Things are hopping at my micro homestead these days. I heaved such a sigh of relief when it rained this weekend!

In past years, we’ve tried to have at least a couple of hives of honeybees. We keep them in the backyard, so they are easy to keep track of. Or, at least that was the plan.

This year, we have six hives, and even though it’s convenient to check on them, things happen fast if you’re not paying attention. I know this, of course, from experience. Ignore the bees for a few weeks and they decide to swarm (and if they swarm, you’re not going to get much honey from them).  The goal this year is no swarms. So far, so good. Now if we just keep getting rain, there will be nectar for them, too.

Meanwhile, in the chicken coop, it’s utter chaos. Of the 12 eggs that hatched from the last incubation, we still have seven chicks (we bartered most of the others for maple syrup) and even though they aren’t big enough to run with the hens, they are too big for their little chick abode, so we find them in odd places lately.

Right after the “littles” hatched, our hen, Coco, went broody. She was determined to sit on eggs and be a mama, and though we tried for over a week to convince her otherwise, we couldn’t. About that time, my partner discovered a whole clutch of eggs behind a bush in the yard. By their size, we knew they were eggs laid by one of our young, shy hens. We didn’t know how long they’d been there. We picked out the best-looking eggs and gave them to Coco to sit on. We didn’t really expect many, if any of them to hatch. But when we opened the coop door a couple of weeks ago, there were five babies peeking out from under Coco.

We’ve been getting great harvests of lettuces and other greens from the garden lately. It’s so wonderful to eat a huge salad of field greens. I’ve pulled a few onions for salads too. The peas should bloom soon, and the beans and cukes are up. I’m starting to see scapes on the garlic, and I finally got the potatoes planted. I have dutifully picked off the blossoms of the strawberries so they put their energy into roots this first year instead. And remember the hideous-looking rhubarb from earlier this year? It’s growing!

But while I’ve been being a beekeeper and beak-keeper, the weeds in the garden have made hay. Actually, they weren’t weeds last year. They were mustard and tatsoi. Apparently I let some of them go to seed — and now I have the best crop ever. At least I always have something to do.

So, what’s still on your to-do list? Or are you all caught up? (And if you are, would you like some chicks?)

A mother hen, I am not. But for the chicks hatched from eggs last month, I’m as close as it gets.

Using a $40 incubator, we got a hatch of 12 chicks. We intended to give half of them away, but couldn’t part with quite that many, so we still have eight. Among those that hatched are three “fathered” by Mr. Mukluks, our huge buff cochin rooster. They have feathered feet, just like he does.

I also bought eggs on the internet of a Welsummer and Americana cross.  We have both of those breeds laying right now, and they are produce brown and blue eggs, respectively. My hope is that hens from the cross will lay lovely and unusual olive-colored eggs.

Then there are the Cream Brabanters.  Oh my. A rare breed that is said to have gone extinct in 1900 and been recreated in 1920, these are among the most remarkable-looking chickens I’ve ever seen. I was on a little egg buying spree (might as well fill up that incubator, you know), so I ordered a few of those eggs, too. Two hatched. These chicks, hysterical in both looks and psych status,  seem to have the same stylist as American Idol finalist Adam Lambert. I adore them and can’t wait until they start growing twin horn-shaped combs!

The little peepers are about 25 days old now, and their downy fuzz is being supplanted by feathers. This gives them a slightly prehistoric look that suggests an era of bad hair days. Though not at their photogenic apex, it’s still fascinating to see them grow and change, literally overnight.

Like lots of us, I’ve been busy planting the garden lately. But I try to take time every day to be a good chicken mama. I think it’s important to teach my little charges to appreciate some of the finer things in life: Worms and broccoli, friends and naps, cool breezes and warm sun.

Today is the due date for eggs in my incubator, and I’m one nervous Nellie.

I know 21 days is not a long time, but it’s felt like forever while I waited to see if the eggs were developing. Then, two nights ago, I was startled to hear peeping coming from the incubator.

The next day, I tried to hold the cell phone to the air hole in the incubator so my partner could hear the getting-louder, getting-more-insistent cheeping while she was at work.  I watched, transfixed, as a chick poked a hole in the egg (known among poultry types as pipping), then made a little zig-zag crack (called zipping) and then kicked and flailed until the two ends of the egg separated. It reached a foot up and pushed half of the egg away.

Some of you fine GG readers might remember the opening scene of “The Partridge Family” on TV, as a partridge emerges from an egg with glee and David Cassidy bursts into song (go ahead, refresh your memory and you’ll have it in your head all day long).

