I’m not about to complain about winter thus far. Other than not having anywhere to go or being able to see anyone, we at least haven’t had snow and for southwest Michigan, that is something to rejoice in. That just turned six months of snow into four, which is a huge win in my book, being the snow-hater that I am.

For me, winter is just my time to prep for spring. My winter hobbies are actually spring planning, which mainly involves redesigning the garden and shifting around some perennials in flower beds. But this year, I’ve succumbed to chicken math. I was warned about this when we built the coop last year. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Much like the garden that started with berries and asparagus and grew to include over 25 raised beds…well, chicken math has become my new winter hobby.

Chicken math goes something like this. Last year, I wanted 4 or 5 hens. There was an 8 chick minimum on orders at the time and by a weird series of events, I ended up accidentally ordering nine. I tried in earnest to rid myself of a few, but only succeeded in getting rid of one. And then we found out we had a rooster. Lord bless Harper, but we were glad to find him a new home as well. So we went from 4 or 5 to 9 then to 8 and finally we’ve rested at 7. Seven seemed like a great number for chickens. The sign outside my coop still says “The Crazy Eight” but that hasn’t bothered me as much I thought it would. The trouble is, when you hang around with chickens, you begin to want more. And more.

So, chicken math has resulted in me ordering a few more chickie babies to arrive in spring. It was sooo much fun picking out new breeds for our flock! Varying egg and feather colors, I had an actual blast researching chickens and deciding on our new additions. Ordering was a bit stressful but that was due to glitches in the hatchery’s website that kept taking my selections out of my “cart”, but it eventually was resolved and I was able to order exactly the chicks I wanted. All six of them. Sigh.

So, 4-5 became 9, which became 8 and then 7 but will now become 13. Yep. Chicken math. I figure even if we end up with another rooster (we’d better not) we will still have a happy dozen.

And now I wait. Until the first week in April when my chicks will arrive. But I have something to keep me busy in addition to redesigning the garden and thinking about moving perennials around…I have six chickens to name!! 🙂 And those are six blessed little things!