Cluckin A Critter Farm, LLC: Thursday, January 13, 2011...Wow...We’re Lost In The Moment of A Week.....

This morning I was working on the thought for today’s blog and upon reflection, I realized we hadn’t blogged a post since last Saturday! Wow, that’s five whole days that we have been running, ducking snow storms, working on QuickBooks or huddling near the pellet stove, sucking up its warmth. Yesterday I spent the entire day on the tractor. First, we called the 911 dispatch center and reported that we were going to conduct a controlled burn of our junk pile. It contained a little bit of everything from the building of several structures over the last two years. Once dispatch was notified, they made note that we would be burning in case someone called in about seeing smoke. After hanging up, we lit the pile which was over four feet high and approximately twelve to fifteen feet across. There were many 2x4 and 2x6 end cut leftovers which we knew would burn for hours, so with the heavy snow cover, we went about other business and let it burn. While it burnt, I removed another eight inches of snow and returned the farm to some semblance of order to operate like normal. The day before yesterday, I made the John Deere useable again by purchasing a set of 7.00 x 15” LT (light truck) tire chains on eBay. They were brand new, had vee lugs spot welded to each cross link and when cut down and installed on the rear tires of the garden tractor, made it useable in this weather for shuttling bags of feed between the truck and barns. Prior to installing them, the garden tractor would not move on this paced snow, even after plowing pathways to drive upon. Now we can keep it running throughout the winter and keep the battery charged and healthy.
Both Dawna and Linda popped in on Tuesday to help with the farm chores and get ready for the big snow storm of Wednesday. Dawna owners the two younger sheep here and she stops by to help with chores and be with the sheep. Linda is our full time farm hand/landscaper/gardener. She is on the company books and loves doing what she does. Her business is “Lily & Sparrow”, a landscaping and design business she recently started on her own after years of working for another firm. She is a college graduate in the field of horticulture and designing landscape plans and the installation of them. She is a also a dear, close, personal friend of both Vick and me. Linda comes once a week and turns the barns inside out, leaving with them smelling fresh and clean. The animals are happy with Linda working around them and she enjoys being around them. Also, when Linda comes, she brings Winston, her majestic Golden Retriever, who either remains at her side or calmly wanders around the farm, sniffing and checking everything out. The animals are used to Winston and neither pays much attention to the other.
Sometimes we puppy sit for Linda and when Winston is here, he is part of the family. He and our five dogs get along great and he just blends in as one of the group, lounging around or playing with them. When we go anywhere, Winston simply goes along with us and takes his position in the back seat. He loves to ride and is Linda’s full time ride-along buddy. She takes him everywhere she can, but if her business for the day dictates she not take Winston along, she drops him here. We love him and he is no trouble at all.
Last evening, after we put all the animals away for the night, Vick and I went to the gift shop. I had turned on the heater a half hour before and it was toasty warm in there. We finished the tile wall (which you can see below) which will now need cleaned and grouted....a simple procedure, according to Vick, the resident tile installer...... We’ll do that today and as soon as we’re finished, I’ll place the stove and install the remainder of stove pipe and we’ll fire it off for the first time. That corner should look very quaint indeed!
Well, we made the day doing maintenance to Vick’s computer. She was blessed with an intrusion of some type which rendered her desktop almost useless. I worked on it almost all afternoon before finally getting it under control and expunging the culprit. It is now working and the day is gone......Oh well, there’s always tomorrow and it was warm in here all day long, so no loss.......