GFF Dictionary part I

We have, over time, shared with you some of our farm-specific terminology.  And, like language everywhere, some terms will fall into and out of favor depending on circumstance.  If you would like to see the original postings that introduced some of these terms, they are at the end of this post. 

Learn your GFF terminology.  I, the Sandman, have spoken

There are many more terms we hope to remember to add, but we thought it might be amusing for everyone to see the dictionary of GFF terms as it stands right now.

• Ali and Frazier.  As our male broiler chickens mature, they start to challenge each other.  The spend time about a foot apart in an aggressive posture...giving each other the 'evil' eye.  Occasionally, they'll move their heads up and down trying to get an advantage.  Rarely, they'll give each other chest bump and then go eat something.
• Beaks of Doom. Every once in a while there is a disturbance where many chickens (hens or broilers) move quickly at once.  Flying insects do cause quite a stir in the flock.  Until they meet a beak of doom.
• B.O.D. - see Beaks of Doom or Bills of Doom
• Bills of Doom - it turns out that the ducks are pretty good at catching things as well.  They're just funnier when they try to move quickly.
• Breezy - Do you wear a hat?  Well, now you don't.
• Broiler hiccups.  Ok - they are not really hiccups.  But, the sound some of these birds are making as they attempt to learn to crow....  hiccups is about the only valid description we can come up with.
• Broom Bird. We used to have to work harder to put broilers into their buildings, so we used to play a game called broom bird.  No - we did not *hit* the birds with brooms.  But, we did use brooms to direct birds to their shelter.  Our waving arms didn't suffice - but a colorful broom - that's the ticket.  
• Cardio - using the wheel hoe in the gardens. See "Three Shirt Day."
• Chicklet - a baby chicken.
• Chuckie - any woodchuck on our property has a tendency to be at least mildly evil. The mama woodchuck is, of course, Bride of Chuckie and the young-uns could be considered Spawn of Chuckie - but the babies look more like something else (see Ewok) 
• Clyde - sometimes a bird will not go into shelter at night.  If an owl finds them, we usually just find internal organs the next morning.  That bird is automatically named "Clyde."  See "Not Like Clyde." 
• Door Wardens - one to three of our turkeys tend to stand (or sit) in the door area of their shelter as a guard until we come to close the door at night.
• Dumb Truck - we learned this one from an advertisement in a free farm magazine that lists such things for sale.  There is evidently a unique Dumb Truck (only 1) for sale.  Funny that it looks like what most people would call a Dump Truck.  From now on, it is a Dumb Truck!
• Ewok - a woodchuck youngster.  Apparently, they do not clothe the youngsters. 
• Executive Decision -  there are numerous times during the growing season that a decision simply gets made for us.  That's just the way it is.
• Farmer Delusional Syndrome - a typical disorder found in farmers that do what we do at the time of year when seed catalogues arrive.
• Fork of Damocles - as the date for a trip to the park closes for any of our poultry, we say the "Fork of Damocles" is hanging over them.
  
• Garden Zit - potato beetle larvae. They're orange with some spotting/striping and look a little like mini-Jabba the Hut. They pop when squished (not squashed).
• Field Access Indicators - the puddles in the drive area.  If they are full, you likely can't work the soil in the fields.  If they are damp, pretty close to ready.  Dry?  Go for it.
• Freezer Camp - after the fun and exciting trip to "the Park" our meat birds chill at Freezer Camp. 
• "Help" - what our cats do. 
• High Speed Internet - Oh, wait.  That one belongs in our myth list on the farm.  Put it between "weed-free" and "on-schedule". 
• High Wind Warning - Look out!  Wasn't that the neighbor's cow blowing by?
• Honeydew list - the list of melons we intend to grow in the coming year.  
• Insta-Tan - put on suntan lotion, go oustide on a windy day when the soil is dry and sweat a little bit.  The result is often an insta-tan that will be the envy of all of the other kids at the pool.  Sadly, the pool owner will not feel envy if you jump into the pool with your insta-tan.
• Kamikaze - a blackfly or gnat that does that little loop in front of your eye before diving right in.
• Kite - it's a pull-behind tool for a garden tractor that flips up grass clippings into the carrier so it can be used as mulch or compost. It can catch the wind too, there you have it.
• Knucklehead - a generic term used for any of our poultry that is causing Rob's blood pressure to go up. Occassionally, deer, chuckies, raccoon, cats and other critters will become a knucklehead. Early in life, Rob called bullheads 'knuckleheads,' but that's another (GFF) story.
• Mentor crop - often we plant successions of a crop (to spread out the harvest).  The planting that was put in earlier is often our 'mentor crop' if it is doing well.  When the new succession pokes their little heads up out of the ground, we point to the earlier crop and say, "See - that's what YOU'RE supposed to do."
• Misplaced - Things that were not properly anchored or put away prior to a period of wind. 
• Nibster - Both of the little feline type creatures that live in our house are nibsters.  Nibster is what you get if you shift your right hand to the left one spot (as a touch typest).  See if you can figure it out.
• Not Like Clyde: We now tell our broilers to 'not be like Clyde' when they don't want to go into their shelter at night.  Still, that bird had guts.
• Orbin - that's a robin for people who aren't always so good at word scrambles.
• Paid in Full - what a critter is said to have done if it does not escape from the Fauxes after it takes out some of their poultry or crops.
• the Park  - where the meat birds go to chill.  Literally.  See also "Freezer Camp"
• Product Tester - that would be Tammy. She likes to eat produce in the field.
• Scout - the early tomatoes that often precede the main crop by 2-4 weeks.  Most tomato varieties in our fields will set a couple of tomatoes early and ripen then well before the main crop.  We figure they are checking out our farm before encouraging the rest to grow and ripen. Similar patterns have been observed for other fruiting plants, such as peppers, beans and summer squash.
• Skritcher - any tool used to scratch up the ground and make life more difficult for weeds. Officially, a skritcher has tines - but we stretch the definition for saddle hoes, wire weeders, etc.
• Sun puddle - especially prevalent on sunny Winter days.  Cats are particularly good at commandeering the flat spaces where a sun puddle resides.  Beware - they (the sun puddles) tend to move.
• Squish - ya, that's a squash. There is a summer squish, pumpkin squish, butternut squish and rotten squish that goes 'squish' when it's squashed.
• T.E.F. (Thistle Eradication Forces) - when you have to deal with Canadian Thistle on your farm, it's time to gather the troops.
• Three Shirt Day - think about it. We work outside. It gets warm. We perspire. Also possible entries include Four Shirt Day and Five Shirt Day.  Thankfully, it doesn't usually get worse than that.
• Time Wasters - aka kittens.
• Turklets - baby turkeys
• Turkles - the next stage for turkeys after "turklets"
• Turks - the third stage for turkeys after "turkles."  The following stage is "Knucklehead".
• UnEgg Space - when you tend to pick 4 to 5 dozen eggs a day from your laying flock, *any* space in the refrigerator that does not hold eggs is UnEgg Space.
• VAP (Very Ambitious Plan) -  Our daily work plan at the farm.  Beware the OAP (Overly Ambitious Plan) and the NAP (No Ambition Plan).  For more details, check out this post.
• Windy - That's when you close building doors so things don't blow OUT of the buildings. 

Some GFF Farm Terminology Lessons (some of these terms have been taken from these older posts and edited a bit):

• Bird Brains I
• Bird Brains II
• Vocabu...?
• Talking the Talk
• GFF Vocabulary