my terrible, no good, very bad day...with a happy ending

Sometimes everything isn't sunshine and flowers here on the farm. I needed to finish filling the second raised bed, so I made 2 trips out to Catawba to get horse manure compost yesterday. I got caught in a torrential downpour on the way home the second time and then sat in a country traffic jam with a full load of horse poop due to a bad accident. When I got home I was backing the truck up to the cinder block bed when I heard the horrible sound of scraping metal and then blocks tumbling down. Now, I ain't the greatest driver in the world after 7 years of hardly driving in San Francisco, but having a trailer ball hitch works out pretty good for me cause that hits first and saves me from feeling guilty for denting the truck. I put on the parking brake and hopped out to check out the damage and much to my surprise (horror might be a better choice of words) the tri-ball hitch was GONE! I know I had it put on right and tight because we had just towed the sodcutter home not too long ago and I hadn't messed with it since then. I could hardly believe that someone around here would steal it, but that seemed to be the only reasonable explanation. The damage was pretty bad appearance wise but fortunately nothing that will stop the truck from hauling more crap.

ouch

We are finally going to rent the wood chipper this Friday, so I needed to get a replacement ball hitch and the chicks are almost out of feed. So, this morning I headed out with the boys to pay a visit to Walmart, Tractor Supply & Lowe's. The first two stops went well enough, picked up a 50lb bag of chick starter with no antibiotics added, then got groceries and a new ball hitch with a lock at Wallyworld. If anyone tries to steal this one they are gonna need a blowtorch or freon.

anti-theft locking hitch, next time mr. grabby won't have it so easy...

I headed off to Lowe's to complete my mission by picking up about 1000 lbs of cow manure and topsoil. I ran into a high school pal of April's who just got engaged at the checkout and congratulated him from both of us then pushed my flatbed of soil building goodness out to my dented chariot. Getting a ball hitch stolen and subsequently scraping my Chevy had put me in a pretty foul mood, so when I opened the door and found Clyde nose deep in my 4WD selector tearing out insulation; I lost it. He got a butt swatting and then the silent treatment as I seethed and simmered on the way back to our house. I could tell he knew that he had messed up big time, but forgiveness wasn't something I was ready to give the demonic Blue Heeler I insisted we buy.

"Your truck is tasty!"...No more rides for Clyde

We got home and I put the boys inside so I could take out the girls outside to their chicken tractor for their very first day outside in the sunshine. They squaked and clucked to express their displeasure with being stuffed into a box, one of the yellow ladies tried to make a break for it and was the first one to actually fly out of their trough. When I had them all corralled and brought them out, I first tried to shove the whole box into the chicken tractor and then turn it on its side so they could get out; but none of the girls was brave enough to venture out of their safe dark cave into the sun. Finally, I just tipped the box over and when they had all slid out I took it out of the chicken tractor. After I scattered some feed in the grass and made sure their waterer was full, I sat down to watch their first taste of the great outdoors and take a few pics. I wish I could capture the happy songs they sung as they realized how good the grass felt underfoot and how tasty the grass and bugs were. I'm not sure I have ever heard such beautiful sounds. I just sat there in the sun for what seemed like an eternity, enjoying them clucking contentedly in the sun. It was like a balm for my soul, I felt happy again and ready to dig up the septic tank and and gather up some more fallen branches to be chipped this Friday. The happy ending was when my wife got home and heard about my day. She said, "Well that's three things, so you should be done with the bad luck for a while." It was exactly what I needed to hear and with April home, my day suddenly didn't seem so bad after all...

the ladies enjoying the sun and their new digs

breakfast of champions

breakfast taco with chorizo, scrambled egg, green salsa and mozzarella

using those delicious calories to put the finishing touches on the chicken tractor

it ain't work if you enjoy doing it

"I would rather do a good hours work weeding than write two pages of my best; nothing is so interesting as weeding."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

