Tag: poultry

There, with the grace of God, went I: part III of III

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Wherein I explore a very big lake and discover I am ready to go home…

Having spent Saturday at the Bantam show, and on the road, I was glad for a lazy morning on Sunday.  But in no time at all we were back on the road with Jayme’s sister escorting us, and we had her nephew in tow.

Poor guy thought he was going to be home doing the normal boy in charge, teenager home alone shenanigans, and suddenly there was a carload of old ladies down in the parking lot demanding his presence!  (As seen through the 14 yr. old’s perspective.)

He has that effect on you.  You just want him around because he is so spontaneous and fun!

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Deja Vu?  No, you’ve seen this before… Jayme borrowed my cake picture, and I borrowed one of hers.. Turnabout is fair play they say!

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And then we were off to the Dunes, with a side trip to a very ancient barn complete with …

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Barn cats

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A carload of other old ladies showed up with a trunk load of cat food to feed them all.  I wondered at the time if this wasn’t the place where everyone came to dump unwanted kitties… lots of kitties…

I have this love of old barns.  I discovered them when I was eighteen and traveling from Southern California to my first duty station in Pensacola Florida.  As I entered the southern states they started popping up in the fields here and there and I wanted to draw every one of them.  Sadly, they are slowly being torn down and the wood repurposed for other projects like tables and shelving…

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I liked how the light came in through the window and lit up the angles on these beams.

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Old Barns Have Character

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It makes me sad to think of them no longer existing in their proper form as… barns.

Interesting observation here, the barns in Kentucky were for the most part painted a very dark charcoal black, and the barns in Indiana are mostly painted white.  Why is that? (A rhetorical question, but if you know the answer do tell!)

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Milking Room Deep Down Below

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Underneath it all there was a milking room.  I would have dearly loved to get inside to take pictures, but could not figure out how to get in there.  So we will all have to be content with pictures through a broken window… for which I gingerly got down on all fours in broken glass and balanced my camera on the ledge to get.  Be satisfied with the results, as they were the best to be had under these conditions.

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On the way to the dunes I saw this one and made poor Jayme’s sister pull over so I could get a picture of it…  I’m hating the blue tarp covered something on the side, but the sky and the whole effect are really beautiful.  It was just such a day!

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The Dunes, as they are called, is a beach on Lake Michigan.  Honey if you are from anywhere else in the country and you see the Great Lakes on a map, well you think “Yeah, wow, big lakes alright.”  But then you  get there and it’s like looking at the ocean… with the sun setting all wrong…

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Massive…

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It is a surrealistic sensation, causing introspection and a feeling of aloneness, yet comforting in a strange way…

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And then suddenly, all too soon,  our day was drawing to a close.  The sun was setting …

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And we were on the way back to The Coop Keeper’s  home.

My visit was almost over and I felt sad to think it.  Jayme had cared enough to open her home to me, a stranger.   She took me to see chickens in Ohio, and a Great Lake.  We went antique and thrift shopping (which my husband just will not do).  We talked, laughed, shared and did all the things that best friends do, and it was like we had known each other for years.

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I’d had a wonderful stay, and in the morning it would be time to go home.

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End Part III

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The Epilogue posts  tomorrow…

It’s the little things in life

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Today I had a friend over, a new friend actually!  She is one of my egg customers.  Usually, I bring her eggs to her where she works, but this week she asked if she couldn’t come get them from me here and “…save me the trouble.”

My first reaction was to say no.  This is principally because I’m just not a good housekeeper.  Now my friend Jayme is an absolutely immaculate housekeeper.  She stresses about it and admits it freely!  Me?  Not so much.  It is not for lack of wanting a clean house, but it just seems that no matter how I try I just never get it all done.  That is of course unless company is coming!  Then I race about cleaning everything till it sparkles and make sure all is tidy and put away.  My guests arrive and always say how lovely everything is and I smile, and I’m stressed, wondering what horrid thing I may have forgotten to take care of…  I think I would actually die of mortification should someone find out what a slob I can really be.  Generally speaking I do not have a good time when friends come over because I stress too much.

