Monday began early. By 4am, we were outside rounding up chickens to be hand-caught (yes, we catch each one by hand) and transported to our local processor. A little under two hours later, I’m on the road with our birds and just about twenty minutes later we arrive at the small, converted milking parlor and milk storage area. Matt and I unload the 40 crates and line them up for what is to come. Normally, I would head home at this point after chatting with the crew there. Today though, I am part of the crew. I spend the next 11 hours working at every possible station, being taught by the crew how to do each of their jobs. We talk a lot as we work, and the state inspector (who we know well at this point) asks me question after question because he is so impressed with our birds and our operation. Let’s just say that I learned A LOT this day, and I am now very familiar with every aspect of what we’re doing and how it is done.
Around 6pm, I head home and even though I’ve been standing up for the better part of the last 14 hours at this point, there is work to do yet. I unload all of the cages and set them up for washing. The rain tonight will give them a good first rinse. Then, we check the turkeys, the chicks, the ducks, the layers and the hospital area. Finally, it’s time to eat something and get to bed.
Tuesday morning we get to sleep in until 7:30am! This is mostly due to the fact that it is POURING rain outside. Once it’s let up a bit, we’re outside to do the daily chores which mostly involves feeding and watering the variety of creatures we’ve got on the farm. Once that is done, we hit the walk-in freezer for some sub-zero shuffling of product to make room for the birds that we’ll pick up in an hour or two. We also spend a bit of time tying coconut fiber twine into lengths with a loop on the end. The hops plants will grow up these guides for the next couple of years before the first real harvest. Then, we’ll have new twine to tie. Matt calls. It’s time to pick up the birds. We’re there and back in under an hour and then we unload and start to take inventory. Each item is tabulated before it is placed into a new tub and then put into the freezer. This takes a fair amount of time as there are roughly 1200 items. The afternoon arrives quickly, and we find ourselves catching up on a couple of things before dinner. Once we’ve eaten, it’s nearly time for bed because tomorrow morning will be here too soon.
Wednesday morning, it’s back to the 3:30am wake-up to process another ~400 birds. Once that is done with (see Monday), it’s time for daily chores and some minor clean-up. It rained on us most of the time that we were catching birds and most of the night before, so the pasture is a mess and so are we. On the upside, we installed a rain 250 gallon rain barrel yesterday and it’s already nearly full. Crazy. The day is full of tasks that need to be done in town, so it’s driving from one place to another for several hours. First stop, the bank to make a deposit. Then, the accountant to pick up some tax paperwork. Then, our local mill to talk about our feed recipe and the available alternatives (we may mix it up a bit, pun intended). Then, groceries and dinner pick-up (pizza). Arriving home, we realize that we missed ONE chicken this morning. It’s too late to drive him to the processor, so we have decided that he’ll have to stick around and be a grandpa figure for the other chickens. He’s a big, tall and beautiful bird…so I’m not sure how we missed him. It’s kind of fun to have him around though. Now, we’ve got two roosters on the property (the other is one of my Black Copper Marans). Cleaned the duck house, added new bedding and then took the dog (Kelby) out for a couple of walks, one before sunset and one after. She’s very nocturnal as a Great Pyrenees, so she really gets amped for the evening walk.
Thursday starts at 6:30am and is slowly unfolding as I type this. It’s nice to have a few minutes to jot these things down. It’s raining outside, AGAIN. This rain is annoying because it’s impossible to work the garden and it puts a real damper on farmers markets. We missed both this week because of our process dates, but the weather made it easier to not go (even though Green Bay wasn’t too bad).
Let’s see. I spent about an hour rearranging the walk-in freezer so that older stuff was up front and space in the back was made available for today’s chicken. That was going well until I tweaked my back a bit and had a hard time taking a deep breath. That would linger most of the day. The morning was going by pretty quickly when I got the call that our chicken was ready for pick-up (from the processor). So, I hooked up the trailer and drove there to get the 42 empty crates we hauled the chickens there in and the 30 or so tubs of whole chickens, boneless breasts, and many other cuts that we regularly order. It was a bit of an engineering problem, but soon all was tied down and ready for the drive home. Once I got home, I backed the trailer up to the barn and set about unloading the crates. Then, I started to unload the tubs of chicken. I spent the next several hours getting an inventory of every package and then moving tubs of recorded chicken into the freezer. At about 5pm, I finished and went in the house to get ready to make dinner. First things first, I walked out to our garden and picked a lot of spinach for a nice salad and some kale for a quinoa dish I was going to make. I did some prep work and mixed my jamaican jerk spices and then threw them on some lightly oiled shrimp. Once dinner was over, I took our dog for a walk as she’s rambunctious at this time of the evening and starts to tackle the toy poms (she’s about 5 times their size, easily). Along the way, I put half of the ducks in their house. The other half refused to be caught and just ran in circles. I spent about ten minutes doing that before I gave up to continue the walk. I would be back though, and in only twenty more minutes, I had them in. THIS is a problem. Every other animal on this property tucks his or herself in at night. What’s wrong with ducks (or with me trying to ‘get’ ducks)? Once this was done, I locked the layers up in their home for the night and then proceeded to feed the chicks in the barn. There are 1400 or so of them, so it’s quite a lot of food. Tonight, I decided to leave the lights off in the barn, and I discovered that this kept them quiet and huddled together as I worked. Normally, it’s kind of crazy and they jump at any small thing and run for a corner. So, tonight, I’m essentially the Feed Fairy. Most of them don’t even know I’m there. I’m sure the debates will ensue in the morning (“Where did all of this food come from? I haven’t seen the human lately”). Unfortunately, I found one dead chick. It always sucks to lose one, and yes I know that might sound weird since we’re going to eventually ‘lose’ them all as they head out to freezer camp. It’s about 10pm when everything is done, and I head inside to check my e-mail and see what else should be getting done. Tomorrow starts with some heavy lifting and a visit to the Veterans Office.
Friday was a bit more tame. The morning consisted of meetings in town, fixing the cell phone, going to the post office and making a deposit at the bank. Back at the farm, it was time to move the outside set ups for the next round. The birds in the barn will be headed out this weekend and the turkeys will follow them. It’s a very simple task, but doing it alone means that you’ve got to walk back and forth (a lot) in order to get distances right and to move one thing or if something gets stuck (etc). Several hours later, the core of the set ups are up, fence is set, and everything is ready to be finalized. A bit more to do yet, but the day is up. Now, Maria is home early (yay!) and dinner will be ready soon. It’s beer thirty.
Tomorrow starts another day (weekends don’t really exist in the same way for us).