Down on the farm

If anyone would have asked me 10 years ago what I'd be doing when I was 39 - candling eggs was not an answer that would have popped into my head in any instance. Yet here I am - living in the Pinelands somewhere in proximity of the Jersey Devil - and up until Thursday of last week- I was candling eggs. Now for you city folk who don't know about candling let me go back a few months. By now everyone knows we have chickens - well at Christmas I thought a really cool present for Donald would be an incubator- you know so we could do something with the kids- an activity if you will. I know I know most families turn to board games- but hey we live in the Pine Barrens- things are different. Fast forward to 3 weeks ago. Spring was here and I started looking for eggs to hatch - I called a lady with eggs advertising on Craigslist ( yes that IS how we get livestock down here- unless you count the livestock auction that they hold every Sat that is lees than 4 miles ) and she said she had hatching eggs AND Guinea hen. Since we have a lone guinea hen , we had decided that he should have friends- so I called her and ordered a dozen hatching eggs and 5 guinea hen.

As Shearer luck would have it the guineas were delayed and since kids and I were all ready for babies- I asked her to bring some chicks so she brought 5 chicks and 22 eggs. She wasn't sure the hatching eggs were good so she gave me extra.So we set up 5 baby chicks on the back porch and 22 eggs in the incubator. Eggs are supposed to hatch at 21 days and during incubation you are supposed to "candle" the eggs. Candling is a way of holding up a light so you can see if a baby is growing in egg. Donald and I have never done this and are by no means experts but for about two weeks we did "candling demonstrations" for family and friends and by what we could guess- it looked like 2o eggs were fertile.wow lots of chickens.

A week after we got the first baby chicks- the guinea hen keets arrived- 5 so now we had 10 babies in our back porch. While all this was going on- I decided that my kids needed to be involved in 4H. 4H does teach about far stuff but it also teaches leadership, public speaking, community service and a host of other positive things. As luck would have it - there are no small animal clubs ( only horse clubs) in my area so I did what any crazy woman would do- I volunteered to be a leader- The Piney Poultry and Pets club will be having their inaugural meeting in June. I hadn't even finished filling out the 4H paperwork when the headquarters called and asked if I could "rescue" two baby chicks. Apparently a teenager - despondent over the loss of her beloved cat decided to bring home two chicks - unfortunately she lives in a NO CHICKEN development and the mother didn't know what to do. I happened to be going a mile away for a networking meeting that night so - yes I brought home 2 more chicks.
Eggs in the incubator went into lock down Wed night and we waited. I know now why I never had natural childbirth - I'm a wreck - Chicks started hatching Saturday and I haven't slept right since _ keep checking on the progress and worrying . At this time we have 8 chicks that have hatched and 1 more that has pipped- ( started to hatch ) Maybe by the weekend eggs will be done and I can get some sleep.

The guinea hen will eventually be released to free range on property to eat ticks. We can't tell the sex of the chicks as of yet but in any case I won't let Donald kill them so it seems we'll have plenty of eggs and probably a built in alarm clock or two - COCK A DOODLE DOO

PS- For any of you who have heard rumors about me kissing a pig at this year's Farm Fair - it simply is not true- Yes we do have a fundraiser whereby people donate money and the person with the most winnings kisses a pig- the nice people at the 4H have take pity on me and said I do not have to participate - next year will be my turn - SOOEY!