Long Days

It's true.  The daylight hours are getting to be fewer each day as we enter the month of August.  It's also true - the days can be plenty long when you have a small-scale, diversified farm to go along with an off-farm job for each farmer and a life we'd like to live in addition to all of that!

Tuesday turned into a very long day after Monday was a very long day.  But both were long for different reasons.

Monday's long day started because we wanted to prepare for the arrival of some contractors at the farm to help jump-start a farmhouse project.  As many of you know, the kitchen area is often the center of the house.  So, it's a pretty big project when you need to shut it all down and move stuff out of the way when it involves the kitchen area.

The good news?  We were pretty well prepared for their arrival and the project we asked them to do was completed (up to the point we hired them to work).  The true completion of the project is up to us, of course.

Tuesday's long day started with Tammy heading out to try out some kayaking very early.  Rob tried to get out and do some farm work during the cool hours, only to be diverted by evidence that rats were predating on our broiler chicks.  After doing what I could do on that front, I had to drive to pick up feed for our poultry - and we were off and running.

The day ended after the sun was going down and we were moving the chicks into different containers that we hope will be "rat proof."   We're also hoping to find some rats in snap traps in the morning instead of dead chicks.

And that is the anatomy of a truly LONG day at the farm.  Start it with dead chicks and rats and end it with live, safe, chicks and very tired farmers.