For awhile there, my younger daughter was obsessed with getting ducks. We discouraged that idea, though, since we don’t have any water on the property. So then she switched her focus to chickens. She wanted a variety of breeds because her goal, she said, was to have multi-colored cartons of eggs. That plan, we said, was a little more doable.
Over the last number of months, she’s been buying assorted kinds of baby chicks and then raising them — first in a cage in the barn and then, once they’re big enough, she transitions them out to the coop.
She’d fixed up the coop, shoveling out the poop, putting down a bed of shavings, making a new ramp, rigging up a little drop-down door on a pulley. Each morning when my husband goes down to milk, he opens the door, and each evening she closes it.
Aside from my husband letting them out in the morning, all the chicken care is my daughter’s responsibility. She buys the feed and collects the eggs, and she’s religious about tending them. She has 18 hens right now, and just a couple weeks ago, she came home with five more chicks, Rhode Island Reds this time. They’re supposed to lay large brown eggs.
I don’t much like chickens, and I can’t say I understand her fascination with them, but I gotta admit: some of these birds are downright lovely. The colors and patterns are picture-book worthy.
The eggs, when they started rolling in, were eensy small, but now they’re more closer to more regular sized. (Just this morning my husband found one in the sink in the milking shed, plugging up the drain.) Currently, she gets about 13 a day, but the number is rising steadily. The deal is that we pay full price for the eggs but we also get dibs on them, since we’re providing her with the hen house, fencing, and land. As long as she makes sure we’re stocked, she’s free to sell them to whoever. It’s a pretty sweet deal.
For both of us.
P.S. Did you know that my mother wrote a children’s book about chickens? It’s about my brother and his flock of chickens back when we were living in West Virginia. The illustrations are so playful, and in the story, I’m “the girl” — check it out!
This past weekend, my husband and I drove up to Pennsylvania for my cousin’s wedding. It’s still a novelty, you know, hopping in the car and jetting off by ourselves. After returning home, I commented to my husband that travel doesn’t feel like such a big deal now that we don’t have to haul kids and all their attitudes and paraphernalia. We can stop for coffee and doughnuts, if we want. Stay out late, if we want. Pop in to visit other friends, if we want. With the kids mostly grown, we have margins: financial, emotional, etc. It’s nice.
We stayed both nights at my girlfriend’s house. When we arrived, they had a fire going, and mint tea and ginger cookies waiting. And candles everywhere, lighting up the dark.
It was magical, an excellent start to the wedding weekend.
Soon after my son’s wedding back in December (at which my aunt had walked in the barn door and I’d immediately thrust a tub of greenery into her hands and ordered her decorate NOW), I’d texted my aunt that we could come up early to help prep, if they wanted. Now that I knew how much work a wedding was, my compassion was in full swing.
She’d have me help with the rolls, she said.
When we showed up Saturday morning, my aunt was zipping around the kitchen and two of the four (double) batches of dough were already started. For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, I (along with some others) spent the next few hours stirring in the flour, stretching and folding the dough, shaping buns, brushing buns with egg wash, and baking buns.
All the while, the screen door opened and banged closed as people trooped in and out with question after question for my aunt. Do we have more roasters? Where are the ladles? We only have half the dishes! How do you spell so-and-so’s name? Can we have these chairs? What do you want me to do with that? Where do I put this?
But for all the activity, there really wasn’t much to do. I mean, there was a ton of stuff to do (clearly), but they had so many people helping that it didn’t feel too terribly busy.
Weirdly enough, I didn’t spy a single list. Think about it, people — no lists. All those volunteers, all those tasks, and they just . . . happened. As a consummate list-maker, I do not understand this. Sorcery, perhaps?
All the excitement and energy gave the whole place a wonderful buzzy feel. So much family. So many friends. So much beauty. So much joy. My aunt and uncle are makers and doers — they are made for this type of thing — and while I knew they were stressed and tired, it was also clear that they were having fun. Loads of fun.
Take, for example, frog and toad.
My aunt had the stuffed animals somewhere and then at one point she got the idea to turn them into a bride and groom and so she sewed them some outfits and stuck them in amongst the flowers.
And my uncle was in his glory, tending the pig he’d raised for the event.
It was some pig.
Pork butt, anyone?
The weather couldn’t have been more perfect and every time I walked from the house kitchen to the up-on-the-hill kitchen, I’d feast my eyes on the beauty. The baskets of pies. The stone patio. All the little nooks and crannies crammed with potted plants and decked out with twinkle lights and jars of candles.
The ceremony was held down by the creek.
At one point, the bride and groom worked together to split a log using a hand-held saw — an example of the push and pull of a relationship and working together. Afterward, guests got to try it out for themselves.
I didn’t take many photos of the evening. Just of my girlfriend and me…
And of the grandmother of the groom because I thought she bore an uncanny resemblance to Queen Elizabeth.
For the most part, I was too busy having fun, visiting and eating — I had seconds of the pulled pork, slaw, gourmet potatoes, and baked beans, and slivers of four different kinds of pie (the pecan made my eyes roll back in my head) — and then there was the dancing. I’m not much of a dancer (at all), but I’ve reached the point where it’s not worth it to let my inabilities and inhibitions prevent me from having fun so I danced by myself and I danced with my son, the groom, some random dude, and even, for a few minutes, with my husband.
At one point I dipped out of the tent to go to the bathroom but then they played Sweet Caroline and I had to come running back to snatch a little video clip so I could send it to my Caroline.
