Things are looking up for the farm. It’s not nearly as crazy here. The chickens have kind of settled into a routine. All the equipment has cooperated since I last posted too. Eggs are starting to pick up. Yesterday we gathered about 600 from both houses. Still a far cry from the 12,000 that should come at about 30 weeks, but atleast we are getting some. Lots of the eggs are being layed on the slats or in the shavings right now since the chickens are young. Hopefully as they get older they will make their way to the nest. We have tenatively agreed to keep a diary for Farm and Ranch Living magazine in September so sometime after then you can look for us in the magazine.

We took some time off on Sunday to attend Bethel Baptist Church for Easter services. I hadn’t been to church in a while and I really enjoyed it. The kids got to hunt Easter eggs and go to “lil church”. They have a special kids church in the back. It’s great that emphasis is being put on the little ones and teaching on their level. Gives the adults a break too. You don’t have to worry with fidgeting children you can relax and enjoy the sermon. Easter is one of my favorite holidays. Not only the spring time weather and coloring eggs, but the real significance of the holiday. It seems to be less tainted than some of the other holidays. You can still say Happy Easter without offending anyone, I think. My brother Paul and his wife came to visit and eat dinner Sunday too. It was good to see him. It had been a while. I’m hoping since he got a new car he will come visit more often. Then maybe I can trick him into helping me out around the farm.

Monday morning BJ had a chiropractic appointment and I needed to get grass seed so I offered to drive her. I got up at regular time and did all the feeding as usual and then we spent the rest of the morning bouncing around Somerset. We stopped at Tractor Supply Company and amazingly I only spent $20. Maybe I should leave the kids behind more often. Who am I kidding I’m worse than they are about spending money on toys. My toys usually consist of tools and tractor stuff so they’re way more expensive. We stopped at Southern States Cooperative and picked up all the grass seed we’re going to need for the acreage we cleared last fall. We’re putting it in an orchard grass/clover mix. That way it should be good pasture for anything we want to put on it and should be high quality hay if we decide to use it for hay. Then we made our way up to Valley Farm Equipment to see Wes for a FEL hose for the 7010. We stopped and got a bite to eat, but as always we couldn’t agree where we wanted to eat so we ended up sitting in the truck with drive thru from Hardee’s and Burger King. Bj is big on Hardee’s ham and cheese sandwiches. I don’t particularly care for Hardee’s except at breakfast then it’s my favorite. I’m fond of the new BBQ Bacon Tendercrisp sandwich at Burger King.

Seems like a lot of people are following this presidential election closer than usual. I agree with a lot of the people who are saying this country is at crossroads. This next president has a lot of work to do. Myself I am still undecided. I am a registered Republican because almost all the local elections are decided at the primary and the majority of the candidates are Republican. I have strong ties to Democratic values and come from a long line of Democrats. It’s so much more difficult than Democrat or Republican though. As a farmer I see the need for immigration and migrant labor, but know companies abuse it. From a tax standpoint I’d be much better off to vote Republican. