Numbers & plans

Wayne recently told us that a co-worker of his is trying to hatch some chicken eggs in an incubator. And if his little experiment works he would like to give the kids the chickens to raise, since he doesn't want to actually raise the chickens himself, he only wants to see if they can be hatched.

Several of the kids are excited about the possibility of getting a few chickens. They have made plans for fixing up the old chicken coop...(which actually means that their dad has a lot of work ahead of him.) Oh, and they have all unanimously decided that they do not want to let the chickens be butchered for meat...but that it would be okay if they were to lay eggs for the family to eat. They are all rather excited about the concept of going out to the coop and picking eggs every morning, with a basket slung over their arm, I'm sure, bringing in dozens of eggs...clearly, I think they've watched too many Little House on the Prairie shows.

A few days ago Colter came walking out of his bedroom, calculator in hand, and excitedly announced, "If we get 12 chickens, and they're all hens, and if they each lay an egg a day, we would end up with 84 eggs after one week...and (punching in more numbers) we would end up with 168 eggs after two weeks...and (punching in more numbers) we would end up with 336 eggs after one month!" The kids were all 'ooohing & ahhhing' over those wonderfully big numbers...obviously with more than a few dreams in their heads.

(Sidenote: The amazing thing about this is that Colter is 7...and one day awhile back he asked me about multiplication and I took a few minutes to quickly explain to him what it meant...and it seemed to have clicked with him, for he loves to work out all sorts of number problems. I'm not sure where he gets his love of numbers since both Wayne and I struggle mightily in that area. Let's just hope that his little flame for math isn't diminished any time soon.)

I'm not sure if this whole 'chicken-thing' will actually pan out since the man hatching the eggs is a rather absent-minded guy...but the kids are sure having fun with their plans and dreams. And it keeps them busy...so we'll just let them go on planning. And who knows, maybe we really will end up with 12 hens that lay an egg a day!

Now wouldn't that be somehting?!