Tick, Tick, Tick...

There is something about being in farm country in the South that is repeatedly teaching us that patience is a virtue. It seems that no matter how much of a hurry we are in to accomplish and see results, God, the Postal Service and some of the locals don’t care. There is no such thing as a New York minute here and we must constantly remind ourselves to slow down and quit trying to swim up stream. That being said, our chickens still are not chickens. They are pre-chickens. We have been faithfully rotating eggs every eight hours (Ed does the midnight flip) so that the chicks aren’t born lop-sided, but they are still just eggs. We have been wondering if we were fooled into believing that the eggs need to be rotated three times a day for their twenty-one day incubation (much like sending your unknowing wife to the hardware store for a left handed monkey wrench and a ten pound bag of air to lighten up the concrete that is being mixed) but continue our rotation practice anyway. The eggs are due to hatch sometime around October 5th unless our algebraic formula is incorrect and then they will be born on the 13th.

The cat and dogs on the other hand have adjusted well to the pace and have no problem lying around. Woody and Charlotte have actually shown our cat Milo the prime shade spots around the yard. The only time any of them hurry is dinnertime.

Gayle has the house decorated for fall with some local produce. She continues to re-arrange furniture and storage in an endless pursuit of the right look and efficient work flow patterns. We have removed most of the boxes and furniture that we are going to use in the house from the semi trailer and need to move it farther back in the driveway so we can start calling it “the barn”. Hopefully we will be able to start building the barn in the spring so that we can sell the trailer. If it is here to long we may have to paint it red and put a mural of cows in a pasture on it for some rural camouflage.

The chicken coop is getting sporadic attention and is nearing completion. The windows are in, the roof is on and siding will be finished this weekend. The project is a typical one that Ed does. It started off with used lumber and cheap windows and finished with a full tin roof and cedar siding. The budget for the project has been adjusted on a daily basis (always up). Ed must think that he is still managing the budget at the fire department. The house will be long gone before the chicken coop. It could end up becoming a historical landmark building in 100 short years. But the eggs are still just eggs.

Chris continues to study planting and composting and animal husbandry. He has begun to prepare the soil and staked out the new greenhouse. The greenhouse should allow us to grow a lot of vegetables year round. His cold weather crops are progressing well and he just planted more lettuce and spinach. He is hoping to spend another day under the tutelage of Art Duckworth on the Apple Tree Farm. Art has offered Chris some guinea hens in trade for hours. Guinea hens are prolific bug and pest eaters and are fairly self sufficient, although incredibly dumb birds. We believe they may be a cross between a Dodo and a Lemming. They are somewhat like watch dogs because they alarm when someone approaches the property but will walk into traffic for no apparent reason and follow each other around in a group. If nothing else they are very entertaining, not that we aren’t constantly amused by what we are seeing and doing now.