Easily pleased

Early each morning Sarah opens the chicken chalet for our feathered friends and then she gathers the eggs. It's a gift every day. I count the eggs. I speculate on who's laying and who's slacking. The color of the eggs is my main clue.

When I was a young girl we had chickens, even some of my beloved Ameraucanas who lay the blue-green eggs.

I didn't prefer the chickens then. I thought they were sort of a nuisance. Also, in my memory, the hens we had when I was growing up would fly into the woods and lay their eggs at sites unknown. These eggs were only to be discovered in a putrid state much, much later by my mischievious younger brother and his pranking friends.

Sarah speculates that maybe I like chickens so much better now because I don't have to feed them nor do I have to go out at dusk (usually) to count them on their roosts and lock them in for the night. I just know: I like seeing just-washed eggs in the morning light. I like knowing I don't have to drive anywhere prior to fulfilling an omelet craving. I like the funny little noises the hens make when they've newly laid an egg. I even like their fluffy hind ends.

I have gone off the deep end, dear reader. I'm talking about chicken hindquarters on my blog.

They do say the internet is stripping us of a sense of decency, decorum and appropriate disclosure.

Just call me "Exhibit A."

The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Farm G. Suite

Yesterday ended our Christmas vacation here at Farm Suite. All three big girls (11, 9 and 5) were eager to return to formal (as it goes around here) school. They sat down, breakfast eaten, fully dressed and chores done, at a couple of minutes after 8 a.m. to master personal challenges ranging from multiplication tables eight and nine all the way through creating a book of alphabet sounds.

Laura (2 in a few days!) is finding that school mornings are a perfect time to create trouble. It seems I just get her set up with toddler-size Legos or crayons when I turn to help with a long division problem and then she's off and spreading someone's Polly dolls all over the staircase or pouring out an entire bag of cat food into the litter box. I must say, I've never parented such a busy baby before. On the other hand she knows her alphabet song and many of the letters (and their sounds!) by sight so she is undoubtedly picking up on Grace's kindergarten work.

After lunch it was a beautiful, sunny 55 degrees outside so I declared recess for all four of them. I used that time to clean up worksheets and books and set up our art project for the afternoon -- we have decided to do science experiments, art and other potentially messy projects while Laura naps. It's self-preservation mainly, plus we get to have fun without distraction of the toddler type.

Speaking of outside, we finally clipped the hens' wings. I know, I know, it sounds cruel. But the real cruelty was in letting them wander across the road after flying effortlessly over their six-foot fence. (Why does a chicken cross the road?) Anyway it took the help of Madeleine, Sarah and their 12-year-old friend Zoe for me to catch all nine hens one at a time. The first few were easy -- they are tame after all -- but after two or three they seemed to "catch" the general hysteria and their evasive techniques got fairly creative. Katie the Rhode Island Red even hid at the back of the compost pile before her haircut. Yuck.

So now the hens are all safely inside their chicken yard again. The rooster can still hop the fence with ease but he doesn't tend to go far when his harem is cooped up. (Har har. Cooped up.)

Seven, Madeleine's horse, is sold to a lovely neighbor who keeps her gelding Sun at the boarding barn. You might say he's the boy next door. So Seven's not actually paid for yet but after just word-of-mouth advertising for a week we feel blessed that she'll go to Michele, who's loved Seven for the past year but despaired that we'd never sell her. And a year ago, I wouldn't have. My love for Seven was all wrapped up in her resemblance to the horse of my teenage years, a black Polish Arabian named Shamarrh. Seven and Shamarrh shared that certain dreamy big-dog quality of appearing to listen. They also shared a love of coffee breath and granola bars. Shamarrh had to be put down when I was 17 after a dog ran her through our fence and her front foreleg was broken along with my sense of all-is-right-with-the-world.

The moment that I saw Seven five years ago, I knew she was mine even though she wasn't for sale -- just a beautiful dishy dark filly head peeking out of a stall at a property I was showing. I immediately felt a rush of (mushy and ridiculous alert) youthfulness and joy. That is what Seven is. But you really can't go home again, no matter what Bon Jovi says.

So today for afternoon projects the girls and I will be making resolution collages. We don't go too heavy on the resolutions at this time of year -- sometimes we make fun "predictions" for the coming year such as "Laura will be potty trained by June" or "we'll go to Disneyland in October" (more a wish than a prediction, I know). I think my collage will have some horse pictures. Probably not black and probably a lot slower and cooler of blood than the horse(s) of my youth. Because I'm a different girl than I was 20 (or even five) years ago, that's why.

