It’s Monday morning. My husband, Charlie is off today, and with his list today involving town, he offered to take the morning carpool. Wow! For me, that means extra long mornings run. I think I will follow that with dog baths (much needed) and fixing the lattice under the porches. I have to be in to teach by three, so I will really need to stay on track if I want to get either the kids bathroom painted or the doe barn worked on before I head that way.
The chickens are noisily fussy over their favorite nesting spots out back. Sorry, girls, but if we give you all those nesting boxes filled with straw, it is beyond me why you prefer to break into shelves and push the tools and planting boxes off to the ground, only to lay your eggs on hard wood while fussing at another hen for the spot. Go figure.
Treasure seems to plan to wait until county fair to have her baby. In some ways I wonder whether she is really pregnant. But we shall see. Such are the joys of the end of kidding season, as fair quickly approaches.
Charlie and the kids just left for town, off to pick up the other carpool member on the way to the charter school we chose. It is 35 miles away, but is really challenging Bailey to excel and helping Wyatt Clay to overcome the processing issues and keep up with the advanced curriculum the maintain. As hard as it is to spend three to four hours a day on the road, this commute is their chance to compete in this life, while still having the little farm life we all love. It is truly exhausting for all of us, but we have faith it will be worth it in the end.
The stress of the farm this year has led to a lot of weight gain. I find it odd how I can follow all the rules of nutrition and fitness, and when my stress is up, my weight skyrockets, regardless of the whole calories in/ calories our ratio. So on that note, I had better get some miles under my feet!
After my morning five miles, I gave all three dogs baths- whoa. I really need to let Wyatt bring Remington along more on weekends- she has been hitting the chicken feed hard and is VERY heavy. With all the animals around here that eat chicken feed, it is a wonder that they don’t all cluck and crow. While they were finishing drying in the house, I got a shower of my own, followed by a phone call from the news station.
That is a story in and of itself. After attending a recent feed store workshop on poultry (you can never know everything- although, that Robert sure seems to!- what a treasure trove of poultry information!), we all received emails asking us to fill out a survey. I would love a workshop on every animal we have, so I jumped on that. The marketing director asked if anyone would be willing to participate in a story a local reporter was doing regarding backyard farming. I figured it was about the price of feed and food and the balance of growing your own food versus the cost of it, and they would be asking lots of folks. After knowing how few folks respond to my surveys when I worked in research, I said I’d help out.
When I spoke with the reporter, she asked how we got into things. I explained that Bailey began in 4H with the goats at age nine, and that Wyatt had fallen in love with chickens, spending a year taking care of the dogs completely in order to earn some. There is more to the story, but I will have to explain that later. I told the reported that Wyatt now supplies several families with eggs, as well as participates in the Farmers market cooperative for chicken raisers, selling at the Thursday Farmer’s market.
The reporter asked if she could come out and do a story on the kids. Wow. So here I am, with my shy son and my silly teen daughter, madly preparing for fair, having a reporter coming out Thursday to do a story. Guess we shall see how this goes, but we are glad to be the positive story from our area!
Well, I got a little work done at the farm today, though not nearly as much as I had hoped. But I suppose that will always be the case. After I went in to work, I met up with Charlie and the kids at his parents’ for dinner. His Uncle Steve is in town from North Dakota, and when they are all together you just gotta love the stories! The topic of the night was the crazy ways they all learned to drive back on the farms. Crazy, but they keep reminding me of how much less population was around where they were growing up compared to Charlie and my children. Wow. I am sure they are right, especially with two generations between, but sometimes it is amazing to hear the things they used to do!
Farming and child rearing have changed a lot. Sometimes it isn’t always for the better, though. I would like to see that more relaxed, values based family life return. That said, Wyatt is off schedule finishing his homework before bed, so I had best get going that direction. And whoa, am I tired. There is still that matter of watering the greenhouse and putting away the laundry taking over my bed. Yup, better get back at it.
