Finally!

Today was one of those really weird days that started off as if nothing was ever going to get done, and then suddenly did a crazy Ivan into several things actually starting to pull together. It was one of those much needed days when more things got crossed off my ridiculously long to-do list of projects (yes, it really is an entire page of college-ruled notebook paper) than had to be carried over into the next day. I was beginning to become so overwhelmed by the list itself that I was tempted to just throw the covers over my head and give up, proclaiming myself a complete failure as a homesteader wannabe.

First off was my ridiculous attempt to get our soil sample off to the UT AG extension office in town. Yes, the box instructed me to turn it in there, but the agent told me that this was incorrect and that I needed to send it off to Nashville through the postal service. This would not have been quite so annoying if I wasn't reading the instructions that read "Return sample to your local extension office" on the freakin' box. Not to mention the fact that I had just come from the post office where I'd had to stand in line for a good 20 minutes anyway. All in all I think I spent about an hour and a half just standing in different lines in the same building. Not an easy thing to stomach when daylight is burning, a day without rain is precious, and I've got eighteen point nine bazillion other things to get done. But I sucked it up, breathed deeply, and stood in line. Again. Then screamed and screamed my frustration in the car on the way home.

Oh and did I mention that I had to explain to the agent how to tell if a hen was broody? He'd gotten a call from an area resident about that, and not only did he not know, but it hadn't occurred to him to oh...say...LOOK IT UP FOR HER. I graduated from the same Ag Campus that he most likely did. How is it that I know how to find stuff like that out as the result of my education, where as this professional agriculture extension agent was completely clueless? But I digress. Again.

By the time I got home I was determined to get at least ONE thing crossed off my list other than that blasted soil sample that should have taken 10 minutes but took almost the entire day. Off I went to work on the salad bar for the chickens. What I call the salad bar is really just a small box pen that juts up against the chicken yard. Every few days I move it to a fresh patch of green grass and open the door I've created in the fence so that the chickens have access to it. It's a great way to keep your birds in nice new green grass regardless of what a great job they do in denuding their fixed pasture. Anyway, within minutes I had it moved to a nice fresh patch of grass and my hens were happily scratching in virgin soil. I could feel my tension starting to release. Not only that, but as I was finishing up I heard the unmistakable sound of the UPS truck in the drive. Lo and behold it was the greenhouse plastic being delivered, only three weeks late following the collapse of the warehouse at Northern Greenhouse Supply (with our order inside, of course). Suddenly things were looking up even further.

By dark it was time to move our broody hen and her two newest eggs to her maternity ward, a small chicken tractor that we use if we need to segregate anyone. For the next three days I will collect all the fertilized eggs laid and place them under her. This is her first attempt at motherhood, so it's quite the adventure. After I got my broody gal settled, I went in to candle the four eggs that I had already pulled and put into the incubator (still intend to put up the peepshow cam, it's on my to-do list!). And there they were, little squirming blobs, the beginnings of new chickens. Hooray!

So as I close this post (I can cross yet another thing off my list in doing so), I'm waiting for our first You Tube video to load. I got our channel opened up just this evening and have been working on trying to post some stuff ever since. Hey gimme a break, I'm technologically challenged and stressed out. Don't make me add "snatch so-and-so bald" to my list.

Anyhoo, the YouTube channel is called ClucknNeigh so that should be pretty easy to find. I hope to have some videos up as links very shortly. I've also put a link to it in our Links section of the blog. And now I can cross that off my list.

Greenhouse is shaping up

I'll be sad to see our farm help start his new job, but I'm thrilled for him that he got one in this economy. Eliot has been our employee for over a year now and has been absolutely invaluable. My physical weakness and lack of knowledge of all things mechanical coupled with Michael's illness has made it all too clear that homesteading is not for the faint of heart, nerve or body. It's easy to see why the farmers of "olden times" had fifty seven billion kids. It wasn't for lack of birth control, it was for need of farm hands!

Here is the spot staked out where the greenhouse was going. Note the snow is STILL on the ground even though it's in the high forties for the third day in a row. Uh-NOY-ying!

Anyway, Eliot came out yesterday along with our friends from Oak Hill Farm and we managed to put the green house hoops up by the end of the evening. Or rather, Eliot did it and I hindered him on multiple occasions as I attempted to be useful. I did however, swing a sledgehammer with accuracy and strength enough to put one of the posts in ground. One of the 10. Eliot did the others. All of them. On his own. Sigh. Being old and weak sucks sometimes. So here are a few pictures of the deed being done. And yes, that's me in the coveralls. Contrary to popular belief, I actually do work. On occasion. Just not all that competently.

Here you see T and Eliot driving the base posts into the ground.

T and me securing the hoop in the ground pole

T's daughter supervising the project

The finished skeleton!

Anyway, the skeleton of the greenhouse is now up. Next up is framing the door, followed by mulching the floor and covering the whole thing with plastic. I have high hopes that this will be done in time for the pelargoniums I ordered to arrive from . I'm starting small with only fourteen plants, but I figure it's best to take it slow and get a feel for things before I go headlong into becoming overwhelmed. Besides, I've got to get the chicken coop ready for the new additions to the family and that will take up quite a bit of time if I'm to be ready by May.

If farm life has taught me anything, it has taught me that patience is required. Not that I have any patience, mind you. I just know that I should have it. I'm a list checker-offer kind of person, and I tend to get a little overwhelmed and frustrated when something takes longer than a few hours to finish. But farm life is not like that. There's no project that is finished in a few hours, crossed off the list and then you're done forevermore. Nope, it's a never ending project that you are never "finished" with. Something is always in need of repair, something is always growing or in need of planting in order to start growing, something needs harvesting or it will go kaput, something needs feeding or it will starve. The list goes on and on. And in the meantime you have to juggle those day-to-day demands of your time with the long term projects like fencing a new pasture or adding to a chicken coop. Or starting a blog, for that matter. But as of now I wouldn't trade it for the world! What a far cry from my dreams of Broadway as a college kid, huh?