Another holiday hike

Matt doesn't get MLK Day off, but he does get President's day as a paid holiday.  Since the weather has been so nice lately, we decided to take a hike today in the San Tan mountains just south of us.  We stopped in the visitor's center first where they have some pretty cool desert dwellers- snakes, tarantula, gila monster, a nasty black scorpion  *shudder*

We got going on our hike and Matt pointed out different varieties of cacti to the kids.  They all picked their favorite.

We also stopped and picked up a few new fuzzy babies!  We've been wanting to get a few more chickens because 5 hens don't *quite* give us the amount of eggs we'd like.  We thought maybe we'd get 3-4 more so there would be a buffer in case we lost more this summer and we ended up with SIX today~ 4 Americaunas and 2 Buff Orpingtons.  We'll go back to the feed store on Friday when they'll get in a shipment of Silver-laced Wyandotte chicks to add a pair to our flock.  Eight is close to 3-4, right??!

And our last stop today was to check on our calf.  Oh, what?  We have a COW???  Yes, his name is Piper and he will be butchered for meat in about 18 months.  Some of our friends up the road have land and are raising a bunch of calves.  Matt has wanted to get a cow for awhile so he jumped on the chance.  I swear, what's happening to us?  First chickens, now a cow?  Brooklyn was meant to live on a farm, that's for sure!  She treats these things like her babies!