Chickens and Turtles and Nests, Oh My!

Spring has arrived here in Texas.  I see baby horses and cows every time I drive into town and the air is full of allergy-inducing pollen to "delight" the senses.  About a month ago I bought some beautiful flowers to go on our porch so our house wouldn't look so drab next to our over industrious yard working neighbors well kept plots:

(This isn't an accurate pic of our house...Patrick has since torn all of those bushes out save a small ornamental one on the corner.)

A few days before Easter we bought some baby chicks:

Isabelle named them: Pizza, Music, Happy, and Potato. 

They've since grown rather large:

Pizza and Music are the big brown ones and Happy and Potato the smaller black ones.  While they've been living on our back porch, Patrick has been building them a bigger coop out behind the garage/barn next to our mulch pile:

It's nearly done and I'm sure they'll like it much better. 
Earlier this month our adventurous turtle started escaping from his rocklined pond that Patrick made him:

We've found him in the far reaches of the yard, but we have always found him...that is until two weeks ago.  After realizing we hadn't seen him in a couple of days we started looking...and looking...and looking.  But alas it seems our beloved family pet of 16 years has finally heeded the call of the wild and gone on a grand adventure from which he may never return.  Hopefully he is having the time of his life, making turtle friends and little turtle babies, and not squished on the side of the road somewhere.  Bye Golly!!

Last week while watering my plants I discovered that one of the ferns and one of the flowers had nests in them! 

The fern had 2 baby birds and 3 eggs in it when I first discovered it.  This shouldn't have been a surprise as a bird seems to fly away from it every time I get near.  The flowers had just a nest, in the final stages of completion.  Now, a week later,  the fern has five baby birds in it.  They are very tiny, but growing fast.  When I first saw them, the oldest were no bigger than the last joint in my finger...they're not much bigger now:

The flower nest has since been completed.  Tuesday there was one egg in it and as of today there are now two.  They seem to be the same type of bird as the fern layer. 

I try to be extra careful when watering my plants now so I don't douse the babies, and I keep checking the remaining ones for signs of habitation, but I think they'll remain vacant for the time being. 

It's been heating up here, today being the worst so far, in my opinion, as it is incredibly humid outside and I've had to turn on the a/c.  I hear there's snow in Utah.  I'm not sure which I'd rather have. ;)
  

So there you have it.  Springtime at the Thadens!