Last weekend we were in Salt Lake City, enjoying a bit of shopping and a stay overnight in a hotel there, just to be away from home, and from chores and the like. We ate out at The Cheesecake Factory in the evening, and just did a general explore. It was a good time for all of us.
The week has been Spring Break for the kids, and for me, as their sort of official teaching coach or whaever token title the school gives me though I have to do all the teaching and instruction for my younger daughter. Well, fine and dandy then. Missus has been at work, which is at home, but still, it was work. She has earned money for it.
This weekend started today, Friday. I have been working with the kids’ help sorting out some things on the farm to ready it for some changes we have planned to make it less expensive, or even a little profitable. I am readying for a new egg flock and a meat flock in the chicken runs, and we have discussed getting a beef cow, which is a couple of weeks of bottle feeding, if we do. We have set the goats up in proper pens for two of them to give birth next month. So we expect our heard to expand there, which means I might be looking to set them up a larger place to graze and dwell. We have been trying to sort out two cats who have recently given birth, and help them get their kittens to a place that if safer than where they chose. In addition to all this, I have begun to move the rabbit pens to their new location where we want to be able to treat them to a run. I also have set up a permanant location for the chicken brooder in order to get it to a place out of the way, and yet servicable and self cleaning. It is like the rabbit hutches, where they will drop to a space below tended by other animals.
It is getting late now, especially by my standards, and I am waiting for the laundry to finish so I can wear my clean bedclothes to bed. Just a moment and they should be dry enough to extract early if need be.
We are ready to take chicks if I find any on sale now. I have starter feed at the ready, and a heat lamp plugged in. I need two parts for their brooder, and I need to fish out two feed and water dishes, then I can put some in it. It is time our younger daughter get a chance with little babies and rasing them from the start. I like the strategy of checking into a couple of the stores and getting older chicks, which are almost always marked down, and which have improved chances of survival, and started their feathers for proper self warmth, making it a little shorter period of time I have to keep a heat lamp on them. I don’t know why anyone would ‘just have to buy the downy chicks.’
Lastly, before bed, I recieved my carving knives the other day, and spent the afternoon carving like mad. It never bothered me till I quit, then it hurt, and the next morning it hurt, and the following day it hurt, and the day after, it hurt. It is only finally to where I can say it is pretty much clear. My hands hurt, my neck and upper back hurt, and of course the one spot where I stabbed myself did not hurt at all, even though I had blead profusely. Go figure!
Oh, and I must mention two housekeeping items before bed, too. It has been two or three days since I first heard the frogs for this year. I like to keep track, as they are a decent barometer of the changes of the seasons.
Today I was in the chicken run and the birds were dashing about here and there, while my daughter and I were working on the rabbit hutches. One of the hens ran from behind the A-frame to about ten feet away from us, then began to flop around, though she had no apparent sign of injury. My daughter pointed it out to me, and I said, “that one is going to die.” We went away to the shop to get a couple of tools and there was that hen, lay there as dead as can be. I told my daughter to go toss the hen into the pig pen, so she did without reservation, which I thought was pretty good for an eight year old. We have no idea why the hen died. Maybe she was somehow trampled by one of the geese? There was really nothing apparent to indicate it.
And now I bid you, goodnight.