The Wife's Log: April 14, 2016

The day started like any other day. The Pied Piper was sent outside to milk the goat, he returned in the house fifteen minutes later whining that the goat was not cooperating.
The Farmer's Daughter had to leave for work, but went down to milk the goat for the brother instead.
Meanwhile, the Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter (who just had a birthday) madly was doing her own chores so she could go and enjoy her new kayak on the pond.
The Wife drove the Farmer's Daughter to work and sent the Farm-boy Trio out to help Dear Farmer finish preparations for the incoming 1000 chicks this morning.
The Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter finished her work and pleaded to go kayaking on the pond. She took with her the Pied Piper.  The Keeper of the Flame and WhizBang! were anxiously anticipating the soon-to-be chick delivery. It is always amazing how the Wife can find jobs for waiting people to do...they began a job and disappeared "under the radar"(which means the Wife doesn't see them again)...
Left alone in the house with the smallest Farmer's Daughters, the Wife tried desperately to get dressed and clean the kitchen from the onslaught of breakfast.  With three "helpers"...it was going slowly.
In walked the Farmer's Shadow, who had a cold for the past few days and couldn't manage to get up and collect eggs.  He had been feeling well enough to make a dime, and brought in three dozen eggs that he found. He began sorting through the hay in the egg basket for the eggs in the middle of the kitchen floor. Hay all over one's kitchen floor, does not make a cleaning process go faster or smoother.
While changing a diaper and giving orders to the egg sorter a faint "Mother? Mother?" is heard above the roar of life.  The Haus Frau Farmer's Daughter was back with the Pied Piper--both wet.  Apparently all of kayaking is fun, except for the part when the electronic device slides out of the back pocket and lands in the murky bottom of the farm-pond. Tears were shed over the device that she was sure kept her world revolving...but lesson learned:  Don't go kayaking with anything in your pockets.
During the tears, and before the laughter, the chicks came in. Out went the Keeper of the Flame and the WhizBang!Farmer's Daughter to settle them down in brooding houses with Dear Farmer.
Into the house whooshed the Farmer's Daughter with a friend for a lesson on the attachment of fake eyelashes.  Upstairs echoed giggling and laughter. Downstairs we were preparing for a (hopefully) early lunch. With four helpers making lunch, snitching ingredients, and generally causing chaos lunch did happen.  All were called with a whistle.
Downstairs whooshed the Farmer's Daughter with friend to the next appointment.
In came Dear Farmer...the 1000 chicks were short...by 800???  On the phone went Dear Farmer to find out where 800 chicks are peeping currently.  In came the children to snarf down food, all are excited about being next to try out the kayak.  The Youngest Farmer's Daughter Trio is just too small to kayak.  Great tragedy's of life are often solved by popcorn and a movie about a dancing British mouse.  Which works once again today!
Clean up in the kitchen goes much faster without help.
The Pepper Goat was arguing with the Garlic Goat, and the Garlic Goat snapped the Pepper Goat's neck. Tears shed over the loss of a pack-goat, but quickly recovered with another ride on a kayak.
The Nordic Ninja is over to replace headlights and tail-lights with Dear Farmer. The Farmer's Daughter whooshes back home to change into work clothes and whooshes out again to evening work.
No one can find the 800 missing chicks currently, they are somewhere in the USPS(where I am sure someone is going mad listening to unrelenting peeping). Dear Farmer is working to build and wire infastructure, while at the same time keeping the phone nearby in case he hears word of the chicks.
And now, onto those dinner preparations...at 6pm the whole family will be at the table, there will be laughter of the fun, remembering the losses, and encouragement that we can all do this again tomorrow.
This is an amazing world we live in!

The Hunt is On!

Now that the snow is gone, and warm days have begun, the chickens are re-establishing their egg laying spots and routines.
This means...not all the chickens are laying eggs inside the coop.  Some of those chickens, the renegades, are laying in the barn, on the hay, in the window wells, in the tiger-lilies, and on my front stoop.
The eggs on my front stoop aren't hard to find.  It's all the other eggs.
So, who's job was it last year to find eggs?
Well, we aren't really sure who was assigned to do it, and who actually did it every day...so we needed to make sure that this job was covered.  We needed someone who wouldn't get distracted, someone who would be thorough, someone who would be careful with the eggs(not to bring up a dozen cracked ones)...the choice person was the Wife.  She's just too busy.
We chose the Farmer's Shadow.  He's great at the job!
Everyday is an exciting adventure to find as many eggs as he can!  AND he gets paid for each (uncracked) egg that he brings in!
So the hunt is on!!!