Well, that was then, and this is now.  Now I live in the sticks, more or less, and I have this constant dust that seems to creep into every nook and cranny no matter how hard I try to keep it out.  My poor couch after traveling nearly three thousand miles cross-country has a rather large smudge on one arm that would not come out, not completely anyway.   Adding insult to injury it has been rather over loved by my then kitten Clause, who bared the corners by using it as a scratching post when no one was looking…  I cannot afford a new couch at the moment, so I am currently looking for something to cover it with, to make do, until it can be replaced.

And so it was that today I dusted and vacuumed the living room, made sure the guest bath (which is vintage early 60’s in decor and looks it) was clean and sanitized for visitors.   The rust stains in the sink remain, the two tiles I replaced with the mysterious, ever dirty looking caulking were cleaned and will return over the next few days to their ugly and dirty looking  patina, but hey, I made the effort!

And then Marie arrived bearing unexpected gifts!

She brought lovely flowers and a pumpkin spice loaf, and I was surprised that she would go to the trouble to do this,  for me.   We talked quite awhile over coffee about everything, and then we went out so she could meet the menagerie of the Farmlet.  I introduced her to my geese, pointed out my hennies in the field and then showed her the inner world of my beehive (via the safety of the window on the side, because she’s afraid of bees!) and then we went to see the little broody hen and looked into her nest …

And there was a broken egg, and just for a moment I was upset, but then I realized we’d arrived at a birth!  The egg was hatching!  That was a special gift for me and her.  I can’t tell you who was the more excited to see such a thing.  Peeking through the little hole we could see the baby chick moving and struggling to free itself, to be out and into the world at large.

Later, after Marie left, I went out with my camera to take pictures and found my new baby had made its arrival.  It was still wet under Momma Hen!

Isn’t it darling?

So, over the next few days I’ll watch and wait to see how many more will hatch!

Now just a moment ago I read a comment from Cindy, a long distance friend who commented on my blog today.  She shared:

“I think you live in a dreamworld.  Thank you for sharing it.”

And I tell you all that I share the little things in my life with you because I must.  Somehow, I feel that not sharing would make my life  a parallel to this age old philosophical question:

“If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Thus similarly…

If all the wonder and beauty that surrounds me is kept to myself and never shared… does it exist?

It’s the little things in the life I lead, the lessons learned, these daily gifts from God that are affirmations of his love for me, and I must share.  And along the way I learn to accept me, to make peace with dust and holey couch corners, and through the process of acceptance of my foibles…

I make new friends.

A Bit of Chicken Humor: or the truth about eggs

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Chickens the world over have one thing in common.  They all lay eggs.  The process of  ‘puberty,’ if you will, begins at about age 4 to 6 months on average.  The event is always spectacular to hear.  She lays her egg in the nest and then begins a litany of clucking that could raise the dead and will begin the other hens to clucking as well.  Every day and every time.

All of them.

Nineteen of them.

Now you might begin to suspect this would be annoying to hear every day, but it isn’t.  Well, not to me anyway.  I hear the cackling begin and think it is all for fun to them.  Seriously.  Why just the other day I heard them all laughing at a something Tippy The Buff Polish was clucking…

Gaaaak! KAK, Kak, kak…!  and Cuck, cuk, cuc, and cackle-cackle currrrrr, etc.

Translation?

Tippy the BP:

“Ahhh, ha-ha-ha!   Girls listen to this!

Today I snapped up five brown beetles,two juicy green worms, and a couple of spiders hiding out back.  Mmmmm… and for dessert I had this giant Palmetto bug!  (whispered) Then I found this…

Oh! Hey girls… Shhh!   SHHHHHH!   Here comes  the Lady of the Farmlet with her basket to steal my hard work!”

All the Girls:

*“Caaaaak, Cac-Cac-cac-cack!”

