My brother, Josh, came to visit us at the end of May. He had plane tickets to come the third week of March because him and my mom were going to watch the kids while Kyle and I took our VERY FIRST adult trip without the kids. Well thanks to COVID-19 all that was cancelled. Since he had airfare credit he rescheduled for May 21st. It was great to have a visitor and broke up the mundane-ness of our days.
This is also the brother that sent us the incubator and has chickens of his own in his California backyard. So he helped with the coop building process. I still need to post the entire coop building post, but here are some photos of what he helped us with. At this point we had two walls and the base built to get a little head start. We got a LOT done while he was there. Working on the nesting box wall which took some head work.
Figuring out the roof joists:
The next day we went out for breakfast as the Biscuit Co. one of our favorite spots. Definitely not healthy eating, but amazing chicken and biscuits. Our city had JUST opened up in phase 1 of the stay at home order, so not much was open and the things that were open were sparse. It sure felt nice to be out of the house.
I had prepped the area we were planning to place the coop prior to him coming. Then we had a LOT of rain the first few days and days leading up to his visit. Which lead us to discover where we wanted to coop to go was prone to floods:
On to plan B. We had considered placing in the yard behind the house so it would be tucked away a bit and this confirmed that thought.
We worked on the coop while the kids enjoyed the mud.
Isaac snapped this photo of the three of us working on it. Wanted to get the roof on and shingled before the next batch of storms/rain rolled in.
A little bit of family baseball in the yard. We had reached a good stopping point on the coop and the kids were needing our attention.
Isaac reading to Josh before bed.
We also got the first official candling of the eggs in while he was there and took a look at them about every other night. I talked more about the candling in this chick post.
May 25th we took a trip to Tanganyika Wildlife Park. We had gone one time before, the first day they opened. But this was Kyle's first time and the first time we got to experience a few of the enteraction stations open. The first up was the giraffe feeding.
They had a little nursery with baby animals that we had missed on our first visit:
Lemur island was also opened. The feeding station was closed but they were allowing people to walk the island to be with the lemurs. Josh, Thomas, and I stayed back and watched.
We had also skipped the penguin building last time. It was fun to get to see some new areas.
Next was the kangaroos, the kids and Josh went inside and walked among them. They were allowed to pet them if they were laying down.
Making our way over to the goats and farm animals.
CHICKENS!
Another encounter station was the feeding of rabbits, guiene pigs, and turtles. So the three big kids each picked one and got their lettuce on a clothes pin for feeding. Emma was first with the rabbit... but she let it have the entire piece of lettuce at once.
Then Mary fed the turtle:
And Isaac fed the guienie pigs:
Lastly we made our way to the third feeding station. The Lories were these beautiful colorful birds. Since Isaac and Mary split the giraffe feeding, it was Emma's turn. With our season pass we have 5 feeding passes to use each time we come.
It was a fun day and great to experience the animals in a different way than a typical zoo. Afterwards we went into Wichita and had some yummy Vietnamese food.
The last of the coop projects before Josh left was getting the pulley system on the run door of the coop.
Fun few days and great to have a visitor! Attempt at a photo with the kids doing some last minute souvenir shopping in Clifton Square:
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