It is amazing how much poop a dozen chickens can generate in just a few weeks.
Cleaning out the coop in winter's cold is not on the list of my favorite things, so for the past couple months, I have been piling hay over the mounds of poop to absorb the moisture and smell. That was working just fine, but I began to worry if I waited until spring, the clean-out job would be horrific. Thankfully, the weather offered up a pleasant enough day, and so I bit the bullet and went to work.
I knew from collecting the daily egg one hen has been kind enough to lay (C'mon, chickens! I expected a little more than that!) that some chickens have been sleeping in the nesting boxes. (I keep wondering if some of the chickens are laying somewhere sneaky, but I haven't found anything. Obviously, it's really bothering me, because I had a dream the other night that I started finding piles and piles of eggs hidden in massive hay mounds in a stable. Chicks were hatching and running all over and it was just crazy...) Anyway, back to the poop.
After I cleaned the coop out and put fresh hay in, I decided I'd better police the nesting boxes for a few nights to see if I could break the bad habit. At dusk last night, armed with a flashlight, I went to see who the culprits were. I was a little surprised to see my two Ameraucanas taking up the top two boxes. I can't say why I was surprised, except that they are two of my favorites, and I hadn't expected that chickens I really liked would cause me grief. (I know. There is no basis for this sort of reasoning.) Regardless, I needed to get them out.
Sylvia, the shyer of the two, hopped right out of the box with a slight nudge. Goldie, I had to grab and force out. I wanted to make sure the hens were settled into a new spot before I left, just in case they got the idea to sneak back up to their old spots. Sylvia hopped right up to the corner where there was ample room, and although she wasn't crowding anybody, I could see why she had probably been taking refuge in the nesting boxes: the one hen in the area gave her a sharp, irritated peck to show she was only grudgingly allowing an intruder to enter her domain.
Goldie was being a little more stubborn. She wanted to roost in the corner that was most crowded, even though there was still plenty of room near Sylvia. For several minutes she kept trying to weasel her way among the other hens, but they met her with a solid wall of rejection. (Chickens can be so heartless.) Finally, Goldie gave it up and noticed a space next to our alpha rooster. I could tell she was hesitant to disturb him, but she plucked up her courage and hopped up next to him. He huffed a little, but allowed her to stay, and I closed the coop and went back to the house.
Today, the egg will be clean.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Tax Season Is Upon Us
Dear IRS,
(deafening silence. hard stare.)
Sincerely, me.
~
This morning, I discovered that Chris's W-2 was available online, so I printed it out and thought I'd try to get a start on our taxes. I normally like doing taxes. Something about plowing through the instructions and actually understanding them and filling in all those blanks... But this year? Things are getting more complicated. I got the hang of doing taxes for service-oriented work. Now we have this e-bay thing, and I'm not sure how to handle it. A little research is required before I dive into that.
So, for fun, I thought I'd tackle the Schedule F. "F" stands for "farm." I think. I don't know for sure, since it doesn't really say that anywhere in the instructions, but that would make sense. That might be the only thing that makes sense in our current tax code, but I digress. Anyway, I realize that I probably don't need to fill out a Schedule F, since my egg sales this year amount to about as much as a kid's lemonade stand, but what the heck, I'll have to do it in the years to come, so why not get my feet wet?
It all seemed fairly straight forward until I came across this in the Schedule F instructions:
"Do not deduct the following...
Okay. I get the concept of keeping business expenses separate from personal ones, but as we all know, that can get complicated- especially on a small farm. So what, am I supposed to keep a personal egg-providing chicken separate from the rest of the chickens I have and buy it separate feed? Or maybe I could figure up the ratio of eggs we use to the eggs we sell and use that to calculate the percentage of feed costs I am allowed to deduct. But wait a minute... What about the poo? I use chicken poo in the garden- which is strictly for personal use at this point. Oh, this is getting tricky. How in the world am I going to figure all this out?
The IRS has a help line... I may call it and ask some unsuspecting soul a few questions.
(heh, heh.)
(deafening silence. hard stare.)
Sincerely, me.
~
This morning, I discovered that Chris's W-2 was available online, so I printed it out and thought I'd try to get a start on our taxes. I normally like doing taxes. Something about plowing through the instructions and actually understanding them and filling in all those blanks... But this year? Things are getting more complicated. I got the hang of doing taxes for service-oriented work. Now we have this e-bay thing, and I'm not sure how to handle it. A little research is required before I dive into that.
So, for fun, I thought I'd tackle the Schedule F. "F" stands for "farm." I think. I don't know for sure, since it doesn't really say that anywhere in the instructions, but that would make sense. That might be the only thing that makes sense in our current tax code, but I digress. Anyway, I realize that I probably don't need to fill out a Schedule F, since my egg sales this year amount to about as much as a kid's lemonade stand, but what the heck, I'll have to do it in the years to come, so why not get my feet wet?
It all seemed fairly straight forward until I came across this in the Schedule F instructions:
"Do not deduct the following...
