They Made It!

Our chicken eggs finally arrived today and we were a bit under whelmed. Jennifer at the post office was diligently watching for our little friends to arrive and excitedly called us at 8:30 this morning to tell us the good news. The Mount Ulla post office is about the size of a standard two-car garage. I am not sure if Jennifer is a postal clerk or the postmaster, or maybe all of the above, but she was more than pleased to afford us some special attention and offer some chicken rearing advice as well. I couldn’t help but notice that the eggs look just like the ones we buy at the grocery store to eat, same carton, same shells. I don’t know what I expected. I guess we would have all been surprised if they had smiling faces peering through windows in the shells or they were bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans. Being the cynic that I am I ordered another two dozen hatching eggs from our egg supplier last night. I think it's improbable that you can mail eggs and have them hatch. Gayle is anxious because she is sure we are going to have forty-eight chickens soon. I think she is writing a list of forty-eight chicken names so she will be ready. Maybe I will challenge her to have them all start with the same letter.

We spent the day wiring the incubator (freezer) with controls so that it would require less time and effort during the hatching process. We installed a furnace thermostat to turn the heating element (light bulbs) on and off and attached a thermometer and hygrometer so we could monitor conditions inside. The thermostat was a great success but we will have to upgrade our humidifier so the eggs do not dry out. At bed time the temperature was steady at 100 degrees and the humidity was at sixty percent. After all of the number crunching I realized that I have spent three times what a ready made incubator would have cost and many hours attempting to avoid spending too much time on the project. I know that your own more expensive, always in need of repair and occasionally reliable homemade equipment is much better in the long run. Just ask my engineering guru and MacGyver look alike friend Rick Simmerer.

Last week Chris worked for a day on Art Duckworth’s farm, Apple Orchard Farm, about an hour from here. Art is our Organic Farming Czar. Chris spent the day repairing soaker hose, cleaning out the garden and dragging the pasture to spread out the fertilizer piles left by the cows. Art imparted on Chris the wisdom of the simpler life along with two large bags of produce and some flowers. We decided to pickle and “put up” the green tomatoes along with some heirloom hot peppers (really hot). Some time six months from now when the pickling process is done we will find out if we like pickled green tomatoes.

Chris has been letting us know lately that he does not approve of the sudden weight gain of the outside cats, Precious and Baby. We have all been noticing that since we moved in they are fattening up and spend all day lying on the deck. In the process of doing chores this week we had two separate and unappreciated mouse incidents. We decided that we were dissatisfied with the girl’s breach of contract and were considering a possible permanent and binding resolution, when, with perfect timing, out of the dark comes Precious with a varmint snack to show us, seeking our approval. After a short tail high parade and a few feigned get away attempts by the mouse she walked off to enjoy some rodent tar-tar. If that cat can't understand what we were saying then how could she have known we were talking about taking her for a ride out to farm country? Oh, wait.....

Tomorrow we will attempt to wrap up the incubator issues and put the roof on the chicken coop for our zero to forty-eight chickens.