Sorry walledlifers, I know it’s been a while since my last blog. Terry has kept us pretty busy on the farm. We just butchered 31 chickens over the course of two afternoons. It took a bit more time than we had hoped. We are stocked up on chicken for some time now. More importantly though, (or at least more enjoyable) we went on vacation down to the Colorado Plateau country of Utah and Northern Arizona. We not only explored the National and State Parks, but we visited family and friends also. It was great to see the kids and grandkids! Some of the best exploring was on the backr ..read more

My wife says I’m naturally stoned, that I don’t need to partake of cannabis. I agree, I tried it before and it not only took me away from reality but had me racing through Oz, Neverland, Narnia and much weirder locales. It didn’t give me time to focus. Too many chickens and squirrels distracting me. In my line of work, (rural mail carrier) I get a lot of time to let my mind wander. I find myself asking lots of important questions. For example: Why would a cemetery receive packaging and shipping catalogs? How does one decide to be a proctologist? Speaking of Arseholes, the cheap toilet paper ..read more

What’s in an eggshell? Since we started raising chickens I’ve come across several variations of eggs. We’ve had double yolks, colors including White, Brown, Green and Purple. We’ve had soft transparent shells and ones with a ring around the middle. They’ve been big, small, long, skinny, short or round. One thing I’ve found is that our farm fresh eggs have more colorful and tasty yolks. Some of them will even dance on the skillet and flip themselves! My cousin’s wife has an egg fetish, she only eats white shelled eggs. I tell her she’s a White Egg Supremacist. One would argue that they’re all t ..read more

Hey, it’s Daylight Savings Time! We get to trade in one hour of today for more daylight! I’m not quite understanding how that works, but it is a brainchild of the U.S. government…. so of course it works. Hey I work for the U.S. Postal Service and it’s still kicking. I witness miracles every day. From the sunrise, to new spring chickens in the incubator, to ducks and songbirds returning to the Mission Valley. Speaking of Spring Chickens, Terry has the incubator in our bedroom. They started hatching today. She’s already apologizing for them keeping me up all night with their chirping. I’m ..read more

With Terry limited on physical duties from her recent surgery, The kids (they’re in their twenties but they’ll always be “the kids”) and I have had to pick up the slack on the chores around the farm. I don’t know how Terry and Ayla do their chores, but Codi and I are “Men”, we have a routine. As we are told what to do, our brains are organizing each little thing that is entailed, into their respective places. The goal is to take the least amount of steps in the shortest amount of time with the smallest possible energy spent. If we’re lucky we might get done and be able to slip away to tend to ..read more

In some ways I feel blessed. God gave me many talents. I’ve drawn all of my life. I do well with most artistic mediums. I seem to be improving with my writing, song lyrics are one form I’ve dabbled with. Here’s a sample: Brought up on the back roads Snowpack mud and dust Every road condition For your truck that’s made o’ rust Traffic’s not a problem ‘Nless you count skunks ‘n’ deer Y’re good if you don’t hit ‘em And you don’t spill your beer Yer miles from The nearest town Dust plumes tell you Who’s around Away from the rat race Outward bound On back roads Yer lost ‘n’ found Therapy can cost ..read more

About a year ago, we were living in a rental and Terry decided she wanted some goldfish for an aquaponics garden project. I told her all right, but I draw the line at fish, they can be a handful! Now a year later, we’re on a farm with twenty some chickens, three turkeys, half a dozen pheasants, four cats, three dogs, four sheep, a yak, and as of yesterday a piglet. Oh, and we still have a goldfish! I don’t think she takes me seriously! Winter hasn’t really gained a foothold yet. We’ll go from fresh snow and twenty degrees to fifty degrees and a wet mess. Whether it’s fog, overcast, or sun ..read more

It’s been interesting watching our furry and feathered wards figure out where and how they fit together in our little society. We just weened Sylvia off the bottle. She’s actually done better than expected, but she likes to use the ewes as pacifiers. Fury the ram, has become the best one for breaking her of that habit. He head butts her if she comes around his girls. We got Sylvia and Rocket at about the same time. They’re still good buddies. Rocket is supposed to be a Livestock Guardian. Sylvia however seems to be establishing dominance over him, in a rather embarrassing way. Then he bit ..read more

Shortly after my last blog, October decided to go from 85 degrees to -10 degrees with a foot of snow! Since then it has been fluctuating between cold and warm, with the average high slowly going down. Mornings have been a little on the frosty side, but by the afternoon it’s been in the 40s or 50s. With leaves and seeds falling from the trees, birds and squirrels are storing food for the coming Winter. The deer are hard into the rut right now. With the rut comes a lot of road killed deer, as they are distracted and the bucks have only one thing on their minds. That however feeds the sc ..read more

One of the customers on my mail route always greets me with the same sentence: “Sure is funny weather we’ve been having!” Up until the last couple days, October has been unusually warm. I’m not complaining though, we’ve yet to see how well our new place holds the heat through a Winter. I’ve been seeing lots of bears on the mail route lately. They’re raiding everybody’s fruit trees, getting ready for hibernation. One lady was saying she had four different bears that she had to constantly chase off of her deck. She said she loved seeing them but they can be destructive! October may hav ..read more