Weekend updates

Friday, Good Friday was a holiday, so I got an extra day to work around the farm. I had a long list of little things to do which kept me busy through the day, but the main focus of my efforts was to cut out some of the larger saplings growing through the fence at the front of our barn lot. That type of work requires a lot of bending, kneeling, pulling, and balancing in difficult postures to accomplish so I was not able to last but about two hours. However, in that time I got a truckload full of little trees and vines that had to be hauled off. I was pleased overall, but so much more remains to be done. It is one of those ongoing projects that are never really completed. An ever-present challenge. Grandpa and Mama are wanting to tackle the back fence of the barn lot, but I have resisted because it is horribly overgrown with large thorn trees and various other varieties of five- to ten-year-old trees that will need to be dealt with to fully repair the fence. We must get it done at some point, but I have not come to a point where I have put together a plan to accomplish the work, especially since much of the physical labor will be my responsibility, but I will work with Grandpa to see what his vision is for the work. He has a good eye for that type of rework.

Saturday morning, I helped Mama set up on the square in Decatur for the Glitzy Girls event. It was forecast to be a beautiful day and, for once, that forecast did not disappoint us. It was indeed beautiful. The set-up took less than an hour, the canopy, the tables and coverings, and all her stash of nail strips were out and ready to go by 8:30 AM. Mama and I had hurried through the necessary parts of our morning routine letting the chickens and ducks out of their coops and enclosures, saving the more lengthy portions of the morning chores for me when I got back to the farm. Mama’s normal neighbor for the event was setting up beside her as we were getting all Mama’s items ready, so we visited and helped each other as has been our custom for three years in a row now. I was back at the farm a little before 9 am to complete our morning chores. Mama had a very good day at that event. She made several hundred dollars throughout the day. More than she has made at any recent event, so she was very encouraged. She also made a couple large online sales not related to the event, which added to the overall earnings for the day. Having wrestled with whether or not to continue marketing Color Street over the past few weeks. This was an especially timely success.

I was to be available at 11 am to meet Alex who was coming to the farm to buy two ducks and two older chickens from our flocks. To make sure we sold the right ones, Mama and I had gone out after dark Friday night to find out which of the newer eight ducks were male and which were female. That required catching and banding the younger ducks, now equal in size to our more mature ducks. That process caused quite an upset in the duck enclosure as the frightened ducks rushed around the enclosure to avoid the net, we were using to catch them. All the noise the ducks made upset our guard dogs and alerted all the coyotes in the vicinity to sing out in hungry anticipation of an easy meal. That did not happen, but I am sure the coyotes closed in on the noise to see what was happening.

The upset we caused among our ducks has limited the egg production for the weekend, but we are so far ahead on those eggs that a slowing in new egg production is not an issue, but rather a benefit to us. In the final tally of our ducks, we determined that we have three males and five females in the new additions to our flock. So, we sold Alex one young female and one young male to process, leaving us with plenty of males and females in our flock. Additionally, the four ducklings in the cage in the garage are getting large enough we will need to move them to the grow out pen by next week. That is a good thing because we have nine more duck eggs in the incubator that should be hatching in about two weeks. In the future we will continue to band all our males so we can quickly determine who is who when all the ducks are mature.

Grandpa has continued to tend to the garden. He waters, hills up the ground around his vegetables and potatoes and keeps the weeds at bay. I am very appreciative of all his efforts. He will only spend an hour or so on the days when he does work in the garden, but those efforts are noticeable. Grandpa also keeps the front sidewalks swept clean and the bird feeders filled. For the past few days, he has been able to sit on the front porch in quiet solitude. Grandma has spent more time in bed recently, but she did summon up the resolve to go to church with us Sunday morning.

It was a good weekend.