Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina.
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.
It has been so difficult for me to get back to writing this blog. There are so many things getting in the way. I want to cover so many things; but at least I'm trying to share some important information on facebook - all serious. Just when I think I'll write another vignette of my life and times, something that affects us as individuals, or that impacts on our country and the world, or the latest scandal and ineptitude of this government, or........fill in the blanks, comes along and I lose all initiative.
And then there is the ongoing attempt to organize ourselves here with our little "farm." I put "farm" in quotes, because we aren't really there yet. We now have our cool room equipped with a table and chair and a digital scale to weigh the eggs. Mediums must be at least 1 3/4 oz. Large are 2 oz. minimum. The refrigerator in the room has separate sections for large and medium. I gather eggs, take them to the room, weigh the ones I'm not sure of, put them into clear plastic cartons until they are full, then transfer them into regular cartons for sale. The room also holds supplies for the chickens, baskets for veggies, bags, etc.
The cool room is inside our large enclosed shed. The workbench now has our larger scale for weighing vegetables. I currently keep a basket of butternut squash for sale next to the scale and a calculator. The bulk of the squash is on shelves inside the cold room. We moved the mini-fridge out to the shed and set it just outside the cold room. I can access eggs from there for sale, keeping the cold room closed and private.
We have also moved - tons it seems- of boxes, emptied many of them and put contents into large plastic containers. They now are stored against a side wall, out of sight of customers coming in. Two shelving units have "stuff" for sale, a small table now has fall and Halloween decorative things for sale. Long shelves across the room has some glass ware and pottery on one level and a bunch of Santa Clauses on another - all for sale. We have some wreaths for sale as well, hanging on the wall.
The long workspace at the back of the room is ready for craft working. We have been gathering pine cones and now have scented oil, paints, glitter, and mesh material for bags. The pine cones will be washed, sun dried, put into the oven for a spell to get rid of any bugs, etc., before decorating them for sale. There is a lot to do.
My one daughter has been buying some new blueberry bushes and will be nursing them along, hoping by next spring and summer to have a bumper crop for sale. Our kale and collards aren't in the big bins yet. We have had to rid the bins of the millions of pests that attacked this last summer. Because last winter was not sufficiently cold, the bugs were terrible this year. In spite of precautions we lost produce. We are trying to be as pesticide free as possible; but some other measures have not been so successful as we would have wished.
Right now I have to go out and check the nests for eggs. I do so at least three times a day. We are averaging 18 eggs a day. The young hens still lay some medium size, but they will soon all be large size. If I don't remove some eggs during the day, there is a danger of cracks and breakage from too big a clutch in one nest. The hens are eating large amounts of feed when they use their energy for laying; so trips to the feed store are almost weekly, now. New litter needs to be put down in their hen house and the old, with droppings, scooped out for the compost pile. Nests need to be kept clean also. Cold nights are setting in, so I need to turn on the heat lamp sometimes. I also have a 40 watt bulb on a timer. It is on from 6-10 p.m., to encourage the chickens and guineas to go into the house at dusk. Some hens still are sleeping on the outside roost. It hasn't been cold enough to drive them in yet. Then the timer goes on at 4 a.m. and stays on until 7 a.m., to give them more "daylight" hours for laying. They get their scratch treat every evening before dusk. The whole crowd meets me and can't wait for their treat. They follow me into their enclosed run, which also holds their hen house, to get their treats. Then I close them in for the night to protect them from predators. I check their feed and water before leaving them for the night. I usually have to carry in a couple of buckets of water for one of the waterers. In the morning I let them out to pasture again.
So, you see, we keep busy. I try to say my regimen of prayers (The Little Office) and Rosary, and read at various times. I just finished Mark Levin's Ameritopia, and I'm now reading Obama's America, that the movie 2016 is based on.
Well, must run. The eggs are waiting.
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