when hours pass like seconds

It's been a little too long since I wrote a proper post, the last few nights I had every intention of actually writing one but Rolling Rock, reggae and relaxing got the best of me. We are happy and tired again tonight, the result of one of our most productive weeks and Saturdays yet. I am so grateful that I have been given the chance to try and realize a dream, both God and my wife share the credit for making it possible. I still feel like I am a kid playing farmer, a mix of glee and guilt as I wave goodbye to April when she leaves weekday mornings. Happy that I can stack cinder blocks into a raised bed, build stuff with power tools and tend to animals and plants instead of sales calls. Guilty that I have been unemployed for the longest stretch since I was 13 and still in no hurry to go back to selling myself or my time. My dad always told me that, "it's better to think than to stink" meaning I should try and get a job using my brain so I wouldn't have to sweat to earn my pay. He had a point, but I have been so much happier stinking lately that it will tough to ever put a suit and tie back on. This isn't a point of view that is well understood in a bad economy with many people suffering. Money makes the world go round, but as we read in the Book of Luke today, "Man does not live by bread alone." Time and happiness are just as valuable commodities and maybe harder to find enough of. I am blessed that my wife is so talented and skilled that I have the chance to try to make a go of farming, blessed that she will work a hard week and then plant raised beds, install grapevines and build a chicken tractor with me on her weekend. I usually talk about all the stuff we got done and post the pictures to prove it, so this introspective wallowing probably is not gonna fly with everyone reading this. I will get back to the usual stuff. After trying to rent a wood chipper this morning and discovering someone had beat us to it by 15 minutes, we came back home and finished planting our first raised bed. We added onions, cucumbers, spinach, greens, lettuce, carrots and parsley root to the strawberries and herbs we had planted last week. I will need to make 2 or 3 more trips out to the horse farm in Catawba this week to fill up the new raised bed I built on Thursday. I have it down to a science now. It takes a full pallet of 90 cinder blocks, which means 2 trips in the Chevy so I don't bust my suspension, I pound the ground flat with the blocks as I lay them and use scrap wood to even out any depressions or bumps. This bed came out much tighter and straighter than our first try which was satisfying to see how even our worst mistakes bring wisdom for the next time.

second raised bed, ready to be filled

The chicks are all still alive and healthy and double the size they were last week. They are flying almost high enough to get out of the feed trough they live in, so I have laid bird netting over the top to keep them inside. I am thinking about moving them out this week depending on the weather, now that the chicken tractor is complete I'd like to give them a few play sessions under the sun before I move them to the coop for good. The blackberries, raspberries and grapevines are all planted, mulched and trellised. The peach and cherry trees are all budded out and some flowering like pink and white explosions.

springing back to life after a long, cold winter

While taking our lunch break today, I had asked April what time it was. 2 she says, so we sat down to eat some chicken caesar salad and plot out the rest of the afternoon. In what seemed like maybe 10 minutes, the dogs were done licking our plates clean and we were on our way back outside. But the clock said 3 now. It's great how time flies when you're having fun and getting things done. I just hope it slows down enough so we don't wake up 60 years old tomorrow.

mcnuggets

If I was a little bit taller...

all bow before the queen of the chickens

spring blooms

apple blossoms

peach bud

finding meaning while moving manure...

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks
as if they were great and noble.”
- Helen Keller

worms and a new grill

our soil quality engineers moving to a new job in April's palm

Otto and our seedling destruction engineer ready to ride

infrared charbroil grill, grilling's juicy little secret

a great friday

Clyde woke us way before we wanted to get up this morning by wriggling around the bed like an angry worm and trying to lick our faces. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and let him outside to pee before trying to fall back asleep; ignoring his pitiful yelps to be let back in. There would be no sleeping in this Friday, so we discussed the game plan for the day while remaining horizontal as long as possible. The dump would be the first stop, then Lowe's and maybe a biscuit for breakfast...perhaps a spicy chicken biscuit. We needed to load our trash and the railroad ties we were returning, so borrowing a page from the Egyptians; we used the lever method to load the 9ft 150lb creosote soaked death bombs into the bed of the pickup. After dropping off our refuse, we returned the railroad ties for cash and gave it right back to Lowe's as we loaded up on manure, pine mulch and peat moss. It was nearly noon and we still hadn't eaten so we agreed to splurge and enjoyed the lunch special at Giovanni's; salad, pizza and a beverage. I wasn't sure we would be up for transplanting cold weather tolerant seedlings from the basement to the raised bed, putting in 100 strawberry plants, putting blueberry bushes in old whiskey barrels and then devising a way to protect all those things from deer. But one should never underestimate the power of a beautiful spring day. It was near 70 degrees for the first time this year and the dogs were panting something fierce. We tag teamed the strawberries, herbs, onions and blueberry bushes then got down to creating a netting fence for the raised bed and chicken wire shields for the whiskey barrel blueberry bushes. We had intended on putting in the apple trees, raspberries and blackberries but as the sun and our energy got lower and lower; we knew it was time to call it a day around 6:30. After feeding the voracious chicks and loading our filth into the laundry, we each enjoyed a soil removal session in the shower. I shaved off my beard for the first time in more than a year, feeling so fresh and so clean afterward but a little guilty that I made April live with Grizzly Adams for so long. We felt drained of all life force but satisfied with the results of our labor. There will always be more to do tomorrow, but having 24 happy chickens, two exhausted dogs, the promise of berries, onions, broccoli, eggplant and herbs galore in our raised bed means we will sleep happily tonight. And that we are one step closer to being real country, farming folk.

