Social Distancing Diaries: Day 47

Dear Diary

The Homesteading Edition

Weeds in the foreground. Pretty Boy winds up for a menacing crow.

Want to know a little secret? When I sit down to write the blog each night, I have NO idea what to say. Ha! Maybe that’s obvious! So I look at the photos on my camera roll for that day to get some ideas. I try to remember to take pictures throughout the day, with the blog in mind, since I have NO idea what to write about. Did I mention I have NO idea what to write about??

This is the broody hen that doesn’t quite get it. She sits on the nest for part of the day and then abandons it. Sadly, she’s not going to hatch any chicks like that.

Chickens: We have 2 flocks of chickens—the 2 year olds and the 1 year olds. The 2 year olds are Rhode Island Reds and they are docile and friendly. They lay brown eggs. The 1 year olds are “Easter Eggers”. They lay blue eggs. One of them turned out to be a rooster. We call him Pretty Boy because he really is beautiful. But his looks don’t prevent us from having Unwholesome Thoughts towards him for his early morning crowing. This flock is flighty and scared of people even though they were lovingly hand-raised by the World’s Biggest Animal Lover (Shout out to Hannah H.!). We feed all of our non-meat table scraps to our chickens. Their favorite are melon rinds. We even have the neighbors give their melon rinds to our chickens. This spring we’ve been giving all of our weeds to the chickens too. We used to toss the weeds into the swamp behind our house but now the swamp has been fenced off for a goat pasture so we can’t toss anything in there. But the chickens seem to love to scratch and peck through the weeds, so I think this is a delightful solution!

I did a lot of weeding today and I feel accomplished! I’m also pleased as punch because I harvested the first asparagus of the season! Those babies will be sautéed for my breakfast tomorrow morning. Yum-O!

Look at those beauties!

My birthday is one week from today! I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to gifts. Gifts are not my love language. But Acts of Service are, so skip the fancy knick knacks and sling some mulch for your ol’ mum! I’m perfectly content to buy and plant flowers. And not cook. That’s what I did last year for my birthday and I’m hoping for a repeat this year. The coupon on the back of the Merchandiser this week for the Mother’s Day Potting Soil or Manure totally cracked me up today! Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! Here’s a bag of manure to express my love to you. That could be a lot funnier but Ellen told me to keep it rated G.

As if the marketing campaign wasn’t funny enough, check out that expiration date! LOL!