The Thrill of Discovery!

Winter is a gigantic treasure hunt on the farm.  Things that were supposed to be put away the night before are covered by a white blanket of snow in the morning. Chickens are hiding in the hay bales to stay warm. Goats are burying themselves under hay to stay warm.  Dogs are burrowing bones and toys to keep away from chickens and goats who might want them.
Often through the day we use these opportunities to be treasure seekers. Sending the Farm-boy Trio to find the shovels...was it really an accident they were left out?  Perhaps they were hoping that the snow would make the shovels melt-away?  That glove that the HausFrau Farmer's Daughter let the puppy hold...he's now burrowed it away to insure she returns with him later.
But the absolutely most wonderful discovery is the EGGS!
As the cold gets colder our independent chickens like to hide their eggs, if they lay one. So eggs become like "gold".  There are many things that we simply won't make in the winter due to lack of eggs.  Eggs for breakfast is the first to go...Eggs in recipes are counted.  Happy are the days that we find more than four eggs!  Exciting are the days that we can have a full dozen in the fridge!
We talk about the days of having eggs as though they were years ago, with wars and children between them. Really...it was a short two months ago...
It is something that we look forward to returning to...the day we find TWO DOZEN EGGS!

Dear Farmer is "Old Fashioned"

I know that title surprises you, doesn't it?!
Dear Farmer spent the day battling the weather.  Freezing snow and rain mix pelted him all day.  Add to that the loveliness of high winds and biting cold, it was perfect winter weather for the North.  That is what Dear Farmer worked in all day.  Walking back and forth between hay feeders, with hay and without hay to get more hay. Opening and closing hydrants for water tanks.  Carrying feed buckets for the chickens, watering the chickens, gathering eggs, building pens for the goats and "polar bear"-puppy in the barn, so they were sheltered from the weather, and chasing calves (who were jumping through the feeders) back into the barnyard.  That was all Dear Farmer did, all day, twelve hours.
Now when Dear Farmer walked in the door to the house(frozen) he relaxed in the warm room next to the woodstove...and picked up a book.  Totally oblivious to the bug-eyed teenage Farmer's Daughters sitting on the couches in the room.  The girls had a crazed look in their eyes.  The look that said, "I haven't talked to anyone but my family ALL DAY!"  There were dolls on the floor mixed with legos and pattern blocks, a nice array of board books and wood chips decorated the area directly where he sat thawing.  But he didn't notice.  Suddenly, as if the veil had been lifted from his face, he saw everything.  The Farmer's Daughters, the mess, the twitching eyebrow on the Wife's face.
"Eh?" , said Dear Farmer
He was answered (enthusiastically) by all the Farmer's Daughters all at once.  Though it sounded like dull humm of an outboard motor in water, there was one common thread he could understand from all the girls..."The storm has taken out the internet!"{GASP!}
What that means is on this particularly miserable day, while all the children had off school-work, they were cooped up inside and not one of them could stream a video, not one could text a friend, no one could check out the blogs, the news, or social media of any kind.  It had been a day where all they can do was read a book or talk to eachother.  They played games together, they painted eachother's nails, they drew pictures of animals, we had conversations.  It was a great day!  But quite frankly the Wife was ready to have everyone go to bed, her ears had begun to ring from so much interaction. (thus the twitching eyebrow).
But the internet being gone was no big deal for Dear Farmer.  He was glad it was gone...we had an old fashioned evening.  All was quiet, the Old Fashioned kind of quiet.

Dear Farmer counts his chicks before they've hatched!