The raised bed protected by pvc hoops covered with wildlife netting...and Otto. Carport and garage in background

blueberry bushes in whiskey barrels protected by chicken wire shields by South side of house. Windows look out from dining area and kitchen.

blondie and lois the red hen chick practice gossiping like church ladies

let's talk about chicks, man...

The phone rang loudly about 3:35 Monday morning, I was not aware of this but April says it happened. It was Carl from the Lenoir post office calling to say the baby chicks had arrived from Murray McMurray Hatchery and were ready to be picked up. I had spent Sunday night getting the mudroom setup for our girls; filling the horse trough with pine shavings, the feeder with chick starter and rigging up the infrared heat lamp. Clyde wanted to know what all the commotion was about.

We had no idea when the ladies would actually get here, the hatchery said anytime between Monday and Thursday. So at 8:00am Monday, while I enjoyed a breakfast of eggs in a frame and chorizo, I noticed I had missed a call really damn early that morning. When I realized it was the post office, I decided to forgo a shower, threw on some kicks and my toboggan, told los boys to hold the fort down and tore down the driveway in our trusty Camry. I wanted the chicks to enjoy a comfy ride home without feeling every bump and turn like they would have in the truck. While I waited for the clerk to get the package of future egg layers, people behind me in line made comments like, "Chickens in the mail!?! What's next sending letters over the computer?" & "Yew coulda gots a better deal if yew'd got em from my cousin Billy at the flea market." I practiced my trusty southern chuckle, smile and nod and happily took the smallish brown prison from which the caged birds sung. The heat was blasting in the Camry as I wanted to warm the ladies up after their tough trip via US Mail, the chicken guide said they needed a 95 degree environment since they can't regulate their own temperatures until they feather up. When I got home and anxiously pried the top off their box, I was heartened to see 25 happy, healthy chicks peeping away. One by one I gently captured and placed them into their new digs.

When I got to the last chick in the box, my heart sank as I realized she wasn't going to make it. Laying nearly motionless and gasping for breath, she had been trampled and smothered underneath all the other chicks. I read the chicken guide and googled around for the most humane way to put down a baby chick, finding nothing I called the hatchery. Lurlene answered my call and told me I should just let her expire naturally, I had already retrieved and loaded the .22 by that point so I was torn between letting nature take its course and not letting the little one suffer needlessly. All I could think of was to pray, so I held the sickly chick to keep her warm and said the lord's prayer. When I got to, "forgive our trespasses" she gave out and I finished praying holding her limp little body. I thanked God for showing mercy on us both and set her aside so we could have a funeral when April got home. I know I will not be the most efficient farmer but no one will be able to say that I didn't treat every living creature with love and respect. So as not to end on a sad note, here are some gratuitous chick pics:

I call these brown girls with cream stripes, "Chipmunks"...we have 4 of them. The traditional light yellow girls in back are mellow and the easiest to care for, we have 6 of those.

My favorites so far are the grey chicks with white faces, I call them "penguins." They are fearless and were the first ones to eat out of my hand, we have 5 of them. On the downside, they are prone to "pasty butt" that requires washing their poop shoots with warm water and a washcloth fairly frequently. I still like them best and figure it's good practice for diaper changing.

