January 19, 2007

Friday evenin in Cooks Creek. Wife is sick and has gone to bed. She has been feelin poorly for a couple of days now. Needs a good nights rest. Durin the week we don’t get enough sleep. Try to be in the sack by at least 10:00 (but doesn’t always happen) then alarm goes off @ 5:00. Put in a full day from 5:00 am to 10:00 p.m. That’s only gives 7 hours sleep if we are lucky. One thing I am sure of it is, sufficient sleep is one of the most important things you can do to keep yourself healthy. Eventually it all catches up with ya. God says “Your too stupid to get the proper rest, well I’ll give ya something that will put ya down and make ya rest. There ya go. I guess if there is one thing we (whole family) should be doin this year is makin a real effort to get proper sleep.

The oldest daughter has taken my truck and is off on her first solo trip. She has gone off to church to help with the play. Am I nervous? Darn tootin. It’s the only truck I got. 

Last week took our burn barrel to the dump. Son is with me and wants to go to the saw dust pile they have there and get some bags of saw dust for his cat’s litter box. We get a couple of bags of saw dust and I gets this bright idea that I will fill up the now empty burn barrel with saw dust and use it for beddin in the chicken coop. So I do. Take it over to the coop when I get home and start puttin it on the floor. Stupid chickens make a bee line for the other side of the coop and bunch up 4 or 5 deep. I knew what was goin to happen instantly. I ran over and tried to get them seperated but as fast as I was pullin them apart they were bunchin up. So I ran and got a feed bin and brought it into the coop. That got them apart but too late. 4 dead chickens. What can I say. I’m still learnin. Chickens didn’t go to waste. They are in the freezer but they were good layers. Full of eggs. Man, was I mad at myself. Live and learn.

We were sellin eggs to the canteen in the high school where my wife works. Health Inspector comes in this week and sees the brown eggs and asks where the eggs are comin from (you know where this is goin, right). Lady says, Cheryl’s farm. Are they graded? Nope. Get them out of here or I’ll shut ya down. So no more sellin eggs to the high school. 6 feet from those eggs is a slushy machine where they sell a crushed ice drink deal with flavored sugar syrup on it. Nutritional value of that stuff is nil. That stuffs ok but farm fresh eggs had to hit the road. I’ll never figure this deal out.

I have started the construction of my Wizbang Chicken Plucker. In a previous post I mentioned I thought I could build it for $200. I may have been a little off. I thought I had a good motor. Turns out it is junk. So I will need to buy a motor. Some of the parts are pretty special (not stuff you would have layin around). I think I will buy that sstuff from the Wizbang Chicken Plucker Company. It sounds like it is a family run deal. I like dealin with those kind of outfits. Support what we are all tryin to do here. My new prediction is $500. Exactly what the book said it would cost if ya had to buy evrything new. I may even have to go a touch over 500 bein here in Canada. Everything is a bit more expensive do to extra shippin costs and our lower dollar value. Will let ya all know how it goes. I’ll get er done. May take a bit longer cause I’ll need to saveup a little more but my days of hand pluckin chickens should be over. Maybe I’ll take my plucker on the road like the old threshin gangs in the old days. Make me a sign. Chickens Plucked, two bits each. Says it can pluck a chicken in 15 seconds. That would be a dollar a minute. I could make 60 bucks an hour pluckin chickens. I’ll be rich! If I build 2 pluckers, I could make………. Wonder if the bank would lend me some start up money? ;-)

Man, I am lookin forward to Spring. There is goin to be a ton of work to complete this year but it is what I call fun work. Workin on farmin stuff, buildin chicken pluckers, buildin stalls in barns and pig pens ain’t work at all. That kind of stuff makes me want to get up in the mornin and get goin.

Everyone is plannin or have been of a warm holiday. I wonder what is wrong with me? I have no urge to go away on a vacation. My vacation time (from my away job) is spent right here at home. Not because I have to but because I want to. No place on earth I would rather be than at home doin what we are doin. People ask, Are you goin someplace warm this winter? When you tell them no, they look at ya like they feel sorry for ya or something. Don’t feel sorry for me. I like stayin at home with my family and doin what we are doin. I feel sorry for you that ya all got to go lookin all over the place and spend a wheelbarrow full of money tryin to find some contentment.

Well as Bugs Bunny says, ThThThThThats all folks! Talk to ya all real soon. I want to blog a little more regular so to keep a better log on stuff.