A happier, fluffier time ... and there were more eggs

There were requests for pictures of my poor molting birds.

Frankly just looking at a motley group of wacked-out feathers and chicken skin got me a little depressed. So I first had to post some snaps of the younger girls in their full-feathered fluffy glory.

Ah, the foof and arrogance of youth.

The sneaking around after preening for the cocksure boys. Wait. Is that a rooster reference? 'Cause that's how I meant it.

But look. Look at the inevitable end of all that vanity.

Just look, willya?

I hope the requested molting pictures are what you wanted. I for one feel a little older, a little less fluffy and a whole lot less fertile.

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What's up with that?

More baking ... and the chickens are molting

"Molting" is one of those words that sounds exactly as it is: gross-me-out, gag-me-with-a-spoon, molting is revolting. Seriously. There's nothing cute about a laying hen with half her feathers on the henhouse floor. (Picture mange. Only poultry. And you know, natural rather than fungi-created.)

You'd think everything about my sweet little fluffy egg producers would appeal to me. But you'd be wrong, because as molting creatures they are mostly featherless and charmless creatures. Also I have been (gasp) buying eggs, which annoys me to no end. Once you've switched to free range eggs there's almost no going back. Unless you have to make cookies. So I'm buying eggs.

And ... I'm feeding cat food to the hens. I heard this farm girl tip from one of the old-timers at the general store. Something in the cat food supposedly makes their molting stage speed up and their cute fluffy egg-laying selves return.

Who knew I could be so fickle?

Random but farmy

Three cheers for our Araucana pullets! The aptly named Hot Dog was the first to graduate to laying hen. And I am so excited. It even (if you can believe it) brought out a little dorky in me. I had to call my husband at work, where he was engaged in VIEM (very important engineering meeting) and couldn't be disturbed. So I left a long, detailed message with one of the other guys.

Like this:

"You see, Hot Dog is just barely five months old. And we've been waiting for these blue-green eggs since she was two days old. And I can hardly contain myself. Please have him call me." All the while the rooster was literally crowing in the background since I called from the henhouse and it was messing with his morning routines. So it sounded like this: "Cock-a-dooodle-doo. She's a brown and red hen with hints of gray. Crock-a-doodle. She's so much bigger than the other pullets -- are you getting all this? -- and I'm sure she cock-a-doodle is a few weeks ahead of them. It's tiny and perfectly robin's-egg blue! So you'll have him call?"

The message he received read: "Call your wife. New egg laid. She's a proud mama hen."

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Madeleine's cat was watching over Flo the fish.
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You don't keep a betta in a Mason jar? Oh. Well, we don't usually either, but someone-who-won't-cop-to-it added an actual seashell to our tank. The salt residue killed our two aquatic frogs but we saved Flo. Out of the frying pan into the fire, it would appear.

Incongruity Bites

There is a crow living with my chickens.

When I was a litte girl, my grandmother used to pay my brother a nickel for every crow his bb gun could conquer. It was the way of a farm, the way of protecting the corn and the cat food.

Crows in general are brash and bossy, quick to assert themselves. They're not my favorite bird. Neither have I ever paid my children to dispatch them to the other side.

Now this little crow has moved in. It all but roosts with the hens at night. The first few days our rooster chased it off. Patiently it waited on the wall of the compost heap, next door to the chicken chalet. It never, to my knowledge, crowed in that signature raucous way of the crow. In fact it nearly clucked for acceptance as day by day it moved closer to the flock, closer to the steady supply of crumbles and kitchen scraps.

I sort of like the little crow. It hops unevenly. Perhaps a neighborhood boy missed his mark and lost a nickel or a dollar or whatever is paid today to keep the crops safe.

Today the crow is in the chicken yard, pecking away like a tiny black hen. The others take no notice.

My corn is planted, most is up, in a 45-foot windbreak (to be) on the north side of the garden. I inspect it each morning, sometimes twice a day, unable to stop myself from the "knee high by the fourth of July" worries. Will it make it? Will our corn stock the freezer? Will I be fighting off the other, pushier crows with shiny CDs hung from the stalks and funny iconic scarecrows on the fence poles?

Don't think it hasn't occurred to me, either, about the short-term neighbors we had over the past couple of weeks.

