{"id":6955,"date":"2012-12-10T06:18:29","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T13:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=6955"},"modified":"2012-12-20T06:44:40","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T13:44:40","slug":"one-step-forward-and-you-know-the-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=6955","title":{"rendered":"One step forward and you know the rest."},"content":{"rendered":"

Daylight savings time isn’t the only thing that has sprung forward and fallen back.\u00a0 Around here we haven’t just lost an hour of sunlight and been forced to climb on chairs, get out user manuals,\u00a0or almost drive off the road trying to reset all the clocks in our homes and automobiles.\u00a0 We just can’t seem to complete one chore without another one rising up in its place.\u00a0 Something about that 23.5 degree tilt <\/a>as we head into the winter solstice makes it a particularly slippery slope.\u00a0 Just when you’re making some progress, you find yourself sliding back down.<\/p>\n

For example, it has been time to rake the leaves for a while now.<\/p>\n

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So we finally got it done.\u00a0 By “we” I mean Big, who happened to be out of pocket money, and therefore, susceptible to chore requests.\u00a0 Raking really is a drag because the leaves are such a wonderful, carefree ground cover.\u00a0 They look pretty, they make a lovely crunching sound when you walk on them, and, best of all, they mean you don’t have to mow anymore.\u00a0 They even act as a protective layer between the bottom of your shoes and the dog poop that the kids never scoop.<\/p>\n

But once the last leaf falls, the raking has to be done to protect the remaining pathetic blades of summer fescue.\u00a0 Or else there’ll just be mud when we throw down the winter rye.\u00a0 Well, more mud then there will already be in the ruts and runs the kids and dogs have made along their favorite pathways.\u00a0 Or the steep slopes where the grass never grows.\u00a0 Oh, to trade in the beautiful, crunchy leaves for the mud and new, delicate, sparse sprouts of rye in the few places where no one tramples them dead.\u00a0 And the exposed dog poop.<\/p>\n

Sure, the kids were thrilled with leaf pit at the end of the slide.<\/p>\n

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But now I have to wait for another kid to burn through their cash to in order to get the grass seed sown and lime thrown down.\u00a0 Good thing I’ve got one going through a Pokemon craze.\u00a0 At $3 per pack of cards it shouldn’t take long for Middle to be asking for a way to earn more money.\u00a0 Who says addiction doesn’t pay off?<\/p>\n

As well as getting the yard work done, we brought in fresh hay for the winter.\u00a0 Hay rolls result in lots of excitement in the barn yard.\u00a0 Because they are yummy, excellent for sitting on, and full of jumping fun.<\/p>\n

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Too bad the hay splinters and rashes on arms and legs from rolling them in are not quite as fun.\u00a0 Not even half as fun.\u00a0 Pretty much not fun at all.\u00a0 Which is why we were alarmed to discover one of the rolls was moldy.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 I’m not sure but the goats, the sheep, and even the fat pony refuse to eat it.\u00a0 It feels kind of damp in the center.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 And it smells moldy.\u00a0 I guess.\u00a0 I really am not sure what moldy hay is like.\u00a0 It might just be more weedy and stemmy than usual.\u00a0 There’s definitely a lot of seed heads in it because it shoots white dandelion-like fluff everywhere when you pull out tufts of hay.<\/p>\n

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So it has to be returned.\u00a0 Or refunded.\u00a0 Or replaced.\u00a0 Or something that is bound to be complicated.\u00a0 Will the farmer who sold it to me want the rest of the uneaten roll back?\u00a0 And how will we do that since I already cut the strings on it?\u00a0 Is this something I can handle or will The Other Half\u00a0 need to be sent in—all glowering 6’4″ of him?\u00a0 I’m not sure but I have a feeling this could go as badly as trying to return a gift to Target.\u00a0 And everyone knows those people are receipt Nazis.\u00a0 In any case, that moldy roll is standing inbetween me and the ability to cross “get more hay for winter” off my To Do list.\u00a0 In addition to using up my time and money keeping the free access baking soda full in case the hay makes anyone sick to their stomach.<\/p>\n

So I was thankful that at least the chickens were undertaking an egg comeback.<\/p>\n

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That was encouraging, especially since I almost killed them with whole corn.\u00a0 I got a deal on some bags of whole corn and tossed it out for their feed one morning.\u00a0 Since they love corn I was shocked to find a lot of it remaining when I went out for the evening feeding.\u00a0 I gave some of the friendlier hens a little head scratch to see if they were feeling OK and discovered everyone had a crop full of whole, undigested corn.\u00a0 Everyone.\u00a0 Every single chicken.\u00a0 Uh-oh.<\/p>\n

I know there was time when all we kept was whole corn and tossed that out for our ducks right before processing time.\u00a0 It was a good way to add a little fat to the very lean free range ducks and the chickens were always happy to participate in the corn fest.\u00a0 The chickens can get whatever grit they need from the rocks in the driveway so they never had any problems with digestion.\u00a0 I certainly never had a flock of chickens with crops so full of corn that they couldn’t eat another bite.\u00a0 But it would be just like me to accidentally kill my girls with impacted crops just when they started laying eggs again.\u00a0 This is what I mean about the slippery slope.\u00a0 Why does the winter solstice hate me?<\/p>\n