Expenses of raising anything you or your family used. "
Okay. I get the concept of keeping business expenses separate from personal ones, but as we all know, that can get complicated- especially on a small farm. So what, am I supposed to keep a personal egg-providing chicken separate from the rest of the chickens I have and buy it separate feed? Or maybe I could figure up the ratio of eggs we use to the eggs we sell and use that to calculate the percentage of feed costs I am allowed to deduct. But wait a minute... What about the poo? I use chicken poo in the garden- which is strictly for personal use at this point. Oh, this is getting tricky. How in the world am I going to figure all this out?
The IRS has a help line... I may call it and ask some unsuspecting soul a few questions.
(heh, heh.)
Sunday, January 13, 2013
3-Way Switches Will Be the Death of Me
You know how you think you have something figured out so you jump into it and then realize it wasn't as easy as you thought so then you start to think about it and then you get a little bit confused and then you try to read about it to understand it a little better and then it gets even more confusing so in the end you feel like curling up in a corner and just crying?
I would like electricity to be simple. Like plumbing. You know. You have water that comes in through a pipe, and it flows in one direction out of the faucet and into the drain pipe. See? Easy. But don't forget the p-trap. That is important. That holds a little water to block all the nasty smells that would come back up through the pipe from the sewer. Oh, then don't forget the vent pipe. That helps the water drain. But does that go before or after the p-trap? Or does it matter?
I have a physics degree. You would think that I would be smart enough to handle all of this. And it's true. I am smart enough. But also dumb enough to think I have to understand every little detail. And so I pore over diagrams, tracing out the path of the power through the switch and down the traveler, and it all makes sense (I think) until I realize we have more lights than just the one in the diagram, and so I try to visualize all those black and white and red wires and the difference between running it all in series or parallel, and just about that time, my brain implodes.
Hang it all.
And so I go put on my rain boots and splash in some puddles with Z.
I would like electricity to be simple. Like plumbing. You know. You have water that comes in through a pipe, and it flows in one direction out of the faucet and into the drain pipe. See? Easy. But don't forget the p-trap. That is important. That holds a little water to block all the nasty smells that would come back up through the pipe from the sewer. Oh, then don't forget the vent pipe. That helps the water drain. But does that go before or after the p-trap? Or does it matter?
I have a physics degree. You would think that I would be smart enough to handle all of this. And it's true. I am smart enough. But also dumb enough to think I have to understand every little detail. And so I pore over diagrams, tracing out the path of the power through the switch and down the traveler, and it all makes sense (I think) until I realize we have more lights than just the one in the diagram, and so I try to visualize all those black and white and red wires and the difference between running it all in series or parallel, and just about that time, my brain implodes.
Hang it all.
And so I go put on my rain boots and splash in some puddles with Z.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Back to the Grind
The two weeks of kids and husband off from school and work are over. Two weeks without having to wake up to an alarm, and now we are all in a bit of shock. I used to be able to sleep through Chris's 5 a.m. alarm, but can't anymore. I doze back out just before my alarm goes off at 6:30. Oh, well. The kids, who all got into the habit of staying up late in spite of my protests (Daddy kept sabotaging my attempts to get them to bed at a reasonable time), are rather difficult to get up and moving. I literally had to dress Joe on Tuesday.
On the flip side, I have my mornings back. After the kids are dropped off at school, Zivah wanders off to find something to do, and I have time to myself. I do not miss the hour or two of Good Morning America or the Today show that Chris insisted on watching every morning while he was off. (I swear, it was like having another woman in the house. I mean, really... Do other men actually watch those shows? One afternoon I came home from running errands to find him watching Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil!)
This is not to say that Chris was lazy during his time off. Not by any means. He got a lot of plumbing done on the house. On one of his trips to Home Depot (or Lowe's- I can't remember) he ran across some clearance items and bought $500 worth of plumbing fixtures for just over $100. That was exciting. Having all the faucets for the bathrooms and kitchen makes it feel like this thing really is possible. Some days it feels like we'll be in this trailer until the day we die, but I have hope again.
Today, my mom came over and helped me hang the recessed lights in the kitchen and living room. Of course, it nearly drove me crazy trying to get the lights perfectly spaced. It is impossible. Just when you think you have it, a ceiling joist is right where a light needs to go. So it's not perfect. But no one will notice. (If you do, please don't tell me. It might just send me over the edge.)
On the flip side, I have my mornings back. After the kids are dropped off at school, Zivah wanders off to find something to do, and I have time to myself. I do not miss the hour or two of Good Morning America or the Today show that Chris insisted on watching every morning while he was off. (I swear, it was like having another woman in the house. I mean, really... Do other men actually watch those shows? One afternoon I came home from running errands to find him watching Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil!)
This is not to say that Chris was lazy during his time off. Not by any means. He got a lot of plumbing done on the house. On one of his trips to Home Depot (or Lowe's- I can't remember) he ran across some clearance items and bought $500 worth of plumbing fixtures for just over $100. That was exciting. Having all the faucets for the bathrooms and kitchen makes it feel like this thing really is possible. Some days it feels like we'll be in this trailer until the day we die, but I have hope again.
Today, my mom came over and helped me hang the recessed lights in the kitchen and living room. Of course, it nearly drove me crazy trying to get the lights perfectly spaced. It is impossible. Just when you think you have it, a ceiling joist is right where a light needs to go. So it's not perfect. But no one will notice. (If you do, please don't tell me. It might just send me over the edge.)
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