But I like the little crow.

Clucking Good Time

The hens were in a tizzy. I know this isn't exactly a portrait of backyard bird bliss, but you'll soon see why the "girls" were so flustered.

A New Year, a clean coop.

Oops. And a full boot.

All of the shavings (and whatever else) from inside the coop went straight onto the compost bins. See how clever it was of my husband to place the compost just between the chicken yard and the garden? I am anticipating some great gardening this year.

We started a few flats of seeds. Kale, broccoli, cabbage, Swiss chard and butter crunch lettuce. All the cold-season crops that last year I had to buy as seedlings -- it makes me feel so thrifty. I will put these out in a couple of weeks in the new cold frames that my husband built for me over the weekend.

Until then, my kitchen table and the pumphouse floor are crowded with crops in waiting. We spritz them every morning and speak encouraging words so they'll sprout. Next year, maybe a greenhouse will be on my Christmas list.

Roller Coaster, Check; SeeSaw, Check; Pendulum, CHECK

Oh, the back-and-forth of country life.

A couple of weeks ago, I shoveled up hens with my neighbor and lamented the not knowing to whom those bad chicken-eating dogs belonged.

Then, a week and a half ago, I met the kind and sweet owners of those bloodthirsty dogs and we commisserated on the whole tragedy. Promises and phone numbers were exchanged, people. Their kennel was to be shored up; our chickens were to be safe evermore.

KL gave me new hens, and, lo, they were nicer than the ones who went to chicken heaven. They started laying. All was good. For a day and a half.

Of course, the bad dogs kept coming back. They sniffed around the chicken yard and laughed at the memories of the big party they'd had. I kept the hens locked inside.

I spoke to the neighbors again. They threw up their hands in despair. The dogs are escape artists! They can't be contained! And we have to go to work every once in a while. But look! They're so sweet. We'll make the kennel FORT KNOX, we swear.

I swear, too. But only when pushed to the very limit.

Dog break-in number four occurred this morning at 10:00 in direct view of my kitchen window. I was unpacking from our four-day trip. The girls were all studying and the hens were all sunning themselves to kick off December properly.

Little did the feathered ones know how thin that winter sunshine really is. Nay, even the DOGS had no idea. Because this chicky had HAD it.

She hurt her healing hip with the wrestling of an injured hen OUT OF THE MOUTH of the worst dog. Then she tripped while throwing the bad dogs into her kennel. She cussed up a storm (sharky! criminy! like that) remembering that she had locked those dogs in there before and it did exactly no good. So then she further wrenched herself out of whack and into real pain by tying the dogs to the back deck.

Oh, yes, she did.

Then she called the nice neighbors. Who, of course, were not home. Then she called the nice sheriff.

And the pendulum swung a little bit toward normal.

Did you notice how I had to slip into the third person there? It was too grisly to have been me, I think.

Speaking of grisly, we have a mostly featherless but live hen in a towel-lined box our laundry room. Anyone know what to do about that?

Farewell Little Red

Yesterday "Little Red" died. The idea that living on a hobby farm will teach the facts of life to our children is not new. We have been witness to the birth of critters from fluffball chicks to gangly foals. The girls have listened in as we unfortunately learned that our dog Jake was the proud father of 11 puppies. The neighbor dog is okay after delivering them, thanks for asking. Seeds sprout, flowers bloom, eggs are hidden in dresser drawers in hopes they hatch.



The new life bits of hobby farm living are heartwarming, skin-tingling and joyful.



The death bits, not so much.



Little Red was not the first of our hens to cross the road. (Couldn't help myself there.)



We lost "Hairdo," a Polish Crested, to a raccoon nine months ago when we were at the hospital delivering Laura. (There's an irony, circle-of-life point in there somewhere. I think I'll leave it alone.) Sarah mourned Hairdo in theatrical passion, with black armbands and much wailing and gnashing of teeth. She flopped on her bed and soaked her pillow in tears. She scoured the photo files for a remembrance of her favorite chicken.



Hairdo was incredibly ugly. She was also so tame that we took her to school for show-and-tell in the "Mystery Box." Not one first grader guessed there was a live, crazy-topknot chicken in the box. When the girls would walk out to the coop in the mornings (this was pre-chalet), Hairdo would cluck her greeting and actually hop into Sarah's arms.



