The Pursuit of Happyness (For Chickens)

When we began the process of moving from Ohio to North Carolina we recognized that there could potentially be changes in our day-to-day activities and interactions with our neighbors and acquaintances. In an effort to bridge the gap between the Southerners and Northerners we have started to research linguistic patterns and diction differences relative to geographical, cultural and socioeconomic disparities. You may have noticed the fruit of our labors above. As we continue to adapt to life with the indigenous inhabitants we will share our verbal discoveries in a section we like to call "The Countryfied word of the day". We hope you can all learn along with us.

We are again realizing that our internal calendars are not accustomed to southern timing. While up North, friends are talking snow and beginning to wear cold weather clothing, Chris has been harvesting some of the vegetables he planted in the end of August. No, those are not beets. They are radishes THE SIZE of beets. And yes it is still warm enough here to be out all day in a sleeveless T-shirt and the sky is almost always that blue. I may never get over it. Gayle has again moved her front porch decorations to better serve the neighbors and all humanity. If she keeps this up I am going to start passing the house when I come home because I don’t recognize it.

The chicken coop is ready for our McNuggets to hatch. They will be here in three days, so we stop rotating them today. We need to give them time to figure out which way is up. I can only imagine that getting rolled over inside that tiny shell every eight hours for three weeks is like being hung over with jet lag and falling down the steps. The CIA may want to consider using this method for interrogation if they aren't allowed to water board the bad guys any more. Once the chicks hatch we lock them down in the coop for three or four weeks under the heat to keep them warm until they grow their big bird feathers. After four weeks old they can go out into the chicken yard and "free range" all they want. Our job at that point is to watch them and try to decide who looks like a good egg layer. We will keep eight to ten good "Pullets" to lay eggs. The rest will get to go on the Colonel Sanders ride at Ed’s Fun House. The hens that stay on the farm will get to live in the nicest hen house this side of the Mason Dixon line, complete with real cedar branches (naturally rot resistant) for roosting rails and central air (a retired kitchen fan).

To go along with our chicken dinner we would like a nice white wine, so, we planted grapes. As it turns out our soil needs help to grow vegetables but is perfect for grapes. There are some rather large wineries North of us and some varieties of wine grapes grow very well. We have planted two varieties of seedless eating grapes this fall but will plant two or three rows of wine grapes next year.

We are getting ready for another two or three "Nate" (see previous blog) fire this weekend when Rick and Ruth Simmerer and clan visit. We are looking forward to sitting by the fire and roasting marshmallows and then treating our radiation burns. We have a feeling that someone is coming during the night and dropping off scrap lumber and yard waste. Naturally, being a retired firefighter, Ed recognizes the hazards involved in combustible woodland materials lying around and is always prepared to promptly correct any of these hazardous situations.

Woody and Charlotte recently graduated to mans best friend level five and have been allowed to stay loose in the house if we leave for a while. They have also been adapting to large space roaming rights with only an occasional drift across the boundaries into the neighbor's perimeter. All was going well until today when Thing1 and Thing2 decided that it would be good times to explore the overgrown part of the woods and find things to eat that are not appropriate to be eaten. They returned when called with extreme guilt and certain that they were going to be busted back to level one subservient canine. Woody had managed to find some type of burr that when attached to curly dog hair is next to impossible to remove and both deviants had consumed something that made their breath smell like they were backwards. So, off to the tub for a major scrubbing and then the punishment that these dogs fear more than being left behind when we go for a car ride.....the toothbrush.