Twin Oaks Farm - Day 2

Day two on the farm:

Didn't sleep too good last night, got up around 3:45 am and didn't really get back into a deep sleep after that, my head was spinning with ideas about how to make the ultimate perfect portable chicken coup .... spin, spin, spin and then I was in and out of sleep. Got up around 6:00 before the alarm clock went off and eased my sore body out of bed and into the shower, I can't wait until this part gets easier, waking up these tired old muscles is kinda slow and achy. More duck eggs this morning, this time scrambled with toast and more of Renee's great coffee. She has read the blood type diet book and is a firm believer and she is also a type A, this is going to be really good for my diet. When I put creamer in my coffe yesterday she gave me a scolding look and said that I shouldn't have any dairy, so this morning I had my coffee black with some real sugar and the usual acid reflux reaction was much reduced, according to my MD I shouldn't have coffee either, when I come into Tallahassee this weekend I'll be sure to get some goats milk from NewLeaf. As usual we start the day by feeding the chickens and ducks, with two of us this now takes much less time and then we moved on to building an additional compost bin from the pvc pipe we salvaged yesterday. Renee described to me what she was looking for and went inside to work in the commercial kitchen. After a couple of hours the bin is complete, about 4 feet wide and maybe 7 feet long. It's next to another one that is only 4 feet square and the compost in that one wasn't started correctly so the idea is to get this new one started with about four inches of leaves and then sprayed with some organic compost starter fluid that she has prepared in the kitchen, then spread out the existing partially composted pile on top of the leaves. This was ok until we removed the top couple of inches of the existing pile. Ohhhhh, wheeeeww, uhhhhhh an undescribable odor comes out of this compost pile and my appetite is killed for the next week, inside is veggie and fruit remainder cuttings from a restaurant kitchen that have been decomposing slowly and improperly for the last two weeks, what a stinking mess. So we spread that out in the new compost bin and then cover it with a thin layer of dirt, a sprinkling of lime and then more leaves, maybe not in that order. Renee sprinkles the whole thing down on the top of each layer of leaves. Then we go to the back of her van and there are two large white plastic trash cans, each full of more cuttings from the restaurant. These have been in the back of the van for two days wating for the new compost bin to be built, turning into a smelly V8 concoction. I back up the riding mower with a small trailer to the back doors of the van and Renee dumps it all into the trailer and then we are off to spread it on the next layer in the pile, then more leaves and finally we top off the new pile with some cardboard. Glad that's over, kinda messy and smelly but an essential thing to get down, these compost piles should be ready for the garden this spring. We spend the next hour or so cleaning up and putting away tools and organizing the rest of the material we salvaged from the old prototype chicken coup, that part of the garden/yard looks a lot nicer now. Of course we finish the day with a feeding of the chickens and ducks and egg collection. The ducks seem to lay one egg per day per duck pretty consistenly but the chickens are not so consistent. Not only that but the two coups of equal size for the laying hens have 31 in one coup and over 70 in the other ???? I didn't count the chicken eggs but I would estimate the take at around 35 total and about the same for both days.

Tomorrow we will clean eggs in preparation for Saturdays market in Panama City and learn about "double digging" an organic garden bed, specifically the part about the shovel and the boot on my foot coming into harmonious matrimony.