They were just there one day, in my basement. Well, not exactly. My boyfriend (if you can call him that, we're far too old for such names, but to just say "partner" isn't very clear, and I run the risk of this "chick" blog  masquerading as something it isn't). As I was saying, my 50-something year old live-in partner for life (is that better?) decided to surprise me with a box full of baby chicks and two ducklings a few weeks ago. He sent me to the basement under the guise of getting dinner (what else? chicken) from the freezer. And of course I stumbled upon the live ones at my feet, in their own little avian tanning booth. And fell in love with the little fuzzballs immediately, allergies aside. They were so soft! And cute! And dinosaur-like!  (Really -- examine their legs and beaks closely sometime; you'll feel as if you're looking at something ancient).
It's not as if I had never seen chickens before.....my grandmother grew up on a farm, and created her own hobby farm as an adult, which we would visit annually. Here we came into close contact with all the barnyard animals; if we weren't 'friends' with them by the time we left, we at least had a healthy respect for them.
The chickens held some kind of fascination for me the older I got. I was drawn to, and collected for some time, anything with roosters or chickens on them. It was as close as I would get for years. I had imagined that some day, I would retire to a small farm like my grandmother had done, and have a few hens and a rooster, and a garden.
But 18 chickens??!!  And two ducks??  What was he thinking???  And upon getting them, we had no idea of the sex of these little warm fuzzies.
To be continued....