Holidays and Birthdays

As usual at Crooked Gate Farm the entertainment is often disguised as farm animals doing their thing as God intended. We are sure that our ancestors that relied on their farms as the sole method of providing sustenance for the entire family found little if any humor in animal antics, but we sure are amused regularly by the group dynamics and species specific idiosyncrasies.

The week started somewhat anxiously when John Adams took exception to Chris attempting to be nice and give him some attention, resulting in a beak shaped laceration on Chris's hand. Obviously rooster number one has no idea that Chris is well versed in the martial arts and his hands could be registered as lethal weapons. Chris, as usual, was gracious and decided that he was not in the mood for chicken stew that night so Mr. Adams continues on, believing that he is Lord of the Manor and we are here to serve him.

On the other hand he has figured out that Ed is always so pre-occupied and busy with farm tasks that if you bother him he will throw some corn your way to get you to leave him alone. Now every time Ed walks past the big chickens they follow him until he provides the treats.

The little chickens (twenty-three of them) are now four weeks old and have grown from cotton balls to pigeon size and have all of their feathers. The original brooder box could no longer house them so alternative accommodations have been constructed. The crew has moved from eight square feet into twenty-four square feet. We are still keeping them separated from the large chickens until all of their chicken training is complete. The chicken races are still very entertaining and Super Chicken is always the favorite to come away with the prize (crickets or worms).

On December sixth Woody and Charlotte celebrated their second birthday by taking a trip to Mayberry. Yes, I said Mayberry with Sheriff Andy, Opie, Barney and the whole crew. Mayberry is actually modeled after the town that Andy Griffith grew up in about an hour north of us called Mount Airy. If you stand in downtown Mount Airy you can see Pilot Mountain (Mount Pilot in the show) in the background. When we arrived in Mayberry the locals were just getting ready to kick off the annual Christmas parade (people down here still call it Christmas, not “The Holidays” or some other white washed, P.C., tree hugging, lefty, why can’t we all just get along term) right down main street past the diner and Floyd’s Barber Shop. We managed to drive down Main Street just before the parade and see some of the beautiful homes and landmarks while thousands of onlookers wondered who we were and why we were in the front of the parade. Gayle was just a touch uncomfortable being stared at but Ed was very excited to see Otis, the town drunk complete with his brown jug of hooch. We managed to escape before the Mount Airy High School marching band caught up with us and headed for home, stopping at our new Sunday afternoon hot spot, the feed store.

Chris spent Monday at farmer Art’s place helping him clean up for the winter. We are grateful that Art is recovering from his mule incident, although slowly. The task of the day was cleaning out the pigpen after three weeks. Chris said that after you get used to the smell it’s still no fun. Again the whole family benefits from Chris’s labor as Art sent him home with some top quality grain fed beef and pork. Art also mentioned that he would be interested in sharing some space in his roadside stand next season, which may be a great way to begin to market the sixty thousand pounds of tomatoes that you can harvest on one good acre. We’re going to need a bigger truck!