Is that sunshine I see?

I can't believe we're almost into summer vacation!

This year had begun with a whirlwind of activities - from me beginning my college courses, to Mia being involved in several new events including a running club, a couple of animal exhibits at local schools, and of course our attempts at capturing episodes of Mia's Menagerie. To say we've been busy would be an understatement! Poultry hatching season had a really strong start with an initial set of 22 chicken, 14 turkey,

and 28 quail eggs in the incubator.

Unfortunately due to fluctuating environmental factors our first batch of hatches failed quite catastrophically, resulting in the successful hatch of only 3 chickens, 10 quail, and 6 turkeys. Those that did make it absolutely thrived, and most have found new homes already.

Despite my better judgement, Mia also convinced me to set a few of our duck eggs in the incubator - and my goodness what a result. I'm pretty convinced that ducklings are some of the cutest baby birds there are. For now, we are only keeping 2 of them with the hopes that both are females so we can take advantage of future egg production (duck eggs are excellent for baking projects.)

As for the rest of the critters - it is definitely time for the reptiles to enjoy the outdoors.

Socrates the sulcata tortoise has been moved to his outdoor quarters for the season. We decided to relocate his fencing to a different portion of our yard to take advantage of fresh grass and better sunlight exposure. The kids playhouse that serves as his "burrow" has been an absolute lifesaver for the structural integrity of our yard, so hopefully I'll be able to avoid having to climb down any 8' deep holes this summer. We're having some major renovations done to our basement this summer, so once it's too cool for Socrates to be outdoors, he'll be relocated to a newly refurbished and much larger winter housing space. Our redfoot tortoises will also be moved outdoors once I receive the material for their fencing, hopefully in the next week or two.

Exhibit events and my availability to provide them unfortunately remain quite limited this year. 2025 is definitely the year to focus on PROJECTS. We have several major home improvement renovations being addressed which will significantly limit my ability to dedicate time and resources to habitat upgrades and improvements. Fortunately, once the house projects are out of the way I should have more room to address more of our outstanding animal habitat projects.

Here's hoping for an amazing, productive, and enjoyable summer!