Loving Chickens

Look at these little ladies!  They're so pretty!

Picking their way through the grass and clucking at each other. 

These, my friends, are the chicken's of Melissa, from Bless This Mess.  Melissa and I first met through our church in college, but lost contact after several moves.  Recently, through the wonders of blog-land we have reconnected and I didn't realize what my life was missing until we were swapping emails back and forth like crazy people.

This past weekend my little family went and spent a weekend with Melissa's little family and we were shown just about the most courtesy and love you could possibly feel while invading someone else's home, we felt like we were in heaven!

Melissa is a cook and she shares her recipes through her blog.  I've tried several of her recipes and each one I make is good enough to make again and again.  But it's not just her recipes, her blog is full of tutorials for kid's crafts and remodeling the home.  It's fun to find a blog that you feel you can connect with.  Take a look at her Roasted Pumpkin Seed Brittle, I got to try some and the roasted pumpkin seeds have the most amazing flavor.  I've never worked with pumpkin seeds, but this might just make me start.  

You see the kitchen she is in?  That's no ordinary kitchen.  Melissa and her husband are in the process of gutting and remodeling the little home they purchased and that kitchen was one of the first rooms they perfected.  The whole family lived in one room in the back of the home while the front half of the home was in the process of reconstruction.  She washed dishes in a bucket for nine months!  And I thought not having a new dishwasher was tough.

You can read more of her remodeling posts here.

And now on to those lovely chickens!  You see this sweet little chicken coup?  That's where the hens live.

And what's this?  A hole?  Let's look through it shall we?

Ah!  A chicken.  What, my dear, might you be doing?

Oh?  Laying an egg?

Oh!  An egg!

So that's what you were up to!

Nothing says friendship like standing with your friend and peeking through the cracks in the chicken coup for ten minutes while you wait and cross your fingers.  I feel so loved!