photos that you snap with your phone but they never, ever, ever are printed! Brilliant! We received our first book today and are just as impressed as we thought we'd be! Here's a Coupon Code to use when you register and we'll get a free book too: Go to Groovebook and use Coupon Code: TOMPKINS1902 It's only $3.99 a month! You cannot even print 100 photos for $3.99 a month!

Things over at The Chicken Network have been great! We are preparing to announce a few more items! In the meantime, I created a special Coupon Code for those following along at home here on the blog! It's just a little something - Save $5 when you spend $30 or more. So go to The Chicken Network and use coupon code HJSBLOG5OFF! Discount Bundles are excluded as they are already discounted thus the name, right? :)

We picked up our 9 year old niece (Phil's sister's daughter) from the Cleveland airport on Monday. It was her first time flying alone and she did great! Before picking her up, we took Our Girl to the Cleveland Zoo. It was so hot. No joke. I almost melted. I thought I was starting to melt but it was a false alarm. It's crazy to think that our niece has already been with us since Monday! AND Our Girl has been with us for 8 days full-time! We are blessed! It was awfully quiet on our way back from Cleveland (aside from snores!)

Yesterday, the girls and I each donned a dress and I took them to the theater! It was a children's musical with about 40 children through 8th grade in the production. They were so excited to watch every move on the stage! Too bad I forgot to take a selfie. :( I made a big announcement to the girls this evening of "WE ARE NOT LEAVING THE HOUSE TOMORROW!!" They looked at me like I had 10 heads because we've been go go go go go. It's time for a break. Well.. a break from leaving the house. Except... we are out of milk. Someone is going to have to leave the house tomorrow!

This week: we made Rent The Chicken deliveries (the picture is of Homestead Phil providing a presentation to some campers at a Summer Camp who is participating with Rent The Chicken), the girls went to summer camp one day, we made meals together, ate out, went to see our Amish friend, Levi, swam in the river, used the Easy Bake oven, and so much more! Oh and maintained essentially 2 businesses :) (Rent The Chicken and The Chicken Network!)

In the news and more!

Has it been a week already since my last entry? Time sure does fly when you're having fun!!

Two big news segments hit this week for Rent The Chicken!
1. Our episode on the Vegetable Gardening's show was published! It was a fun interview with Mike the Gardener! Click here to watch on YouTube

2. THE TODAY SHOW WROTE ABOUT US! Full disclosure: Our awesome journalist friend, Terri, works for Today.com and hooked us up! She wrote the article and then the Today Show, Today Parents, etc. What a blessing! Here's a link to the article: Curious about raising chickens? Thisi company lets you rent hens for your backyard

AND....even bigger news! Our Girl moved in officially this week! We could not even be more excited and proud! Thank you for your support! We had a surprise Welcome Home party for her upon our arrival and boy was she surprised!

AND... I made my first ever ice cream cake following the directions from This Recipe. We can't publicly post her name or photos of her at this time.

The Bigger Picture

On Monday, I said "It's been a long week!" It was indeed a long week. A GREAT week but a long one! So long that today is Saturday and I try my best to make a blog post by Friday of the week!

When we bought our homestead, we couldn't find our mailbox and assumed we had to dig a hole for one. Turns out, this beauty is ours and it was on the street behind us so the mail person only has to make one loop through our village. When we bought the house, we of course made the usual Amazon purchases. Ironically, now seeing the bigger picture, it's amazing how many boxes fit in our mailbox leaving our mail lady to not have to go out of her way. She fits them right into the mailbox. The bigger picture? Absolutely!

My stove is a fancy one from my appliance selling days. A number of weeks ago, I realized the oven was taking far too long to preheat then far too long to cook anything. Most ovens use a bottom element for baking and a top element for broiling. Mine uses both to fast preheat then cycles from top to bottom when baking for a more even heat. After some online trouble shooting, I determined that the broiler igniter wasn't functioning. I ordered the part and installed it this evening. With some help from Homestead Phil, we now have a functioning oven again!! The oven has a "warm" setting for keeping things warm and a "dehydrate" setting. When I bought it, I never in a million years thought I would ever dehydrate anything. Now, every hunting season, Homestead Phil takes over the oven for a few days to make homemade venison jerky. The bigger picture? Oh, yes!

#TompkinsPalooza2018 - Last year about this time, I determined that we were going to be very purposeful with our time making sure we scheduled activities and visits with friends and family. If we don't schedule it, it won't happen. We logged thousands of miles on our RV last summer traveling to see friends and family while experiencing many first for our foster son. It was really more about him but Phil and I certainly had an incredible summer! That was appropriately named #TompkinsPalooza2017. Now comes #TompkinsPalooza2018! We have been moving along with our Foster to Adopt process. Before we know it, our girl will be living with us full time and not just having short visits and short phone calls! This picture is when we were picking her up the last time! (I bet you almost didn't recognize us without our Rent The Chicken blue on!) #TompkinsPalooza2018 is well on its way with our girl! It's crazy... she looks like us! Her therapist openly admitted that God has been preparing her and us for her to be with us down to the detail of her having my eyes and round face with Phil's smile. The bigger picture? Only by God's love and grace!

The Broody Hen

This is new for me. Not the broody hen subject but posting my blog on a device rather than on a computer!  I'm not quite sure if I can add pics but I'll try!

We troubleshoot all sorts of ailments during the rental season one of which is a broody hen. When a hen is broody, she is determined to hatch chicks even if: there's no rooster for chicks and  eggs are removed from her regularly! If she is left to her own devices, she will slow up in eating and drinking, spend countless hours in the roost area, pull feathers from her underside to create skin to egg contact increasing the temp, and fluff her feathers out.  PLUS, if you try to move her, she will give her opinion of you VERY loudly! Haha!I had to apply some of my own advice recently as we had a Broody Hen at the Homestead.

We have a big coop that holds about 25-30 hens or so on each side with separate everything: run, roost area, and nesting boxes. We only had hens on one side a few weeks ago but we integrated more of the same hatch of the same breeds on one side.  We brought home younger Red Stars and wanted to keep them  separate on the other side.

A black Australorp went broody. Always on the eggs (10-12?!) every night when i would collect eggs. I'd move her to a roost as well as others who were sleeping outside to train them where to sleep.

The other night, I was done with her shenanigans! I moved her from the nesting box to the red star side and put her on the roost! She's the ONLY non-red star on that side! The next night I peeked in on the red star side... She was on the front roost lined up with all of the other red stars! It's been a few days. She is back to eating and drinking and goes to bed on the roost. It makes me giggle every time I see her out with her new friends! I flex my brain muscles at her and take pride in the fact that I won the fight!