Filling the raised bed...

monday morning - sun rising over an empty 25' x 5' cinder block raised bed

monday afternoon - otto disapproves of clyde scrounging for horse "snacks" while I shovel in the first truckload

monday evening- halfway full

tuesday sunset- full up

the evil that is bermuda grass

We've been trying to figure out a way to get rid of the Bermuda grass growing where we want to build our raised beds that doesn't involve copious quantities of Round-Up for almost a month. I've tried tilling the grass and pulling it out by hand, covering it with a tarp to cut off sun and water and double digging and burying the grass. According to the internet gods of gardening, none of this will stop the Bermuda grass from rising up like Godzilla in the middle of our vegetables. You literally have to get every single blade and root pulled out because even one tiny piece is enough to regenerate roots and runner and return with a a vengeance. Reading what works for others will only get you so far, today it was time to take action.


push it real good

We rented a sod-cutter and hoped the rain had softened the dirt enough to take at least 3 inches off the top of the dead grass. I pushed the sod-cutter and April followed behind with a pitchfork to pry up the sod, we thought it would roll up neatly like the instructional videos had shown us but Bermuda grass don't play like that. The long straight swaths were not too bad to plow but trying to run that machine up or down an incline was next to impossible. Once the mud had covered the steam-roller like wheel in front of the sod buster, all traction was lost and I could not get the supposedly "self-propelled" machine to go anywhere especially uphill. I hit the kill switch and picked up a shovel to help April load the sod into a wheel barrow and started thinking about how good a frozen yogurt would be right about then. The rain would fall hard, quit for a few minutes and start up even harder, we became damper and colder and muddier as the project wore on. The prospect of TCBY drove us on like a delicious frozen temptress. We finally called it once we had met the minimum rental requirements since it was clear we had done everything we could do with the sod-cutter. The fro-yo was delicious.


mmmn...chocolate pumpkin hot fudge sundae and mountain blackberry small cup

We've also been having a great debate on whether the railroad ties we bought to build the beds out of are too soaked with creosote (coal tar) to grow vegetables we will be selling and eating. Since we had dropped $12 per railroad tie and made two trips to Lowe's amassing a pile of 16 of those 100lb+ monsters; I was in favor of using them. April with her fancy Stanford education in health science thought the risk of cancer might warrant the consideration of an alternative. I may be cheap but I'm not stupid. I finally realized that the area the raised beds will be in sits right over our only water supply, the well. If there is even a small possibility of that creosote leaching down into the aquifer after years of rain and snow, it makes sense to get some cinder blocks and figure out something else to do with the railroad ties. April won the debate and we'll be headed back to Lowe's manana, fortunately she has a birthday gift card she has been hiding from me. That will at least take some of the sting out of it...

One last thing, I found some free shit on Craigslist. Literally. On Thursday, the dogs and I drove 45 miles out to Catawba, NC to a horse farm to fill my pickup bed with FREE already composting horse manure. I brought a bottle of Spanish wine as a thank you for the poo, the lady who owned the farm with her husband was super-nice. She came out to check on me as I shoveled the steamy dung in the rain and brought me a bottle of water. It was hard for her to understand how anyone could be so happy under those circumstances so I told her I was sure the novelty would eventually wear off. But it never did, I overloaded my Chevy until it looked like something from a rap video. The drive home was interesting as I was coated in wet horse crap and the tarps I had covered my payload with were not as well secured as I had thought. I started to smell something like burning transmission fluid which made me pull over to investigate, it was actually the tarp which had loosened enough to be dragging behind the truck and had melted into a shredded mess from the friction. Happy I had not killed my truck with too much poop, we made it home safely driving at granny speed down the windy foothill roads. After I finished adding the new stuff to my pile, it is now as tall as I am. I will be making many more trips to the horse farm to get as much of the good shit as I can.


soggy supervisors

Progress

the pruned branches of 75 peach & cherry trees (ready for a bonfire or witch burning, whatever comes first...)

chicken entrance & ramp

barn stall cleared of straw and manure, all in the compost pile now...

first buds of spring

to be happy, be a farmer...

"Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness." - Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to George Washington, 1787

