“So, it’s still pretty cold. Do we need a heat lamp or something?” I had seen those at the farm supply store.
“Well, your dad got rid of all his heat lamps a long time ago, after his shed caught fire. I’ll show you what we do now.” He went into the storage box and pulled out what looked like two yellow plastic-sided grills, only the grill side faced down. There were two extension cords in the pen, and we put the heaters in one corner of each tub. “It doesn’t get hot. You can put your hand on it.” He pressed his hand against the grill side and held it out to me. It was warm but not too hot to touch. “Just enough to keep them warm until they feather in.” I would be lost without Elliot’s help. With him sharing his knowledge from working on the farm with my dad for two decades, my dad’s journals and notes, and YouTube videos, I may be able to learn a little about farming.
We got the chicks and set them down into the tubs one at a time. We each counted fifty-four. His chicks were light yellow with darker backs, and mine were mostly yellow all over. No deaths and eight extras! They were adorable and so tiny. We set up their feeders and waterers, and Elliot said that was good enough for now, other than checking and cleaning their mess a couple of times a day. Elliot told me that meat birds eat more feed than regular chickens. Some breeds eat so much you have to limit their food or they will eat until they die. They can grow so fast that they can't walk or their hearts give out. But the kind Dad gets are cross breeds that grow slower, but they don’t eat as much and fewer of them die. These guys will be gone in less than three months. Another shipment will get here the first week of June. So, I guess I'm going to have to figure out how not to get attached.
How could anyone kill and eat something this cute? Anyway, I’m trying to focus on what I’m doing right now and deal with the other stuff as it comes up. Out in the field, the kids were scampering and butting heads, goading their moms into kid behavior. Elliot and I finished feeding the chickens (the grey hen’s chicks are getting big), and the vet lady came out and picked him up. She took a second to check Frodo’s paw, and they were off. I should probably start calling her Frankie instead of vet lady.
After they left, Frodo and I took a walk over to Dad’s tree. I sat on a stump and told dad what was going on, about staying, Jodie and all. The air was peaceful except for a few tiny birds in the bushes and an occasional truck on the highway. There was no one around, but I tell you, for a moment, I could smell pipe smoke again.
April 2, 2013
One of the first major things Elliot said we had to do was get hay started. We have to schedule a crew to swath (or cut) and bale it, and they will stack it in the shed at the edge of the field and make some deliveries for us. But before they do any of that, we have to get irrigation set up and keep it watered all summer. The hay farmer is the same one who made an offer on the place earlier this year. I called and set up a date for cutting, and Elliot and I started working on irrigation this morning.
Elliot said the earlier we get water on the fields the better, so he and I got on it this morning. The fields are irrigated by pipes on water wheels that are about as tall as I am. We had to move the wheels out of the back field, and that was a chore. Elliot tinkered with the engine for a while, oiling and priming it, and then we rolled the wheels to their first position, dragged and connected the hoses to the water pipe, and cleaned out the screen that was full of dead leaves, what I think was once a mole, and some garbage thrown out of passing cars over the winter. Once he flipped the switch for the pump, water came streaming out of the sprinkler heads and doused the dry ground. We were lucky, and almost all of them worked great. Elliot cleaned a few of the nozzles with a brush and his file and only had to replace one.
The whole system has to be moved manually a few times a day. I thought it did it automatically. And it needs to run for two to three days a week. I read a lot about irrigation science online. They talked about gallons per minute, crop area, and the plants’ water requirements, but it all left me scratching my head. If the soil goes dry, the hay is ruined. If the soil is oversaturated, the hay is ruined. If it rains on the hay after it is cut but before it gets baled, the hay is ruined. I think once I’ve seen the results in person, I’ll understand it better. I’m glad someone else is handling the cutting and baling, or I would
