Homebirths, chickens and a bushel of blueberries

I feel a little like a stranger on my own blog. It's been a long time since I've felt ready or wanting to put pen to paper! It's difficult to know where to even start as the past couple months feel like such a long journey.

Starting with some easy things I'll note and expand on via separate posts:

Chickens. Yes, we finally bit the bullet and should have baby chicks arriving next week about this time. Crazy? Of course! It's how we roll. We're starting with 6- 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes, 1 Rhode Island Red and 1 Black Australorp. Truly I'd be happy with 4 but am attempting to plan on beginner mistakes... though hoping that doesn't happen! We have the brooder pretty much ready, coop plans bought and now just need to get going on materials and coop constructions. It is exciting and seems like well timed now that it isn't so insanely hot anymore! Pictures to follow, of course!

Berries! The last few years I've gotten most of our berries from a combo of our own yard and my mom's. However I lost my strawberries and raspberries last year and had to start new this year. The strawberries did fine but didn't bear(normal, won't until next year). The raspberries for some reason just didn't make it. Odd, as for once we hardly flooded at all in the backyard! The two blueberries plant near the dead raspberries seem to be doing well, so I'm going to be adding 2-3 additional blueberries in that particular spot. Not one to give up, we'll be building a couple raised beds behind the new(to us) swingset this fall and putting raspberries there.
This is a lengthy prelude to what I really wanted to talk about, The Berry Patch! Because we didn't have our own I had to look elsewhere; found a lovely berry patch about 30 minutes away. We went 2 times and came back with literally 20 pounds of berries. I'm not exaggerating in the least. Most were blueberries but also got red and black raspberries. Not this weekend but the following I hope to get back there again for some blackberries, raspberries and more blueberries. We did jam, syrup and vinegar from the blueberries. The others I froze and have used either in muffins, pancakes or on granola and oatmeal. It really is so fun to go as a family and pick berries together. I highly recommend finding a local patch and doing just that very soon!

Last but certainly not least, homebirths. After much research and soul searching, we've decided to switch from our hospital midwives group to a local CNM and a homebirth. My first birth was the traditional hospital OB; second a hospital midwife. While the hospital midwife birth was hands down a better experience than my OB, there were still too many routine interventions that got in the way of the kind of birth I feel is best for us. It will cost more than a hospital birth. Money certainly isn't free-flowing here but it's a priority and we will make it work. At a later time I'll write more in-depth of how and why we arrived to this decision. I will say this, if you are pregnant, planning on becoming pregnant, please pick up Ina May Gaskin's, 'Guide to Childbirth' and Henci Goer's, 'The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth.' They are thus far the most informative books I've read on the process of birth.

May everyone be finally getting to enjoy beautiful weather!