The Weekend Before Travel including the Last Minute Chicken Shuffle

 I have not done a good job blogging about everything going on; I leave for Ethiopia tomorrow. Saturday, JD was gone with the boys all day to a hunting event (this is their first year hunting for all), my big girls were all off on social events, and the little crowd and I were left to accomplish many tasks. I felt pretty good about the packing I had done during the week -

Tori and I made a huge batch of zucchini muffins and a batch of bread.

The little guys played and I did Selah and Bella's hair.

Sunday brought many more things on the to-do list; I also woke up with my neck so inflamed that it hurt to move. We spoke at church for a few minutes to introduce Brooke. JD then kept all the children after church with him for a meeting, so I could do my last minute running. I flew around town and packed the front with my final trip to Costco.

The back was packed with more last minute donations for my trip.

And last, but never least, I picked up a new batch of chickens. JD thought maybe I should not try to mix the work of new chickens into my final weekend in America, but I could not pass up on a friend's free organic laying chickens! I picked them up on my way home. (It may be slightly country to load up chickens on your way home from church, that idea hasn't escaped me!)

The challenge was that our 28 baby guineas needed to be moved to allow the chickens to have their own side of the coop and fence. In all fairness, this job was on the radar about two months ago, but we generally don't get things done until the need is pressing. So now pressing, JD and the boys got to rush home and build before I made it home.

The guineas really didn't need to live by the chickens to start with because they become dependent on the chicken food and don't roam for ticks like they are supposed to.

We clipped the new guy's wings and let them in the chicken yard.

Elijah, Selah and Bella spent a good hour trying to fly with the trimmed feathers.

We then had to capture the guineas. They can fly well now (see them on the roof?) so catching them wasn't the simplest process.

 We then relocated them to their new coop in the back, wagon load by wagon load. Julia took the job of wagon transport very seriously.

I plan on the guineas staying locked in for two weeks, then we will release them but leave the door open with food inside. Hopefully, they will rely less on the food and roam more. We also hope they don't remember there are chickens up front with continuous food. (Their brains are tiny!)

 I think we have a good number of layers - I haven't had to supplement buying any eggs since spring. We eat a lot of eggs!

So, now I'm back to packing. I have several unpacked piles like this -

And here's my current suitcase pile, which does not include anything personal, just donations. Thank you everyone!! Oh, and I still haven't got to any cleaning. I think I'm going to recruit some children that want to make some extra money (because I can still barely move my neck.)

I'm going to try and blog in Ethiopia when I can connect. I'm hoping that my daughters at home will get on and edit if pictures are up-side-down or anything crazy.