vituperation

A couple of quick questions:

Probably a dumb question, but why do the eggs need to be turned?

Farmwife answered this in a later comment, but if anyone missed it, eggs are turned to keep the developing embryos from sticking to the shell. I’ve also read that turning eggs “exercises” the embryos, the thought of which makes me smile.

I wondered are you keeping track of which chicken laid which eggs?

Nope. I’m not sure what’s in the incubator, except for the lone blue egg. I can tell the three different kinds of brown eggs, but I’m not sure which kind comes from which breed.

And what I’d like to know is where you get the time/energy to do all that stuff through the week when you also work???

I get the time because I’m home by 3:30 each day. As for the energy, I don’t feel like I have a lot. I just know that if I want things done I have to do them.

Why don’t you let the chickens hatch the eggs? and I had the same question. You have the hens, why buy an incubator?

For a chicken to hatch eggs, she has to be in the mood. A chicken in the mood to hatch is referred to as being “broody” — she’ll spend her time in the nest box, whether or not there are eggs. I have no broody chickens. There’s one buff that tends to the broody side, but it comes and goes. If she goes broody again, I’ll probably stick some eggs under her.

(interesting fact: a female chicken under two years old is called a “pullet,” and over two is called a “hen”)

“May I help you?” the young man behind the counter asked.

I held out my receipt and loading ticket, the very items he’d just handed me ten minutes ago.

“They didn’t have the three-foot chicken wire,” I said. “I got a roll of the two-foot instead, still 150 feet. I need to get a refund of the difference in price.”

He took the receipt and eyed it. I already felt like I’d gotten on his bad side earlier because he rang up the wrong kind of welded wire and was charging me $150 more than he should. The manager had to come over and get everything straightened out, because I kept chanting “I’ve bought about 10 rolls of this in the last 6 months and it’s always about $80 per roll.”

After a moment, he started punching things into the computer in front of him. The co-op bustled around me; Saturday mornings are their busiest. People scurried to and fro, picking out seeds, pet supplies, and various farm-oriented things. I was there to get extra fencing, in case I needed it during my grand enlarging of the chicken yard. Two rolls of welded wire, and a 150-foot roll of 36-inch chicken wire to go around the yard-within-a-yard I’ll be making for the little chicks, so they can have something of a meet-n-greet with the big ones before the two flocks are merged.

The man finished pecking at the keyboard and turned to the money drawer, which popped open. He pulled out several bills and some change, and handed it over to me.

“Seventy-seven seventy-six,” he said, and looked beyond me to the next customer in line.

“I think you gave me too much money,” I said.

He looked at the computer screen. “Nope, seventy-seven seventy-six.”

I looked at my receipt.

“I paid $64.50 for the 36-inch wire. You gave me back more than I paid. I’m pretty sure that’s not the difference between the 36-inch and 24-inch stuff. I think it should probably be more like $24 or $25.”

He called over Wayne, one of the older and more seasoned workers. I set the money on the counter.

“He thinks his refund is wrong,” the young man said.

“I think you gave me too much money,” I said.

“Clear it out,” Wayne said to the young man. The young man complied, hitting a couple of keys on the keyboard.

Wayne walked him through entering the 36-inch wire, then subtracting it, and putting in the 24-inch. Point and peck, point and peck. When they were finished, Wayne looked up at me.

“Seventy-seven seventy six,” he said, and pointed at the stack of money still sitting between my hands.

“But that’s more than I even paid for the 36-inch wire.”

“That’s what the computer says.”

“Something isn’t right. I don’t want to take your money, because I think it’s about $50 more than I should get.”

Wayne looked a little exasperated and told the young man to clear it out again. They started over. The line behind me continued to grow, and I had time to wonder why these things always seem to happen to me. When they finished the second time, Wayne again looked up at me.

“We need to get $113.07 from you,” he said.

“What? I got less wire than I originally bought. I’m pretty sure I don’t owe you any money.”

Wayne pointed at the two rolls of welded wire on my receipt.

“Right,” I said. “I paid for those earlier. All I need is the difference between a roll of 36-inch chicken wire and a roll of 24-inch chicken wire.”

Wayne and the young man did the entire refund transaction again, and again reached the conclusion that they owed me $77.76.

“But that’s too much,” I said, starting to feel like a broken record. “I don’t think you should owe me but about $25.”

“Well, it says $77.76,” Wayne said dubiously, like he thought I was trying to cheat them by asking for less money.

I looked down at the refund receipt the young man had given me with the money, and saw the problem.

“Look here, the refund is putting in $112.50 for the 36-inch wire, but over here on my receipt, I was only charged $64.50.”

“The discount!” Wayne said.

When you buy over 300 feet of fence at the co-op, some sort of discount kicks in and it gets a lot cheaper per foot. That’s why I was only charged $64.50 for the roll of wire.

They started the refund process again, and this time Wayne had the young man change the cost-per-foot of the chicken wire to be what my original receipt showed. This time, I heard something much more realistic.

“Twenty-five ninety-two,” Wayne said with a smile.

“That sounds more like it.”

The young man counted out the money and I took it, deciding against pointing out that I’d paid with a credit card and should actually get a charge-back instead of cash. Sometimes I do know when to keep my mouth shut.

I swear, at times it seems like being honest is more a pain in the ass than anything.

The chicken yard is officially huge:

It’s l-shaped now, and wraps around the back yard.
This is looking out from the side door.

From one of the front corners. If you look just in front of the open coop door,
you’ll see one of the posts of the back fence.

From the opposite front corner, looking to the back corner. The posts in
the foreground are from the original fence line. For a size reference, the tractor in
the center of the picture is INSIDE the chicken yard.

Exploring.

Looking across the back end. The area where the pond used to be is now part.

Foraging.

This sight never ceases to thrill me.

And now, because I can’t settle on one, two videos from perhaps one of the greatest bands ever.