Our weekend - in a few short paragraphs

It’s a busy time here at the farm. We have a long TO-DO list. So, there’s no time for lazing around – we gotta get to work! But first we slept ‘til 10, drank coffee, and talked to far-flung family ‘til noon – then we got to work! Here’s how the rest of the weekend went:

We started seeds for some warm weather crops (tomatoes, eggplants and peppers) and took care of other transplants. Our local dump offers a monthly “Dump Day.” Every family is allowed one free pickup truck load of trash. For residents of Wetzel County the popularity of this event may only be eclipsed by Demo Derby at the fair. In anticipation of the upcoming Dump Day, we felt the farm could use a mega-dose of Spring Cleaning. This meant we spent lots of time on Saturday and Sunday cleaning out several buildings. Some of the things that are ready to go to the dump are: 7 (!) feed sacks full of used bailing twine, several boxes of 30-year-old Tupperware, a broken screen door, a baby pool that we’re pretty sure is older than our parents and lots of unidentifiable “treasures” that someone in the past felt they just couldn’t live without. Here’s one of the junk piles:

In the process of cleaning out the “shop,” Farmer John found a true treasure. A brand new fence charger! The “Stockmaster” is sending a good charge to the electronet chicken fence, it packs a bigger punch than the one we’d had in place.

Another item that we crossed off the list was picking up and setting up the poultry brooder. The brooder will keep chicks warm on top, and has grower pens underneath to house the chicks until they are ready to join the rest of the flock.

This is the brooder part, with a light and heating elements.

Farmer John with the whole brooder set-up. Notice the cleaver above his head? This building was the farm’s former butchering area.

We also did daily chores, chased rouge cows, dealt with a dead chicken, worked on fencing, moved closer to a plan for a driving bridge and got ready to go back to our “real” jobs.