Chickens...

are so refreshing.  They adapt so quickly.  The new pullets were a little weirded out that they were out of wire cages, thrown into a new flock, and in a dog crate for one day - now they are all adapted, understand that me coming in means food.

Even though I technically bought 5 and 5 of two different breeds, I think I ended up a little heavy on the Buff Orpingtons - which is fine with me.  The guy who had them had a few of the Buffs running in the Americauna coop and I think he scooped some of them.  That works for me - I was wishing I had bought all Buffs after I got them home.

I have been dreaming of fences.  I would like to fence our 7.5 acres into four sections - the house and barn section, a front pasture, and two back pastures.  Actually one of those back pastures would need a separate pasture to separate the large flat place Joe tilled for new food plants.  Can't have horse trampling through there or sheep browsing through the whatever-it-is we decide to plant there.

This morning was a rough one.  I woke up tired, and apparently, so did 2 out of four kids.  I needed to be out of the house and moving by 6:10 so I could buy gas.  (I should have bought gas yesterday, but I forgot until I was 6 miles away from the nearest gas station and heading in the wrong direction).  We left at 6:25 with me slightly panicked.  Just bought enough gas to last the day or so, and I must remember tonight after work.  It didn't help that the sheep had knocked over their water.  I need a stock tank for them instead of a 5 gallon bucket.

I spent the few minutes before bed thinking about how hard it would be to provide all your food from 7.5 acres and hold down a job (or two).  I don't think my son could do without cereal, but I made a list of things I could grow that the family would actually eat.  It would be a lot of work.  I started estimating how much of each thing we would need for a year - eye opening.