Dirt Nasty

I am falling in love again and my mistress is soil. When we moved in during the cold days of December, I remember being chiefly focused on staying warm. Felling old trees, splitting the resulting stumps and chunks, stacking the wood to season and waiting for the chimney sweep seemed like the most important things in the world. Fortunately, we had the chance to save all the precious wood chips that resulted from one of April's old school buddies taking down 5 oak and pine trees. It was unceremoniously dumped into a pile next to the chicken coop that lay covered in snow for most of the last 2 months. Now as the spring sun has thawed both the earth and my body back into life and activity, I have become obsessed with creating the most massive and fertile pile of compost in Caldwell County. Since we moved in, we have diverted nearly everything that passes through the kitchen not consumed by us or the boys into a compost bin. I have consolidated all the piles of raked and blown leaves into a massive pile of mulch right by the woodchip pile and supplemented with all the straw and manure I cleaned out of the barn. Today, I tested our soil using a little $3 kit we found at the Tractor Supply. It was the kind of fun reminiscent of middle school science lab collecting the dirt and mixing it with 5 parts water then pouring the resulting muck into test tubes before adding the magic powder that would tell us our pH and NPK levels. Everything came out pretty good, except for the nitrogen levels which are either non-existent or proof that I really should leave anything science related to April. I will bring in the tubes and ask the county agricultural agent, Seth Nagy, tomorrow when I begin my Master Gardener class. I am really excited, feeling like April must have when she got into Stanford. I found out about the class from April's brother's girlfriend, Carolyn, but when I handed in my application; I was told that the class was full and I was 4th on the waitlist. I knew I could really use some education on things like pruning, soil, insects, pesticides, fruit trees and plant diseases but I resigned myself to internet research and whatever I could find in the library of survival books I have amassed waiting for Armageddon to kick off. Anyways, I was in the midst of spraying our fruit orchards with dormant tree oil when I got an unexpected phone call from the county ag agent. A bunch of grannies had decided they would rather keep knitting or playing bingo, so I had vaulted from wait list wannabe to future MASTER GARDENER! With a chesire cat grin, I went back to winding the 3 separate hoses I had merged together into a 300ft mega-hose through the maze of trees in the orchard spraying the oil which is supposed to kill the "bad" insects seeking to prey on my tasty peaches & cherries (but in an organic, friendly way.) Honestly though, sometimes I get in kind of a funk trying to figure out what to do with the freedom of my days, almost longing for the time when someone was telling me what to do and why I was doing it wrong. Today over a lunch of chicken burger quesadillas; I was getting some ideas on a gardening forum when I found a dude named Tim from Illinois who is taking the art of compost to a level I can only aspire to. His writing is powerful and rings with the honesty of hard won experience, sort of like Hemingway if he only wrote about dirt...he also takes insane pictures of his compost piles which are probably larger than the city block we lived on in San Francisco. I highly recommend you check out any of his manifestos archived here:
Forerunner's Compost and threads
After I finished reading & eating, I was reinvigorated and charged back outside with my pitchfork flipping the compost pile like a man possesed. Turning in all the kitchen waste I had stored up and topping it off with a wee bit of urine to achieve just the right nitrogen/carbon balance. It's not gross, it's earthy...and I love it.

the coop

We finished the chicken coop today thanks to my wife the architect's keen eye for level and ability to revise blueprints in her imagination. It was the first thing either of us had ever built on our own or together (besides our love...as April would be quick to remind me) and our sense of satisfaction was far greater than the door's ability to close without a little encouragement. We made a brave attempt to build it out of all the scrap wood we had salvaged from around our place but after we ran out of screws and I bent our best hammer trying to pull old nails...we ended up making the dreaded trip to Lowe's. The coop stubbornly refused our attempts to complete it in one day and we knew Sunday would mean a day of work more so than a day of rest. We studied Matthew today for our Sunday Bible breakfast and I ate 500 calories of pure lard (according to my wife) including Carolina Pride sausage, over-easy eggs, potatoes, cheese and tortillas but the parables fed my soul a far more delicious meal. By the time I had digested both the words of Jesus and the meal, it was nearly noon and I wasn't sure the coop would submit to our efforts this day. But by 5:00 we had it pretty much done, we decided to test the structural strength by seeing if it could hold our two dog wrecking crew...

Our Piggle

where are these "chicks" you keep talking about?

chicks will be housed in this 169 gallon trough for the first month

here is the future coop and the sheriff around these parts

st. francis

St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. "I would finish hoeing my garden," he replied.