In January, when the EGE discovered Hairdo's date with fate had been met, he shuttered all the womankind of the farmette in the house and took care of traditional manly duties. I don't actually know what he did with the bird. This does not mean I have given up my farmgirl charter membership. It's merely based on my just having given birth.



But when Sarah discovered Little Red in eternal slumber yesterday, there was no trace of the broken-hearted girl of nine months ago. She calmly came in the house, autumn breath still steaming up from her lungs into the dawn frosty air of the kitchen nook. She announced that Little Red was dead. She asked to call Daddy at work.



One short sentence later, she turned to go back outside.



Of course I quickly called the EGE to ask what their conversation was. You know I did. He reported that he'd told her he would take care of it when he got home.



Who knows what motivated Sarah to single-handedly dig a hole under the biggest Maple tree. Who knows how she lifted that six-foot-tall shovel. Who knows why she pounded together two of the EGE's finish carpentry moldings into a (somewhat sacreligious) cross. This is one tough farmgirl. Oh, scratch that. She's a farmchick.



And in other deep pondering matters, did you notice Gracie's attire as she attended the brief chicken funeral? I had to be sneaky-like with the camera, because I was annoying the bejeebeez out of Sarah by thinking she was cute.



In other Suite news, I spent a long, long day driving across two counties for photos of completed survey and engineering projects.



I saw some cool stuff too:





They took an apple branch in for paint matching.









They painted to match the cow skulls and bleached-out wagon wheels.

The sun and shade painted this one.

Farewell, Little Red. There are other chickens waiting for the roost. It's a circle of life thing, and I'm learning it alongside the girls of Farm Suite. Of course I prefer the springtime excitement, but fall's okay too. We get tougher, we circle the wagons. We paint our houses cheerful colors. We challenge adversity with true grit.

If we only had the springtime, we wouldn't know how much we could grow into summer and how strong we could be to face fall's gusts of icy wind.

Of course I'm fully aware that "for everything there is a season." It's biblical, it's songworthy, it's so often quoted that it's nearly cliche. But right now, it's so true to me that I wish I could hang a placque.

For everything there is a season. There's even a season for learning from our children. I am impressed with Sarah's resolute action. I am impressed with how quickly she's matured. I want to be more like my kids. Is there a season for that?

Feathers Ruffled, Wet Hens Included

There's Grace Hannah going out to feed the chickens. You can't fully appreciate her ensemble in this distance shot, but let me describe if for you: She's wearing a daisy-print sundress approximately four sizes too big; she's barefoot and she has someone's Disney memorabilia, also about four sizes too big, on her head. Note the henhouse is only painted as high as the girls could reach. I am letting go of my control freak nature. One breath at a time. Also, we've been a little busy with the nonstopness of summer. In through the nose, out through the mouth...

Surprise! There was an egg. The FIRST egg! Oh, it's a big day for a little omelet chez Suite.

Here's the sweet Cochin hen we believe responsible for the beautiful egg. Thanks, Shelly, my chicken guru!

Here's one of the Kookoo Moron chickens. I am not kidding about them being hard to love. You thought it was just poetic license, me renaming the Cuckoo Marans, didn't you? If you could see this hen in action, you'd wonder that my Lamaze breathing can get me through with such WEIRD chickens.

She's all wet. Literally. Someone dumped out my failed Friendship Bread batter for the chickens. Sigh. I had kept it alive for months, but then when our relatives were here.... well, I forgot to stir it. Or feed it. It's a good thing it's just yeast and not a pet or anything.

Anyway this Moron chicken got batter all over her. I saw her when it happened, and sort of shrugged it off. Well, apparently she couldn't do the same. A few hours later (alright, the next morning) she was covered in a hard candy shell of baked-on sticky mess. Doesn't it make you want to run straight for suburbia?

Then I had to chase her around the little chicken yard, because she's not that bright.

Then I had to wash her with soap and warm water. I felt like a member of the Audobon Society, only with a less lovable rescuee.

All cleaned up. But still madder than a wet hen. Also Kookoo. Have I mentioned that?

Coffee! My Kingdom For Some Coffee!

I have been having a pretty freaky morning. Out of coffee again. New kitten in the house. Well, it spends its nights in the shop, because the EGE is, um, not initially so thrilled about said new kitten.

(They were going to drown him. The kitten, not my eng-gen-eer husband. So what could I do?)

