On Monday night a mink got into our chicken coop and killed most of our hens.

It was heartbreaking, especially for Lupine who lost her favorite, beloved chicken, as well as her small business selling our surplus eggs. But mostly the loss of Lilac the fluffy-footed bantam (and all the other girls) was the heart of our sadness.

And then like magic later in the day Pete heard a peep coming from the incubator in the living room. The quail! The quail were hatching!

While their arrival doesn't erase the grief from losing our hens, it certainly provided a soothing buffer.

And one after another they hatched.

Tiny. Perfect. Quail.

It's hard to explain how impossibly small a freshly hatched quail really is.

And how impossibly cute.

Especially when you pop them into a vintage tea cup, just because.

Yes, at the moment there are seven fluffy, striped, teensy birds, peeping and chirping away in our living room. It's more sweetness than one tea cup can hold, I'll tell you that.

And the timing couldn't have been better.