"Farm Livin' is the Life for Me..."

This weekend the boys had a little “hoot-nanny” while the girls took a trip to Asheville about two hours from here. Gayle was attending classes to become a Doula there and Kaitlin went along for the ride so she could snap some pictures in the mountains. Shortly after the girls left the boys hosted some of Chris’s new church friends for a birthday party. Kristen was turning twenty-two and wanted to have a bonfire to celebrate. Of course Ed and Nate would not want to disappoint one of Chris’s good friends by denying such a request, so, off they went rounding up fuel for said fire. There are a lot of things to use for fuel on the farm and before we knew it we had built a two Nate fire. Much like a yard was defined as the distance from the Kings fingertip to his nose, the fires around here are measured in multiples of Nate’s height (approximately six feet equals one Nate). By midnight we had disposed of all of our scrap lumber from the chicken coop and cleaned out a portion of the woods as well. Lots and lots of BTU’s. It was a welcomed diversion after the boys put in some long days of work. Nate and Kaitlin and Chris have all been putting in their time laboring and cultivating and are very appreciated.

The chicken coop is all but finished for our soon to arrive poultry pals. We just have to run electricity for the brooding lamps and we will be dining on soufflé’s and quiche in no time. At least the girls will. Ed and the boys will be thinking about what to do with their first million dollars from selling organic free-range chicken eggs. (It would actually take one hundred chickens thirty-nine years to lay one million eggs, so no one is quitting their jobs quite yet.) The coop should be very comfortable for our egg-laying princesses though, however many eggs they lay.

The old tractor was brought out last week to brush hog the weeds from the future pond. The weeds were so thick that we couldn’t see what we had to deal with. A brush hog is an attachment for the tractor that looks like a large lawn mower but is as vicious as a shark attack. It cuts down weeds and small trees, mulches, rids the property of snakes and undesirable rodents and even pulverizes rocks. A regular horticultural landscaping exterminating wonder. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the slope and grade should be excellent for building a pond. The finished product should be an acre or more and will store water for livestock and irrigation.

And for those of you that have been following the saga of our hatching soap opera (One Peep to Live or Days of Our Hens) we are happy to report that on further examination, with the use of Ed’s homemade egg candling apparatus, we do have chicken progress. Based on our data and recalculation of gestation and incubation calculations (this time with the correct dates) we should have peepers by the fourteenth just in time for the Simmerer clan to visit from the Great White North. We do unfortunately have to share the news that our well traveled eggs that accidentally made a side trip to Cleveland before coming to the farm are showing fewer than expected probable hatchers. But on the upside those that do hatch are going to be tough as nails and may not use the term “Ya’ll” or “Youinz” frequently in conversation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that….

Chris did get to spend another day on the Apple Tree Farm with our friend Art. Some branches came down on the pasture fence and Art and Chris needed to repair the holes before Art's Angus went AWOL. Throughout the day Chris noticed that the relationship between Art and his cows was much like a game of chess. Art continually tries to fool the cows into going where he needs them to while they continually attempt to circumvent all of Arts efforts to control them. The day was filled with Art muttering about the stupid cows under his breath and Chris laughing at their antics. Art again sent Chris home with goodies including two varieties of grapes for the "vineyard" and some flowers for Gayle. We are really blessed to have a friend like Art that has been farming for thirty eight years to keep an eye on us. I wonder if Art is almost at his millionth egg.....?