Dear Farmer just ordered chickens to follow the cows (being the cow-vets) in the mobile chicken coop for next year!  It's a very exciting day!!!  First he got to make someone at the hatchery very excited when he placed an order for 240chicks to come in this year (next year he'll order the remain 160 chicks we need)! Then he got to tell the whole family that the chicks were coming, and what kind they were, and why he chose them.  It's a beautiful thing to have an absolutely silent table of twelve people hang on your every word...and Dear Farmer loves to tell them all the details when they're listening:
He ordered Barred Rock Chickens because they have a nice temperment and are good egg layers, and later they make good stew birds.  They lay well for about four years, they have brown eggs, but the chickens don't eat ticks.
He ordered Black Australorps because they are so docile, good egg layers, they are heat-tolerant(which makes them good for summer laying) and they do eat ticks.
And he ordered a newer breed, the Madisons. They are mix between two other breeds and are supposed to be good layers and foragers, especially bred for living in the cooler weather of the north.
He ordered these three different breeds also be cause they are so diverse in color, which makes it so pretty to look at!
Every so often we get a "broody hen", which means she just wants to sit on her eggs and takes great care of them, so they will hatch. This makes collecting eggs from her a little more intimidating...she'll peck your hand, and sometimes "bite" you...but that's the exception, not the norm.
Dear Farmer's going to be busy this winter, caring for all those chicks, but he's so excited about having a great flock next year, it makes all the work worth it!

The Keeper of the Flame is in search of Unusual Eggs

One of the Keeper of the Flame's jobs is to collect eggs.  As it's quite the job of late, finding where those chickens could be hiding eggs THIS time, he's begun making it more fun.  He's in search of the unusual eggs! What are unusual eggs? That would be chicken eggs that are speckled shells, bi-colored shells, unusually small or oblong, sometimes there's double yolkers(those are really huge!), and occasionally he finds one with no shell at all!  Once he finds a dozen...he plans to sell them. "Mom, do you think $20.00 is too much for my unusual eggs?" Yes, son, I do.  It'll be another couple weeks before he has another dozen, but I think they'll go for $3.00...in case anyone's wondering.

The Great Egg Hunt

The chickens have abandoned the nesting boxes for "safer" housing...which happens to be the deck railing right outside the kitchen door.  (Side-note: do not use that door.  The Kirby Salesman found out why last night, as he stepped in fresh chicken poop and realized he was surrounded by sleeping chicken butts.  He didn't really try to sell us the vacuum after that.)  One of the results of this is the hunt for where the chickens are laying the eggs...because they aren't using the nesting boxes or the deck.  This summer children were finding eggs in the bushes, the goat pen, the tiger-lilies, and even on the driveway.  As the temperature has decreased, so have the number of places the chickens have been laying.  So the hunt was on!  Where were the chickens laying a dozen eggs a day???  The Wife had a treasure hunt list for the children to work off of, "Did you look in the: playhouse?garage?stroller?Burley?grill?4wheeler?3wheeler?little truck bed?big truck bed?...."
After a month of finding (maybe) one egg a day, the Keeper of the Flame(oldest of the Farm-boy Trio) came in with his shirt bulging! He did it!  He found a nest with three dozen eggs in it!  Ooooo....how long did he suppose they had been there?  So the eggs were tested using the sink/float method. Bad eggs are supposed to float, and good eggs are supposed to sink.  It's really not 100% accurate, but it gives a good idea of whether or not you want to crack one open.  These are the eggs that we put in the fridge and mark "Crack with caution".  Where did he find the nest?  In the middle of the hay-bales!
Now, in order to reach the eggs in the middle of the hay bales, one must meet certain criteria.  One must be shorter than four-feet, small enough to fit in a foot-and-a-half opening, not be claustrophobic, not be allergic to hay, and willing to squeeze into a small dark cave of hay in order to hand out chicken eggs....The Wife does not meet the criteria.  So, the Wife, should she desire eggs, must make the job of getting the eggs as desirable as she can. Not wishing that any of her children should be found on a couch in a fetal position explaining the deep-rooted reasons of their fear of scrambled eggs as the job they had as a child...the Wife must stay up-beat and positive about spelunking for eggs!
Promises of brownies for breakfast, cookies for snack, and french toast for dinner abounded and children volunteered to procure the eggs for the Wife!!!  Daily we have a dozen eggs, now.  How absolutely wonderful!!! The prize was so worth the hunt!