First Week Chicks

The summer flock came in this Thursday. I had a couple long days at work, and unfortunately had to spend into Wednesday night making sure the brooder was at temp, and with a proper cooling spectrum. It cools down to 70 a little to quickly. *What I mean is that directly under the lamps it is 100 degrees, but 1.5 feet away it is 70 degrees. So the chicks tend to spend more time than I like huddled under the lamps. They still run around a bit, and look healthy, but would have been a bit better if it was a few degrees warmer on the periphery. With that said I am not changing anything. Do not want those lamps lower. They are at 18inches off the floor- closer can be a fire hazard.

We got 208 chicks in. Had one dopey guy that passed, everyone else is looking great. 100 golden comets, and then 100 factory choice: partridge rock, white rock, rhode island red, black sexlink.

The brooder could have held another 100. I wish I had purchased another 100, but it cost $$$, and 200 is all the eggs I want to pack in the summer. The benefit of having another 100 chicks is the cost of heating the brooder is spread out over another 100 chicks. I have 700 watts going 24/7 right now. Next week one of the lamps gets moved away from the other two. You do this to acclimate the chicks to slightly cooler temps. Then the next week one of the 250 watts gets dropped to a 100 watt bulb, then the 100 watt bulb inside the center brood chamber gets dropped to 60 or 40, then take away one of the 100's, and start giving the chicks day access to an unheated extension of the brooder. Soon they'll be on pasture clucking and squawking when I take an egg!

Spring Ledge Farm has been buying eggs for their winter market on Fridays. Has been very nice of them, and enjoy seeing the eggs sell at retail for a good price. (They still cost less than cage-free eggs from H*n*fords down the street, and on top of that they are two or three days old at the most).

Been playing with horsey. Not last week though. This Monday.

Working on house today.

200 chicks coming in next week.

No garden this year. Wilmot Farmers Market will have chicken, milk, eggs.

Lydia freshenned. Giving 5 gallons of milk a day. One hell of a cow.

Got to remember to order bees.
Happy hens. There is supposed to be a compost pile underneath them. I add 50-100 lbs a day of vegetable scraps, and then hens run out and scratch it apart looking for whatever they want to eat. So the leftover rinds, etc. decay rather quickly because they are turned over.. In the winter they do not decay quickly because it never heats up, but the hens are happy. They get to run around outside, and scratch and peck like a chicken should. There were more hens on the pile, but I decided to make an odd, screech. Anyways, all the hens heads went up, and they went darting inside. You can see part of the field in the background. South sloped, and happily snow free. Oh that is awseome.

It's that time of year again!

The seed catalogs have come in! I've been poking around the Fedco and Seed Savers websites, peeking at new varieties, dreaming about the garden. While this year we will be cutting back on a full fledged garden in an effort to build our house, I'm taking this opportunity to try my hand at a solo garden (sans hubby help).

I'm particularly excited to try out the seeder that Ted has up in his barn. As far as varieties I'm excited about trying the Touchstone Gold Beet and planting some Lupines!

Maybe for my birthday I'll ask for a lawnmower and a weedwhacker. That'll make the front of our property look more homey.

Good things to come!

Better Half

This was the best picture I could get of Kristin. Allison came over and finished shoeing Kristin. I wasn't much in the mood to work today so we went out for a nice sleigh ride. Kristin is the oldest mare, and completely out of shape. However, she is very well learned, and a pleasure to work with. So today she pulled my fat bottom around to the back field where Zac enjoyed doing figure eights and just going around, and around and around...Next week we'll have to go out on the snowmobile trail.

The 19th Century Novel

Why is it in every Romantic Period novel or Victorian Era piece, every time a raindrop falls on some fancy tart, she falls into bed with chills and is stricken with the immediate risk of pneumonia? Was this the only plot twist authors ago could come up with? And the lady authors are the worst, like Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. She can't weather a sprinkle of a storm, but Colonel Brandon can ride horseback through the counties at night and just jump of his mount dripping only of testosterone, and a mild sweat. Sophie learns of a few false Valentines and soon she's laid up in bed near convulsions (Gaskell). And why is it that we are so terribly attracted to this...?

I used to think that a good tragedy would make the best tale; a couple in deep love split by his having to go off to war, letters through the years, the war is over he is ready to come back, she yearns for him, and a freak fire in the ammunition shed sends a random round through his heart and he is buried somewhere in France. Now there is a good novel! Till a friend recommended the movie Atonement- you see essentially that, and Zac is sitting there mouth agape murmuring, "No, no. They were in love. They were supposed to get married. IT just isn't...."

Don't play football with broken ribs

Lydia just wanted to say hello. She's freshening in 6 weeks.


And this is what I did today. I made two tenons. Not the most impressive turnout for a day. It was cold. I have never mortised and tenoned before. Yes it was inefficient. If you came up to me when I was working (and you didn't!) and asked, "What are you doing?" I'd say: No freakin idea. Do you know what I am doing because I sure don't. In fact I am just making this up as I go and kind of hoping it'll turn out right. Kinda like when the cop pulls you over for speeding, you know you were speeding, but you still give him the deer in headlights look like 'What was I doing? No waaay.' Then you swing an excuse for your hastiness, hand over your license and registration, and then wait as he walks back to his car, and wonder if you'll get a summon or if in fact your B.S. actually worked. Well here, I am waiting to see if this will in the end work. If it doesn't then I will still have something to show for it: cold fingers, cold toes, a cold duodenum, ingested snotcicles, bitterness, a pining to research condos in North Carolina, a surplus of wood chisels from a local junk shop, bitterness...oops said that one already.
Actually should work out alright. Just a cold day.

Thought at 2010

I fell asleep on the couch around 8:30 last night and woke sometime around 2. (as you can see, I am a party animal on New Years) I went outside, disconnected the charger on the Massey, collected the rabbit water bottles and then flopped into bed. It was a lovely night/morning as it was very bright. I like nights without flashlights. I was a bit morose about a decade being over considering that the last decade was nearly half on my life up until now, and most of my life experiences occurred during that period. But I was more saddened with the thought of how many decades I had left. It seems finitely little compared to the course of history the five or so decades I have left, and even more saddening was the simple thought that nearly every goal addressing climate change has target goals for 2040, 2050 or onward; and to be honest with ourselves by then most of us will be deceased or on our way there. And that thought bummed me out a bit; that at best we'll have taken care of today at a very distant twilight.