Madeleine is upstairs in Gracie's room working on a big "surprise." This means she'll emerge after a few hours having mercilessly edited (read: she's throwing away Gracie's treasures) and cleaned (read: our oldest has an obsession with Lysol).

Sarah is completely motionless on the couch holding the kitten. She's afraid to wake him up even though her legs are asleep and she has a "crik" in her neck.

Gracie woke up with a bloody nose geysering all over the quilt.

The new kitten has some sort of disgusting eye gunk issue and I will need to get myself into the feed store today for drops that I can only hope will cure the gunkiness.

Laura is on moosh food now, and it's made the diapers interesting, to say the least. This is yet another example of time going too quickly for me. She was literally born yesterday. Okay, six months ago, but still.

Independence Day is coming. This makes summer seem half over. I just sowed the second planting of swiss chard and acorn squash in the garden. Last night some neighbors stopped by and exclaimed at the cute factor of my raised beds. It is cute, I must say. Today I am going to try to build some more picket fence. Because I'm bored and it's 90 degrees and muggy, that's why.

The new chickens? Not so cute. I learned that two of them are a breed I think is called Kook-a-Morons. This is what Shelley, my personal chicken guru, told me. These chickens are absolutely out of their minds, and it's driving me there. Gone are the sweetly clucking Cochins and Araucaunas of our spring, and we are left with a summer of wild banshee chickens named after not-so-bright weirdos.

I simply must buy more coffee at a time.

Homebody Monday

More snow on daffodils that I shoveled out of the new horse paddocks straight into this old wooden trug. Note the careful placement of an upside-down sprinkler.

Cousin Makayla and Sarah... very happy to find eachother at the big ballet class.

And Gracie, super tired out after plies:

The Sissonettes, freezing in their leos outside of the class.

Sarah's superthick braid. She gets her hair from me:

Eugene did it! On Sunday afternoon the girls and I helped set a Guiness World Record for the
"World's Largest Ballet Class."

We enjoyed another whirlwind weekend. It snowed ... and snowed... and rained... too yucky to be outdoors, but a great weekend for dancing in the University of Oregon's Mac Court for an attempt at the World's Largest Ballet Class. The numbers were initially a little low, so even I stood at the barre for 45 minutes, attempting plies and developes with the crowd of 580 or so. Holding Laura on one shoulder to boot! I guess I've still "got it." Plus 20 years. As one of the instructors put it, "young dancers have the bodies, midlife dancers have heart."

In other news:

Our church's search for a new pastor continues. We are eager to find the right person since the parsonage is across the road from us. The girls really miss having a family live there.

Grace and Laura and I are having a (sort of) day off. I am calling clients and writing yet more company bios today from home today. Tomorrow morning I get to show property and goodness knows what the rest of the week will bring, so we needed a homebody day.

The chicks are almost completely feathered out. I need to take more photos. Ryan wasn't able to finish the chicken tractor over the weekend, again thanks to snow.

The feedsack purses are the craft project du jour. I will post photos this afternoon, good or bad. I understand there are some sewing challenges going on in blogland. KL at http://www.katiescalamities.blogspot.com/ is determined to sew something today with her unbelievably vast stash of fabric, which I understand grew more over the weekend. Misty at http://www.mistywagner.blogspot.com/ is also (I think) tackling some sewing. Anyone else?

We were blessed last night by our good friends cooking us dinner and dessert and sharing a very special drink to celebrate our business purchase. That was fun!

I think that's all the news that's fit to post. Have a blessed day all...

Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

I love how the girls labeled every single one of the cosmos starts. It is 80 degrees and the sun is shining. Just two weeks ago we had snow and frozen ground, but the starts are finally going in the ground today!

Other plantings of note today: Romaine and Butter Crunch lettuce starts in the "salad bucket" planter off the back porch; sugar snap peas and brocolli; the lemon tree; ivy geraniums and hollyhock starts.

Ryan had big plans for putting in our new raised beds today. However, he spent the day digging up dirt and pouring in a new concrete foundation and box thingamajig for the fire department's water shut-off valve. The volunteer fire department is next door, and their water valve is on our property. Last summer they were having water problems and had to replace the valve. At the time, Ryan was less than impressed with their contractor, who failed to compact the earth after installing the new valve. A-hem.

