It has been a busy two weeks! Isn't it always busy? For living the simple life, we sure do keep things busy around here. To start off the new year, I finally started delivering eggs to our neighbors! The idea is for Tilly (or a goat) to eventually do the delivering by carrying cartons of eggs in the snazzy new backpack we got for the four-legged girls.
The littlest roosters and hens are at their awkward teen stage, with feathers sticking out and colors changing. Unfortunately, the little gold chick seems set on being a rooster, though I am still hopeful it will be another of those extra-large-combed hens and we will somehow have 8 more heavy-laying hens. Mama and her five chicks (plus the three big tag-alongs from the last clutch) are spending more and more time out in the sun scratching for bugs with the rest of the flock.
Our flock is filling out the yard pretty well now with 12 hens, 2 roosters, 3 big chicks and 5 smaller chicks. Some day I hope to have 24 hens laying nearly two-dozen eggs a day to deliver to the neighbors plus my two roosters whom will need to be replaced soon for genetic diversity. Right now, we're only getting about 6 eggs a day, and the eggs are suspiciously consistent in color and shape, alluding to only 6 hens participating in the laying. I have nearly identified all the layers and it looks like the other 6 may be joining the 3 or 4 new little roosters in the freezer this spring.
Mom, Dad, Daniel, and Amanda all returned back to their homes after New Years, I took a brief trip with Daniel and Amanda down to Eugene, Oregon for a night on a special bunny mission, my friend Ray visited for a short night on her way through, Tim spent a few nights in Portland to visit friends and take a train trip, then I picked up my friend Alisha from the airport and Tim from the train station in one go and came home for a day or two before Tim's mom, Alice, joined us on the island. In the brief turn around between visitors, travels, and more visitors, I managed to finally get the barn clean!
Petunia was her usual helpful self, insisting on riding in the wheelbarrow even when it was stacked to the max with hay. The barn, I'm afraid to say, was long over-due for cleaning. I cleaned the chicken part half-halfheartedly just before the chicks were born, in late November, but for the goats I had been using more of an "add more hay" approach for the floors. After many trips to the compost pile, both halves were thoroughly freshened and a small bit of the excessive stash of "winter hay" for the goats was put to good use as everybody's clean bedding.
Unfortunately (for Alisha), I dumped all the hay next to the large pile of leaves next to the large pile of compost waiting to be turned. Fortunately (for me), Alisha is eager to be such a helpful guest and offered to lend a hand on the farm. Wanting to give her the full farm experience, I thought turning the compost would be a great help. Alisha imagined it would be fun, sort of romantic. Alisha talked about someday having her own garden and compost bins. Then Alisha talked about how really there was probably enough compost in those bins and they were looking plenty full. There's a reason I dread turning the compost - it is a huge job and takes forever, with much more to go by the time you are exhausted and ready for tea--er, I mean, it's a delight! I hope you will be the next visitor so I can share the majestic transformation of waist to productive soil with you too! The chore that is always ready for someone to do.
Esther stepped up to help with our compost-turning and piling activity by packing down those leaves and that hay to make room for more. Eventually most of the waist made it, more or less, into the compost bins and we declared the work "good enough!"
I didn't only force Alisha to provide me with labor, we also got to snuggle the goats in their nice clean barn.
We taught Alisha the proper way to hold a chicken, or in this case our most beautiful and tame rooster.
Tim demonstrated the goat teeter-totter and other goaty tricks (really that's about the extent of it).
And we took the goats for a nice stroll on the beach to our favorite climbing tree. Alisha is a photographer and graced us with mountains of wonderful pictures - another reason this is taking a little longer to put together! Too much of a good thing.
After beach walking, there was just a little more to do with catching up on trimming hooves. Ideally, I should be checking their hooves every month about, or even giving them a quick look once a week when I feed them their herbal de-wormer, but I let it go a little long and petunia missed my great hoof-trimming day, so now I'll have to keep a better eye on them and make sure those hooves are back in good shape.
Alisha also gave me a hand adding 380-pounds of food to the barn. The feed store is having a sale and it's always good to have enough food! I am trying to keep better track of how much food everyone is going through. I think the chickens go through about 25-pounds of feed a weeks, the goats go through about 100-pounds a month and Tilly (not included in the 380-pounds of feed) goes through about 20 pounds a month. These may be optimistic guesses, and winter makes for more feed going through the barn.
Tilly is continuing to work on her Canine Good Citizen skills and practiced her patience at the store while we bought all the feed. With so many visitors, Tilly has been struggling to stay focused and calm but is improving as always.
After the store, it only seemed fair to take the little dog to the off-leash beach near town to burn up some of her abundant energy. Alice and Alisha and I braved the wind and high tide and let the wild one run. Tilly was promoted to an "available" sheriff dog, ready to search for the lost at a moments notice, which means any time we are called, she gets to come with me - even if it is only to sit in the car and wait while I help other teams with the search. This week we got one of those middle-of-the-night calls and drove through the fog to join the team in the dark. Tilly waited in the car and we called off the search before it reached her turn, but it was nice for me to have some comforting company in the car.
The beautiful and delicious bread I baked for Tim's lunches which I have no way of working into this post but which are so wonderful and which I am so proud of I had to include. Alisha laughed at how excited I was. They lived up to my hopes and more.
After staying up nearly all night with Search and Rescue, I was exhausted, in the mood for laying around watching movies and feeling like a bit of a zombie. Alisha and Alice lept on the opportunity of my weakened state and helped out with cleaning up the house and taking care of the animals. When Tim came home from work he was in worse shape then me, having caught some awful virus that has been making its way around the island. He stumbled in the door, had a bite to eat, and joined me in a very early bed time. He's still feeling terrible and keeping to the dark and warmth of bed.
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