Okay, I understand what is happening now. I wasn't criticizing, just couldn't figure a reason not to let the hen do her job. Keep any hatched chicks in the brooder for the moment. Divide the brooder with a piece of chicken wire to protect the youngest one, but so that they can still see each other. A single chick is a lonely chick... not good. I wouldn't want to disturb the mama hen right now, but as soon as the hatch is complete or you decide that is enough, put her and the last chicks she hatched into a safe area where she can raise them free from interference. This can simply be a corner of the chicken house that you fence off or a little pen in the yard with a small "house" attached. Make it predator proof! There is an advantage to having Mama Hen and babies in sight of the others... it minimizes problems when you eventually integrate them. Now, back to the chicks in the brooder. It is fairly easy to add chicks to others that are under a broody. Most people sneak them under at night. Hens can't count and this usually works. There is another way too, but I don't have time at the moment to explain it. If you have not already visited Velvet Sparrow's website, I highly recommend it. Don't forget to bookmark it for future reference. Here is a link that might be useful: Velvet's Website

If you've got more time than energy, like I do, smothering and lasagna is the easiest way to start a new garden bed for free, or almost. Sooo much easier than digging up grass. Just spread newspaper (about 10 sheets thick) or cardboard, overlapping well, until the area you want to be a bed is covered. Then cover the paper with 4-6" of finely shredded mulch and wait for the grass to die, usually 4-6 weeks but could be longer for some grasses. I've done this many, many times. My latest one is really ugly but I'm just trying to make lemonade out of lemons with this one... drought (probably aided by grubs) killed the grass here so I decided that would be the new sunny front bed I was considering. I did dig out a little spot that had hardly any grass and put some Cannas and Gladiolus there, a tiny baby maple tree, some Hibiscus cuttings which still just look stupid 'cuz they're "dead" sticks in the ground, then kind of working around it with smothering, and bark chips, which aren't my preference but I had them available. They don't stay in place if it ever rains really hard. Anyway, with this, I'm not planning to leave the bark chips there, they're just making sure the newspaper is held firmly to the contours of the ground to block the air and light from reaching the grass, which is what is needed to kill it. Whenever I can find more shredded hardwood, I'll replace the bark chips. Anyway, the newspaper decomposes and does not need to be removed later, just dig through it to add plants in the ground. I've also smothered grass with stuff that was handy, but does have to be removed to use the bed, like sheets of metal, old egg crate mattress topper, the bags of mulch that will cover the spot, whatever's handy. I think it's easier to wait for the grass to die than dig it up, and I don't mind if it has to get more ugly in the process of getting more pretty. One other benefit of smothering with a leave-in-place substance like paper or cardboard is that the weed seeds that may be in the ground are unable to germinate as they might be if you just dug up the grass and/or tilled. The lasagna comes into play if you add amendment layers to your smothering. For example, you could put the paper/cardboard, then kitchen scraps, ready to use compost, leaves, yard trimmings, whatever organic material (OM) that is handy, then the mulch (or not, if the other stuff is a thick enough layer to hold the paper in place and block the light.) It's not necessary to have lasagna layers when smothering, but when planting later, there's a huge improvement if a lot of OM was placed there. AND, while you're waiting, you can set potted plants there... I wrote this for someone complaining about clay, which you probably also have in ID so will paste it here also. Some of this is redundant... Before I moved to AL, I started many new gardens in OH, in the sub-clay they leave after removing the top soil, when making a housing...

Both your boys are adorable!!!! I know how hard it is to loose one of your fur babies. While a new pup will never replace your old friend I feel like we're honoring their memories when we get a new baby. Thanks for sharing pics with us. Keep on posting more! ~~Mimi

LOL Lizzie! I thought about Wanda (wander), too. :) We've tried a bunch of names, but nothing really seems to fit. We think we'll go with Sami. Donna