fresh eyes

We had April's Uncle Ron & Aunt Christine over to see our place tonight. I needed some advice on the construction of the raised beds and how best to get rid of the Bermuda grass currently growing where they will sit. Today was spent waiting for the snow to melt down enough to get back to work, by noon I was back in business. The future chicken coop was cleaned and cleared out, nails were pulled, measurements taken and plans laid to turn some old kitchen cabinets into roosts I can pull eggs out of without going into the coop and disturbing my girls. Clyde was acting the fool so he was left in the garage as Otto and I made a trip to the dump and enjoyed a Bojangles spicy chicken sandwich. When my O.G.S.D(original German shepherd dog) and I got back home, we all got back to hoeing and pulling up Bermuda grass. By the late afternoon I had two 8x8 foot patches cleared and turned over, so we are about a third of the way done before I can lay the railroad ties down into two 24'x8' beds. Tilling by hand is not a lot of fun, I am sore in muscles I was not aware I had before today. Once I saw the late afternoon sun dipping low in the sky, I figured I would clear the fallen tree branches and leaves off the driveway before April got home. While she might not be able to see the freshly turned earth when she got home at night, I was pretty sure she would appreciate a driveway free of wooden obstacles. I used the Troybuilt gas blower her folks gave me as a Christmas present. It felt pretty damn manly with the roar and vibration of the 2 stroke engine and the heady aroma of gas fumes. Clyde stayed a safe distance back while I blew the detritus aside but Otto was unfazed by the noise machine and stayed right by my heel. Team Jacob wound our way down the 1/3 mile of steep & windy pavement, gravel and dirt that connects us to our only road off the mountain. When we finished, I saw I had missed a call from Uncle Ron and rung him back to see what was up. He said he and Christine were getting a bite somewhere in our vicinity and wanted to stop by and check out the homestead. I was instantly pleased with my decision to clear the driveway; as that would prove to all that I had not sat on my duff all day. April got home just before they pulled up the drive and we stashed the filthy dogs in our bathroom so the stench of mud and dank fur would not detract from the grand tour of our casa. Somewhere along the tour, in between showing off our beehive factory, raised beds, the chick hatchery taking shape in the garage, fruit orchards and the mini vegetables sprouting in the basement I realized we had been pretty busy. Industrious even. I guess I was a bit snowblind yesterday, failing to see the progress we are making because nothing was finished. It will take some getting used to, having so many projects happening in various states of completion; but sometimes it really helps to look at your life through fresh eyes.

outside vs. inside

starting over

Before we moved out here to NC, I spent a lot of time daydreaming about my new life as a farmer. I read books and magazines and imagined the new improved, rugged Jon in overalls pitchforking straw into the compost pile and leading a herd of happy goats from pasture to pasture. While I may still enjoy these activities sometime in the future, I admit I was woefully unprepared for the worst winter in 30 years up here in the mountains. Some weeks start start off with weak sunshine poking through the clouds and the mercury at a tropical 40 degrees. I don my green Carhartt jacket and manage to be somewhat productive for 10 hours on Monday. Pruning back the fruit trees from 5 years of neglect, cleaning out the barn and coop stalls, gathering old, dead wood into a future bonfire and fallen leaves into big heaps of future compost. Then Tuesday morning comes with an ominous gray sky the color of a donkey's belly, meaning SNOW...again. I do what I can to tear up some stubborn grassy soil with the hand tiller where the raised beds will be until it starts falling in chunks and I decide to make a run to Lowe's or the grocery store before the roads get ice slick and my California winter driving skills confine me to our house on the ridge. Once I return home, I make a PBJ and pour some Bright'n'Early orange drink and check out internet gardening forums to see whether it is possible to build the raised beds right over the grass or whether I need to dig it all up with a shovel. I may make a detour over to Godlike Productions where the latest debate over unemployment extensions is raging. Those still employed tell those without jobs to get off their lazy asses and go work at the local Taco Bell or Wendy's; the unemployed respond that they have applied there but salespeople and engineers with college degrees are not in high demand as taco assemblers right now and BTW just wait until THEY lose their jobs. I break out Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens and review the chapters on housing and how to care for the chicks that will be arriving in a few weeks, I add brooder lights to the list of things I need to get my hands on before they get here. Otto and Clyde lay napping on the rug at my feet making noxious smells from the leftover nachos I let them finish off against my better judgement. Hours pass and I feel like I should do some laundry and dishes before April gets home, I load the washer and then descend into the basement to check on the seedlings under the fluorescent grow lights. A few spritzes from the mister and a few snips with the scissors to thin out the slow growers allowing the healthiest sprouts more room to build up their roots. I steal a glance out the basement windows as the snow continues to fall building into a thin white blanket over the earth. Earth I was supposed to loosen and hoe into the beginning of raised beds today, the railroad ties lay covered by a powder dusted tarp that means yet another project will have to wait. Wait until I can get back out under the Carolina blue sky and know the happy satisfaction of a hard day's labor. I realize the biggest difference in this new life is being on God's time instead of an Outlook calendar. No complaints though, I finally have time to put some of these feelings down to words while I wait for my wife to come home & expect the promise of a sunny, productive tomorrow.