Trade Days and Some of our New (and not-so-new) Additions...

Our family had a blast again at Trade Days.  We camped there from Friday till Sunday.  The kids all found something interesting to their own individuality.  John Wesley and Cody spent time combing booths looking for old, collectible Hot Wheels cars.  They found a FEW!!!  William found some old comic books, Jonas found old game system paraphernalia, and Lena found.....can you guess???? .....cotton candy.  :)

 I found a pair of India Blue peafowl.  We were going to wait till next year to bring a pair home, but we found a great deal and since they were from a breeder I've been watching the past few years we've gone to Trade Days, I felt good about getting them.  They are only about 4 months old, so the peacock isn't nearly fully colored.  It's going to be an exercise in patience for me.  He won't be fully colored and feathered until he's about 3 years old!!!  His face, neck, and all of his chest will be that brilliant blue that you see a little hint of now. 

 This is our new flock of pearl guineas.  Come spring, we won't have a tick on the place--I hope... We didn't get these at Trade Days.  They came from a fellow animal lover/hobby farming family who lives not-too-far from us.  We got these and the Muscovy ducks below from them.

 In the cage with the Muscovies, are a couple Pekin ducks (the white ones).  We DID get those from Trade Days.  The Muscovies are very quiet ducks, and while we love their quirky fun looks, we needed a little quackiness in our farmyard.  The Pekins are just the right thing to take care of that.

 Here's Chewy.  He's cute, so I thought I'd include him!

 Here are Stripe and Charlie.  They are kind of the bosses of the goat herd.  Charlie's a wether, but I'm not sure he realizes that.  He likes to think he's "The Man."  We let him think so.  But the new Nubian billy we got a few weeks ago might not let him think so for long.

 This is the king of the coop.  He's a great rooster.  Protective and territorial--always alert.  But don't cross him!  Just ask Lena.  It's molting time in our coop.  In the summer, this guy had a gorgeous set of full tail feathers.

 Here is Apache.  He's just the cutest little guy ever.  He's Cody's pygmy.  He's only a couple months old and he's the friendliest little billy I've ever met!  He came from the same family where we got the guineas.  You can't tell from this picture, but he's only about 18 inches tall, from his head to the ground!  About the size of a puppy.

 Here's our new Black Copper Maran rooster.  He's got two girlfriends around the coop somewhere.  In a few months (or maybe even weeks--but probably not till spring, now) they'll give us some very dark brown eggs!  We got the young trio of Marans along with a trio of young Welsummers from our new friend with the guineas.

 Buff Orpingtons.

 Here, John Wesley's hand feeding the Buckeyes we got at Trade Days.  I don't know if all Buckeyes are this friendly, but these are super nice.  They'll look much better in a couple weeks.  Seems like when we buy from Trade Days, the animals are always a bit stressed-looking from the traveling and the handling.  Then once we get them home and they settle in, they look so much better.

 Black Auracauna--should give us some nice turquoise eggs in a while.  We also got a buff colored one--both from Trade Days.

 Us...being entertained by our chickens.  Doesn't take much to make us happy.  Simple.

 Another picture of Apache just because he's SO darn cute.