Twin Oaks Farm - Dec 9, 2009

Tuesday Dec. 8, 2009 - The same modified routine this morning, straight away get up and take care of the morning feeding and then clean the duck eggs and then have breakfast. After a shower and playing on the internet for a while I finish off cleaning last nights chicken eggs and settle in on some reading material about organic gardening, a magazine of that title to be specific. The weather was nice in the morning, blue skies and temperature right on the border, too cool to be called warm and too warm to be called cool, just very nice. But around noon the clouds roll in and it starts raining a light drizzle, just enough to keep everything wet and turn off outdoor activities for a while. So I go through and clean up both kitchens, nothing major just organizing, except the domestic kitchen which had a big pile of dishes accumulating on the counter, which I had added to by the way. Renee gets back around 3:00 and her Explorer is filled to the brim with supplies and new kitchen utensils, etc, etc. The rain has stopped but could return any minute so we get everything unloaded while we have the chance and then I take care of the evening feeding and chicken egg collection. See what I mean about the egg work being "never done". Renee tells me about her weekend while we are having our dinner of assorted vegetables in a mild curry sauce over brown rice, which is very good. The usual cleanup and I'm off to bed by 7:30.

Wednesday Dec. 9, 2009 - This morning the weather situation has made a considerable change, the temperature is much warmer, so warm that it feels like a spring day and the wind has picked up. Renee gets a phone call from her friend Mary who had helped us with the chicken processing a few weeks back, a Tornado touched down a couple of miles from her farm near Tallahassee and we hear from the tv morning news there is a tornado watch for our area. During the morning feeding it starts to rain, but not anything heavy, just a drizzling. It breaks up after about an hour and I move on to my next task which is to clean 8 coolers that Renee uses to transport the various products to the market. She has five large igloos that have a hinged top and then three normal size that have a removable top. They all need to be scrubbed with warm soapy water, especially the large ones since they are white overall and are starting to show signs of wear. I take my time and do a thorough job which takes about fifteen minutes per cooler, what the plastic scrub brush doesn't get I use a kitchen scrub pad and then rinse with the hose .... they all look brand new to me! After finishing I'm completely soaked from the tops of my boots to my neck and my fingers are all wrinkled. Luckily it's time for the noon feeding and then I change into some clean, dry clothes before sitting down for lunch. Renee is busy in the commercial kitchen all day making preserves and apparently doesn't need any help, or isn't asking for any, so I move on to the barn to make some more progress on the reorganization. I want to move all the plastic fencing material out and re-stack a pile of cardboard that is in the way of the riding lawnmower. There isn't enough room to keep things semi organized and keep the plastic fencing in the barn so we have decided to use another storage shed which is behind the barn. So, the first new sub-task to my new barn-organizing-task is to clean out the small storage shed. I open the large double doors and I'm greeted with the same cluttered mess that used to live in the barn. Crap everywhere. Particle board signs that have been left in the rain, painted trim boards, unpainted trim boards, hardibacker pieces that are too small to have a function, a small piece of greenboard, some of this and that and all of it just thrown in a big pile just far enough inside the shed to allow the doors to close. Everything must come out so I can put it all back in a more organized way. About a third of the way into it I start to move the particle board signs, there are five or six of them and they are about four feet square and piled one on top of another. I pick up the first one and roaches go running in every direction, then the next board and it's the same thing. Under each board is a little village and all together the roaches have themselves a megatropolis going. Where are those chickens when you need them anyway? After everything is back in I have about 50% of the floor area freed up for the plastic fencing, which isn't going to take nearly that much room. The plastic fencing comes in pieces about four feet high by about six feet long and each one has been zip tied to one of the plastic posts for the portable electric fence, some of them three or four segments long. Then they were rolled up and set aside. So, one by one I carry them to the small storage shed and finally get things opened up so I can re-arrange the pile of cardboard against the wall and out of the way of the riding lawnmower. I look at the final arrangement and I think that it was a lot of work for a small reward, but it does open up more floor space and it will make things easier when we are moving the processing equipment in and out next Thursday. I guess I can count that as a gain. I see the sun is getting low on the horizon but I have about an hour to kill before it will be time for the evening feeding so I get my camera and take some pictures of the property. I haven't figured out how to post pictures on this blog so I'll post them on my facebook page with the others. Tonight's dinner is veggies and then chicken gizzards cooked in a burgandy wine sauce, Mmmmm. Then the usual after dinner clean up and I'm off to bed.