At my house, it happened kind of like that, only instead of unfettered verve and verse, there was one wet, tiny, prehistoric-looking chick, cheeping plaintively with utter, but heroic,  exhaustion as it fell asleep. I felt for it. I’ve had days a little like that myself.

After another few hours of struggling and resting, the chick got to its feet and staggered around, bumping into other eggs like it was wandering in a forest of giant bowling balls. Over the next 24 hours, I watched a few more chicks pip, zip and hatch. You’d think I’d get used to it after a few, but I find myself cheering each one on and being impressed with the effort it takes to make an entrance.

Before I get all sappy, let me just show you (sadly, no webcam) :

Today should be a big day for “Farmette TV” at my house, even though the warmth outside is beckoning me.

But enough of my chick update.

What are you doing inside reading this when it’s super summer-like out there?

You may have noticed…it’s egg time. Chocolate eggs, decorated eggs, dyed eggs. They are everywhere!

I just came up from the basement where I saw the coolest eggs ever. These eggs, warmed to nearly 100 degrees in a little incubator, have veins on the inside. Which means, of course, that little chickens are beginning to form. I’m as excited as a kindergartner to see new life take shape.

This was supposed to be a simple thing. We have a hen who sometimes wants to sit on eggs and hatch them. She went “broody” twice this year, but we thought it was too  cold to let her become a chicken mama. We told her she could hatch after April 1. I got a little private condo all ready for her. I was so sure she’d go broody again any moment, I ordered some fertilized eggs of a rare breed I wanted in our flock. I was going to stick them under her and get her to hatch them. The eggs arrived, but she was out of the mood to set.

So I did Robyn-Logic. Rather than let that investment to go to waste, I spent more money buying an incubator to hatch the ordered eggs. And then, since there was lots of room in the incubator, I bought some more eggs, and added even more from our own flock.

And last night, after six days in the incubator, I candled the eggs to see if there were signs of life. To candle them, I used an intense flashlight to illuminate them in a dark room. Not all showed signs of life, but many did. Two fingernail-biting weeks to go.

Anyone else out there hatching eggs or have chicks? Should I try to set up a hatch-cam for the big day? Or am I the only one who didn’t get to see it in kindergarten?

First of all (and this will ruin the drama), Trouble is okay. You remember Trouble, my favorite hen? The one I originally thought was a rooster? She’s fine. She did not suffocate, and I don’t think she’s blind, though it was touch-and-go there for awhile.

My partner and I were on the way out for an evening walk a few days ago. The chickens were behind the fence after a gloriously sunny day of free-ranging.  Deidre noticed that Trouble was sticking her head through the chain link fence, maybe trying to get some tasty nibble of cracked corn just beyond her reach. In. out. In. Out. Then, head halfway between out and in, she stopped.

She was stuck. Not just between the little diamonds of the chain link, but wedged good and tight between the end post and the tension bar. She couldn’t breathe.

To free her, I’d have to release the tension on the bar, which keeps the fence fabric pulled taut. I grabbed the bar and yanked, hoping to budge it enough for avian escape. Nothing doing. I sent Deidre scrambling for bolt cutters (which I realized about 30 seconds later that we don’t own). Meanwhile, the other hens mobbed me while I tried to keep Trouble calm and alive. I finally opened the door and let them all out in the yard.

Deidre appeared with a pair of tin snips. Undersized for the job, but likely the best we had on hand, I set the blades so they’d cut fence and not neck. I had to summon my super-hero powers to squeeze the handles together. Snap! The fence wire sprung free, but Trouble did not. I gathered my strength again and cut another fence wire, and Deidre lifted Trouble free with a loud squawking gasp (Trouble, not Deidre).

Her eye was gouged and bleeding. She was so weak she just laid limply on my lap. I supported her droopy head, soothed her feathers, dabbed her wound with antibiotic ointment. I found myself comforting her like my mother did for me when I’d fallen off my bike as a kid.

Eventually, she was strong enough to lift her head for a moment or two. Then, she opened her unhurt eye (did you know that chickens open their eyelids from the bottom?). She tried, every now and then, to open the other eye, but it was clearly bothering her.  While she rested, I worried she’d lose her sight in that eye and, with it, her spirited and curious approach to life.

She stayed on my lap for long while. When she was stable, we set up private accommodations for her: a dog kennel with food and water, so the other hens wouldn’t pick on her. In the morning, she seemed eager to return to her chicken activities, so we let her out to wander the yard with the others. When I checked on her a few hours later, I found her in the nest box, laying a perfect egg. What a champ!

The fence is now rather inelegantly patched. Imperfectly functional. I guess I could say the same for Trouble, who I continue to adore, despite  — or because — she certainly  lives up to her name.