Well, I actually could be grossed out by all, but the truth of it is this:

If my chickens were not left out to pasture each day my eggs would be bland and boring!  This is because it is the grasses, weeds, seeds, and well, bugs that make the lovely orange color in the yolks.   You just won’t find it in store-bought eggs.  My girls are also wonderful, organic pest control and garden fertilizers as well.

Now eggs come in many sizes and colors.

( http://www.dreamthymefarm.com/farmproducts.html )

The first eggs are usually small, an inch in diameter or so measured through the middle, and as time goes by the hen matures and they get much larger.

However, sometimes the younger hen will produce this…

© Lynda Swink  and “Life on the Farmlet,” 2010

It is called a “Double Yolker” and it is produced by an immature hen.   When two yolks come into the egg chamber they are encapsulated into the shell as one.

Poor little hens!

Rest assured, this is not a lifelong condition!   Thankfully, it is intermittent lasting only about a month at the beginning of laying.

So, while I may appreciate all my Girls do for me and love to eat their eggs, I am nevertheless glad I am not a chicken!

“:< >

*The sound a chicken makes when it’s laughing at you.

Thoughts on the price of eggs…

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As you are aware I am back in the chicken egg business again.  To say that the business proposition does not make one wealthy is an understatement, but for the most part the sales pay for feed and scratch.

If I let myself start thinking on it, as I am now, I can get a bit perturbed.  Why you ask?  Well, it’s this way, if I sold my Farm Fresh, Pasture Raised Hen’s Eggs at the farmer’s markets over in Madison, I could get $3.50 a dozen for them.  If I lived in Connecticut,  like Red Bee Marina Marchese, I could get $5.00 a dozen!  As it is, I live here in N. Alabama in a tiny farming burgh and try to sell mine for $2.50 per dozen… but the potential customers scoff at the price.

Here is a recent example of what I am up against:

I finally spent the money to put up a sign on the main road to point potential customers to the Farmlet.  So after three days of not getting even a nibble… I got a customer!

The lady gets out of her car and carefully walks across the lawn.  She’s one of those heavyset ladies with the tightly curled and blue tinted hairdo that ladies of a certain age are all so fond of.  When she gets to the door and rings I open it and politely greet her.

She says, “How much foh yuh eggs?”

I say,  “$2.50 a dozen”

Upon hearing the price I see her eyebrows have shot up and she is now clenching the clasp of her handbag and holding it to her ample bosom.  After the momentary shock wears off she drawls, “That’s way moah the the stoah’s sellin’m foh!”

To which I politely explain that mine were after all laid yesterday,  my hens aren’t kept in inhumane conditions, if she tries them she will surely like them because they have far better flavor than what she will find at the grocery.  And finally, was she aware that the grocery store eggs can be well over a month old by the time she buys them?

She gives me a hesitant look, and I realize that I’m loosing her as a customer… so I quickly blurt, “If you bring me your carton back for me to refill it will give you .25 cents off of your next dozen!”

To which she replies “How much do ya’ll want for your eggs?”

I caved.  I told her, “For you $2.00 after the discount.”

At that, she pried open her handbag and peeled two dollars out of her wallet to hand to me.

I have not seen her again and its been two weeks.  Maybe she just doesn’t eat that many eggs?

Who can say?

In the meantime I have found an outlet for my surplus eggs!  I am selling them at the Farmers Co-op downtown!  So OK, I am still not getting rich, but at least I am selling all of my eggs now!   And that’s a happy thing!  “:<>

Here’s an update!

Yesterday the lady I told you about (above) came back to buy another dozen eggs.  This was nice!  But what made it spectacular was that she has reserved in advance three dozen for the 8th of August!

“Nah remembuh…” she reminds me, “… that’s three dozen on thuh 8th. of August.  I wanna send some home with mah friend who’s visiten from Nawth Caralina!”

I love this lady!

*  Click HERE to find out more information on the health benefits and differences of “Pastured” vs.  “Free Range” and “Factory Farm”  hen’s eggs.