Category: Daily Mill

All I Know about Chicks

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Sorry to disappoint, but I mean the cute feathered bird.

Last week, just as we were celebrating Valentines, we got a shipment of baby chicks. (shipment of chicks? that sounds like they came via UPS, which is not the case)  This happens about twice a year, and so for a week we eat, breath and sleep chicks, until they are big enough to take care of themselves.

 

 February 07 010
See? Here they are, I know they’re soo cute you all just want to hop right on over to our place to see for yourselves.

 

Now, here are the rows.  Lots and lots of cages filled with chicks. When I was young, I thought these rows would never end, they’re so long. Young was like three years ago.  I still think the rows are too long.

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That cart is called “The Feed Cart”.  We ooze creativity around this place.  And that little thing that Elena is standing on?  I call it “The Stand.”  The stuff Brandt is sitting on? It’s “The Feed”.  Gene is dumping feed into each cage, which is what we do every day until the chicks can take care of themselves.  That’s “Becoming of Age”.  It usually happens by the time they are four days old.

 

Sitting on the Feed Cart is like being in your very own portable sandbox.

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Except it is dustier. And flakier. And smellier.

 

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A little feed dosen’t hurts anybody.

 

February 07 019
Here I am doing it all by myself for about two minutes, which drug on for an eternity, while Gene was busily fixing a water leak.  I always jump at the chance to wear a bandana and Gene’s Strober Building Supply T-shirt.
Myth: Farm girls always wear bandanas.
Fact:  Just girls who think it makes them more like a true-blue farmer.

So if you stop by and you can’t find me, I’m probably up in the chicken house. 

Gene says that was a cheesy way to end the post. So goodbye and goodnight.


 

Laundry Brings out the Best in Me

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Today while I was doing laundry I was talking , thinking about how cool it would be to be one of those people who are always prepared.  You know who I mean.  The person who just happens to have a fresh pecan pie when the unexpected, out-of-state visitors drop by for a chat.  And then she invites them to stay for supper, and pulls out a frozen casserole that has been made ahead for such occasions.  Then she runs to her garden and throws together a tossed salad, she whips out her fine china and Princess House goblets that are not  in storage in the attic, but instead, ready for drinkage in the cupboards.  Oh, and she even cuts little cherry tomatoes into roses that grace the individual salad plates.  All those thoughts led me to think of this:  Why don’t I keep whoopie pies in my freezer?  Constantly!!  Loud amen’s all around.  Seriously, this is a win/win/win.  Because:

1.        I don’t like whoopie pies.  Ok, technically I don’t hate them, but I don’t crave them at all.  I won’t be raiding the freezer for a whoopie pie like a would for a chocolate chip cookie, or a brownie, or a chocolate  mocha cheesecake or Hershey’s Bar or I think you get the picture.

2.       When people, like say, Fergie, drops by, I would always have something on hand.  No more saying things like “Well, I found some marshmallows wallowing about in the bottom of the drawer, oh also a Wheat-thin, I hope you enjoy that with your water”.  Instead I’ll breeze into the living room with a platter full of whoopie pies and say saucily “Here, I have these on hand, they are an authentic Amish treat”.

3.       People will be so impressed because everyone knows whoopie pies take forever to make.  Let them think that.  They never need to know that I just picked them up at Bird-in-Hand Bake Shop, because why in the world would I spend time making an” Authentic Amish treat” that I don’t even like?

4.       I would just love to see Fergie with that goopey whoopie pie brown teeth that you get from eating Bird-in-Hand Bake Shop’s finest.

And those are my deepest thoughts as I was doing laundry.  Pretty sad, huh?