Day 2

Today was a very chicken-y day. I started my day with mostly animal chores: milking and feeding cows and then collecting and cleaning eggs. Collecting eggs on this farm is not really the same as collecting eggs at Pie Ranch. In Pescadero, I was always the first one to volunteer myself for egg collecting and relished those last few moments of sun when I would go from one coop to the other with my basket in hand. I suppose the reason I don’t like it as much here is because the Full Belly hens are older and much more crotchety. The first time I stuck my hand under one it made loud screeching noises and pecked repeatedly at my hand. Needless to say, since then I have learned harsher methods. Now every time I come up to a mean looking hen I quickly use my other hand to hold her head back so she can’t attack. I guess what it boils down to is that the Pie Ranch chickens were much less caring about their eggs, they weren’t “mother hens” like they were supposed to be. There, they seemed only mildly curious when you stuck your hand under them to grab at their treasures. Here, collecting eggs seems more like stealing.

After my morning of thievery, my next project was ironically to help facilitate others’ stealing. I spent the day hanging a (human) door to the brand new chicken trailer where the new pullets will soon start laying eggs for us to harvest. The door was my second official construction project, but unlike the planter from a few weeks ago this project took much longer than expected. What I had believed to be a two-hour job ended up taking Rebecca and me an entire day! To our credit, the builders (*cough* Joe and Alex *cough*) neglected to level the frame completely so our job was inundated with headaches. Despite all these complications, after a full day of assorted doorknobs and power drills, we finally finished and the door now closes perfectly…And now, some day soon I will be able to use this door to collect baskets and baskets of fresh eggs.