Dawn was stepping out of the darkness as shyly as a vestal virgin this morning as I made my way to the studio; water dripping from the trees announcing a shower must have occurred sometime during the night. The paint tins are as empty as my bucket of energy this morning so I can't resume painting the exterior of the barn and garage. I had to use a brush on just about the whole place, cutting between the battens every 3" or so seems to have take forever considering the time it takes to roll the paint on them - 12 hours brushing compared to 1 hour rolling. Of course it didn't help that the boards were thirstier than an Arab crawling on his hands and knees, 327 miles over the burning Sahara sand to the closest oasis, with his worn out camel and empty canteen strapped to his back.
I can hear the chickens clucking away as the sky brightens over the ridge; some of them considering laying an egg. The only chickens, out of 52, which are laying are the white leghorns but they're slightly older than the rest of the hens. Sarah and I were happy for the first week when the leghorns arrived because the leghorns were laying 13 eggs a day, which was very unusual. This led us to believe that the younger hens were just starting to lay as well, the reason being, Glenn Mclean had only sold us 12 leghorns and it wasn't likely one of the hens was laying two eggs. It wasn't until about a week later when I counted the leghorns that I realized, Glenn being a very generous man, had tossed in an extra leghorn - instead of 12 hens - there were 13, a baker's dozen.
I'd been planning on building a small deck outside the studio but instead I built a small chicken run. So, instead of sitting outside, sipping on a cold beer on a hot afternoon, if I step outside the door and am not careful - I get to step on chicken shit - my gosh do 52 chickens ever crap a lot. (Which reminds me, it's time to clean out the chicken coop.) However, despite the chicken droppings, I actually really like that the chickens are often just outside, standing and peering through the glass door, as if to say, "We're sociable; can we come inside for a visit?"
Last evening, I had a long hot bath - the water deep and hot enough to have a corn boil and lobster dinner for 37 hungry New Brunswack-os and left the attendance to the animals and chickens to Sarah and Jessica, which they did when they returned home from "Greet and Meet the Teacher" at the school in Canterbury. I joined them outside on the other side of the pasture fence in my kimono, almost crippling myself swatting a bombardment of kamikaze mosquitoes that were attacking my exposed lily-white legs. Between slaps, I noticed Luki, the Great Pyrenees dog, being encouraged to run and leap around like a pup by Sarah and Jessica, forgetting that he's about the same size as me, bowled Jessica over as easily as taking out a lane of ten pins in a bowling alley just by wagging his tail. Luckily, although she was in tears and stomped off to the house thinking the dog didn't like her anymore, she wasn't really hurt. The dog and I are probably fairly close in weight and when he stands on his hind feet we're about the same height, so I for one don't get him excited enough to take a leap up on me because just like Jessica, he'd most likely knock me down as well.
Judging by the cloudy sky, I suspect here at Golden Unicorn Farm, it's most likely going to rain. Regardless, since I'm out of paint, I can't finish painting, so what will I do - silly question - there's so much to do around here before the snow flies. However, that being said, what will I do today; finish building the interior of the barn or clean the chicken coop - easy decision - clean the coop first and then work on the feed room and a goat stall. Aah, I love the smell of chicken droppings (being polite instead of saying shit) in the morning - cheers - eh!
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