Warming Up

Went out the east end to do my babies/bodies check (when you have as many old animals as I do, and some pregnant ones, this is what you do several times a day) and felt the warm April sun.  Might even melt the remaining snow today.  The sheep are not liking the new hay but they eat it knowing it's all we've got and that the fields will green up if they are patient and wait.  They know we are all in it together and I only want the best for them.  Good sheep.  It will cost me more to keep them fed the next two months than it cost me all winter with my own hay but here we are.  Just didn't have enough of it.  Had some excitement when I turned on the stove to melt the vegetable shortening while making soap last night and the flame didn't come on.  Guess who forgot to call for a propane delivery.  It's a big deal to get more gas when it runs out, with switching out tanks, checking the system, etc.  Yes, I am a natural blonde, although grayish these days.  One would think the gray would help but no in my case.   Costs much more $$ now but here we are.  Good thing I have the electric dye stove in the milk room but the chickens have pooped all over it required a good hour of elbow grease.  I'm so mad at them, and the would-be carpenters who made a lack-luster effort to fix the chicken room door, that I'm grabbing the wild hens and putting them in the remaining rabbit cages.  They are furious but so am I.  I've gotten two eggs in two days from about seven hens so maybe they are settling down.  They get plenty of cracked corn and water, although they tip it every time I water them.  Pains in the butt...I didn't always have such a disorganized chicken situation.  I brought a few purebred chickens up here when I bought the farm.  One day I stopped by to visit Shepherd Mary, who had a large dog crate sitting on end in her front yard, filled with little chickens.  She said they were from a friend who gave them to Mary to take to market.  She offered them to me and I brought them home and released them in the barn.   They interbred with the fancy chickens and here we are.  At the time I had a terrible fly problem.  I had a living room set up in the hay mow, Anthropologie style, but couldn't sit there without my arms being black with flies in seconds.  The little chickens, who turned out to be Olde English Bantams, went to work on the flies.  Chickens love flies.  They are like chocolate to them.  The down side is that chickens find many places to hide and hatch eggs in the gigantic barn, and many of them are roosters.  Funny how that happens...I'm dreaming of a chicken tractor, a hen house on wheels,  that can be moved around the field with the chickens inside.  I would have to carry water to them, but what else is new.  Trouble is with hundreds of chickens I would have to have several tractors and a few kids around to move them and collect eggs.  Fantasies are free, right?  Sewing for the rest of the day, thank you Jesus,  then more soap making tonight.  Feels good to have it in the molds, even though there is much work still ahead with cutting, curing and wrapping.  Spouse left on a trip and took a bar stating he hates hotel soap.  I guess that is a veiled compliment.  Annie T. also said she didn't appreciate my soap until hotel soap made her skin dry and itchy.  I put all the shea butter, honey, oatmeal, and goat milk it will hold in the batch, along with melting silk fibers in the lye for extra protein.  Last night's eucalyptus is firming up nicely considering all the extra oil I put in there.   The week is flying by, with a trip to the accountant to find out what the annual damage is on deck for tomorrow.  I will go by the market to pick up more apples for Lilly.  I have a stack of Bundaflicka totes cut out to sew.  Manna from heaven.  I don't know what it is about purses that appeal to me.  I had a brocade fabric purse when I was young - lost in one of my many moves, and I was fascinated by it.  It was small and messenger style with ruffles around the flap.  I took it to the prom.  Funny how when I'm working so many memories fly through my head, like they are stopping by to say one last hello before leaving for another time and place.