So here's where I have to admit that it's all my fault. I have been asking Ryan for months (ok, a year) if we could pretty please store the canned ham (our super shabby cute 1959 travel trailer) and the horse trailer behind some gigantic native rhododendrons on that side of the property. All I wanted was some space in front of the shop for a hitching post. A couple of times he said he didn't feel comfortable driving over the aforementioned valve box since it had an obvious saggy baggy soil problem. But yesterday I convinced him that it would be fine if he put some boards on top. The canned ham made it over okay, but the Suburban, he had to stop short of attempting that passage.

Hence his afternoon of digging, pouring concrete, constructing a degage valve cover box out of concrete blocks that were behind the shop. Of course during his hard labor two of the fire department board members and the founding father of the fire department were all across the road at the Rebecca Lodge for a 50th anniversary party. They were all dutifully impressed with his engineering expertise and gratifyingly thankful that he was correcting a problem which it turns out they had recognized all along.

Meanwhile the canned ham is stuck in a funky spot at the edge of the property, even more of a sore thumb in our picturesque view than before. As soon as the concrete sets up (R says 14 days or so), he will fill the hole appropriately with gravel, replace the soil, move the trailers, plant some grass seed and never listen to my naggingly "good ideas" again.

M, S & G were at Grampa's farm playing all day, so Laura was my only helper. She is too small for the stroller! We took walks to see the horses and the neighbors. At 7:40 we booked down to the General Store for dinner. Marti and Lorena were still serving a bunch of day trip bikers and cyclists and we managed to keep them open until half hour past closing. Yummy mushroom burgers and fries and town gossip about who might be the new pastor.

These People

Long, long ago, in a town just 12 miles from here, I was a newbie intern with fresh white clips from the campus paper. The internship offers were many and various, by which I mean two; I chose the smaller weekly paper and infuriated (this is not my ego talking, it really happened that way) the editor at the rejected paper. He told me I'd never work in publishing in that town, which shall remain named Springfield. I am yet to be stung by that. The paper I did choose: Cottage Grove's weekly Sentinel, at that time an award-winning community newspaper. My editor was young and hip, or whatever we should call cool/phat(?)/awesome. She handed out interesting assignments and listened extraordinarily well. The newsroom atmosphere was lively. I learned to shoot pictures as well, since the only photographer was usually busy with local sports. She attended my wedding and gave me an apron.

After graduation and getting married, I moved to eastern Oregon and worked there for a much more serious daily, covering a military air base and police beats. My editor at the "real" job was as different from the first as could be. I understand now, from this hardly unique position of older and wiser, that he was probably burned out and marking time. He and his wife were empty nesters. He spent his days in deep thought or a semi-comatose state, it's hard to tell. I actually came in late one night to rotate my desk out of his line of stare. We all worked in a bullpen newsroom, listening to the scanner for breaking news and entering copy on dinosaur computers with no "Windows" software. Pagination, as it was called, was newborn and screaming. The Internet too was in infancy. We discussed whether there'd ever be a way to make money on it, whether it would live forever in geekdom, whether it was worth it to have an electronic front page.

I know my memories are beginning to sound like the eulogies of publishing past. I have more to write on this subject, but as usual, today takes over with urgency.

We have a brand new baby since my last post (talk about burying the lead)! Laura Abigail was born January 15 and weighed a whopping 7 pounds 12 ounces. Tons of dark brown hair. Ryan's grandma's nose. Really, really beautiful and a good baby to boot. The sleepless nights have been minimal. So has the farmwork. We moved the mares to short-term leased pasture up above the schoolyard. We moved Two Spot home and he has been packing on the (much needed) pounds. We moved Nestor to the Keenes and then sold him and moved him to the Oregon Horse Center, where he's spoiled rotten and has no pasture mates to pick on.

A cougar or fox or racoon got the last of our chickens. It was grisly and gruesome -- they waited until we were gone to the hospital to deliver Laura. Ryan came home to a mess and had to whisk it away so as not to upset the girls more than necessary. He is currently building a chicken tractor (more on this later too?) and we have eight chicks on order through Deiss Feed & Seed.

We have to move this year's garden because (1) we expanded the horse paddocks and (2) one of the huge maples split in two and fell on the old garden spot. We bought lumber to build raised beds and are hoping to do them lasagna style any weekend now. It is Spring Break, but the forecast is a very unseasonable "snow down to 500 feet."

Our neighbors with the overpriced B&B still have their place on the market. They did drop the price $90,000, but still no lookers. The deli is open on Sundays and serving Friday-Saturday night prime rib again! Life in Lorane goes on.