Farm Update

It's Monday morning, and I am slowly starting to deal with the aftermath of laundry, dishes, and the million other little things that get neglected over the weekend.

Last week, in spite of my better judgement, I bought some chicks. There are a lot of reasons I can think of why I shouldn't have gotten any. For one, I am a little tired of chickens following me around the yard every time I go outside. I am a little tired of chickens sneaking onto the porch and pooping there. I am a little tired of their poop in general, as it sometimes gets tracked into the house. I am a little tired of Chris yelling at the kids for rolling around on the ground outside because there might be poop. And I have yet to plant any nice flower gardens for fear the chickens will scratch it all apart. I have grand plans to build a coop between two large fenced in areas where I can alternate the garden and chicken run, and a smart woman would probably wait to build that first before she bought more chicks. But apparently, I am not smart enough or irritated enough at my current chickens to withstand the temptation of those fluffy, little birds. So I bought some chicks.

Intending to come home with only a half dozen or so, I ended up with twelve. They spent the better part of the week in a cardboard box in the spare room. The kids were delighted, and manhandled the chicks for hours on end. It soon became imperative to build a brooder in the shop, since it was obvious some of the chicks were anxious to test their winglets and had come close to escaping the box.

Once I had scrapped together the brooder, I folded up the flaps on the box, and carried it to the shop. There, I let Finley and Z move the chicks from the box to their new home. When Chris got home later, and I showed him my handiwork, he thought to count the chicks. Eleven. So I counted them. Eleven. I counted them again. Eleven. There was no way a chick could get out of the new brooder. We went back to the trailer, and searched the rooms for the lost chick. Nothing. Was it possible it had died somewhere out of sight? We guessed we would find out later when it started to stink. We headed back to the shop for one final count. Twelve. Apparently one of them has a cloaking device.

Also on the 'to-do' list for the weekend was a fencing project. The calves have outgrown their little paddock, and we needed to put up a fence to block off the pasture behind our new house. Terry came over with his tractor and auger, and away we went. By the end of the day Saturday, we had all the posts up, the fence stretched, and were working on securing the fence to the posts. I haven't worked that hard in a long time.

We still need to brace some posts and hang the gates, but it shouldn't be too long before the calves have some space to run.