When we found everyone still alive the next morning, The Other Half went out for some bags of cracked corn and we mixed it with the whole corn to make it all more edible.\u00a0 It’s worked out fine so we could stop worrying and wondering about chickens for a while.\u00a0 Except for all the extra roosters.<\/p>\n

I am keeping the silkie rooster so that I can breed him with my silkie hens.<\/p>\n

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And I am keeping the Brahma rooster, Hawkeye, because I like his feathery legs.\u00a0 And his huge size.\u00a0 And his friendliness.<\/p>\n

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But the 6 other roosters need to be butchered.\u00a0 Plus the 2 Cornish crosses that were given to us by a child whose class did a unit on incubation and embryology.\u00a0 Only after the chicks hatched and were given to the students, did someone discover they were meat chickens, not laying hens.\u00a0 Farm instruction is spotty at best in the public schools.<\/p>\n

The mornings are definitely cool enough for butchering.\u00a0 Which means they’re also cool enough for snuggling under the covers and sleeping late.\u00a0 So we’re at a bit of a crossroads.\u00a0 I’m not sure exactly what will happen this year, but in previous winters it has taken one of the extra roosters jumping me during the morning feeding to get me to separate them all from the flock and brave the frosty dawn to set up the butchering table.\u00a0 Which explains that old saying, “spurred into action.”<\/p>\n

We also took the trees and bushes that we had been protecting on the deck throughout the summer heat and drought and finally got them into the ground.\u00a0 But now they need to be caged and covered with deer netting.\u00a0 The fruit trees, too.\u00a0 Hunting season ends in a few weeks which means the deer won’t be afraid to show their faces anymore.\u00a0 They’ll be combing the property, morning and night, flaunting their escape from death and gobbling up landscaping treats in vengeance for their fallen comrades.\u00a0 Like this guy.<\/p>\n

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Plus the road crews are still clear cutting around the power lines in preparation for ice and storms.\u00a0 I don’t know how it goes where you live, but those crews have screwed up depth perception in my state.\u00a0 Their idea of a 15 foot right of way next to the power lines seems to include pretty much anything with branches within sight distance.\u00a0 And putting flagging tape on something is like daring them to reach it with their side mower.\u00a0 Trust me, I’ve lost a bucket of milk or two when I had to throw it down in a mad dash down the driveway to stop an approaching roadside brusher.\u00a0 Which is why we don’t cry over spilled milk.\u00a0 Because milk is a lot easier to replace than Grandma Jackie’s rose bush or my Bloom-A-Thon pink double azalea.<\/a><\/p>\n

I thought I had finally found some completion when I went down to the garden to check the fall crops.\u00a0 I planted late this year (October!!) but when I lifted the frost cover I found the lettuce and greens were luscious enough to cause salivation.<\/p>\n

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And when I turned over the frost-killed potato patch, only expecting a few final spuds for the season, I was rewarded with an overflowing sweatshirt of taters.<\/p>\n

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Funny how I couldn’t grow potatoes for years and now my potato patch just gives and gives and gives.\u00a0 Which makes me wonder why potato varieties have names like Yukon Gold or Russet when clearly they should be named Perseverance or Delayed Gratification.<\/p>\n

I should have stopped with my potatoes and headed up to the house.\u00a0 Because it was a shame when I thinned the radishes and discovered there was an entire slug colony living there, nibbling my harvest.<\/p>\n

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Which means I am forced to engage a garden pest.\u00a0 In December.\u00a0 As far as I’m concerned the entire point of a fall garden is not having to deal with garden pests.\u00a0 Seek and destroy seems like such a contradictory message in the season of peace and hope.\u00a0 But so be it, slugs.\u00a0 I guess we’ll find out if you really can trap slugs with dishes of beer.\u00a0 And whether or not chickens will get drunk from consuming dishes filled with slugs and beer.\u00a0 ‘Cause what else would you do with trapped slugs other than put them out for the chickens to eat?<\/p>\n

It seems like there’s no getting ahead as long as we’re tilted away from the sun.\u00a0 Just sliding around in mud and grass seed, trying to keep the barn animals alive (at least until we’re ready for them to be otherwise), harvesting what we can from the garden, and avoiding the dog poop when possible.\u00a0 Although I have high hopes for the drunk chicken thing.\u00a0 That seems like it should be good for a laugh.\u00a0 Or end in disaster.\u00a0 There’s no telling this time of year.\u00a0 It’s like that old saying, “May you live in interesting times.”\u00a0 Which is also a Chinese curse.\u00a0 These are interesting times, people, interesting times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daylight savings time isn’t the only thing that has sprung forward and fallen back.\u00a0 Around here we haven’t just lost an hour of sunlight and been forced to climb on chairs, get out user manuals,\u00a0or almost drive off the road trying to reset all the clocks in our homes and automobiles.\u00a0 We just can’t seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6955"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7125,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions\/7125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}