It was a busy one today coming back from spring break and starting back into home school with our eight year old. I was in no mood for it, and I had a few things I still wanted done before getting at schooling in earnest, so it was a combo day.
I took little one with me to town after chores, and she helped me to get a new bar nut for the one missing on the chainsaw, and to get some nuts and bolts that were missing from some garden furniture we found stored in the barn from years past. She had to help me find the right thread, and size, and to count out the right number of bolts, washers, and nuts. Then when we went to the register I said to the cashier that it was a shame they didn’t charge by the pound rather than by the unit, and he said that he could if they were from the open top bins, which everthing was. I was expecting over ten dollars on the bill, but by the pound, it was only $2.12 for it all. When we got home, little one and I worked out our savings together! It was close to twelve dollars!
After the hardware store, and the chainsaw shop, we went to the farm store and bought a dozen of their older buff orpington hens to start us a new egg flock for the farm. When we got home, little one helped me set them up in their box with food and water, and we talked all bout the way we raise them and why we like to buy older chicks rather than downy chicks.
Little One also helped me to put together that garden furniture, and she was a part of getting the blades off the lawnmower, using a long cheater bar to help her turn the center nuts, and then we sharpened the blades with an angle grinder, and balanced them out best we could, then she helped to put them back on again. Finally she helped me to put the deck back on for the summer, and then clean up after ourselves.
We are ready for cold weather tomorrow with the possibility of snow. It’s just one more reason I like more mature hens better than starting the really young ones. Our weather is too unpredictable, and the box they live in is in the coop already.
We put the two white cochin hens from the egg coop where the peacocks live, to the pen the broody goats are in. That will allow us a much smoother transition for the chicks when they are ready to go on the floor of the coop.
I also put grass into the egg laying boxes to see if the peahens will pey eggs up there and then nest on them. Hopefully we will see chicks from them soon. It would be nice to get them out of the coop, but we don’t plan to till then so the peafowl are protected as they are a steep investment.
Little one also read her sight words in the car on the way back from town as practice. Home School on the homestead is nothing, if not pratical!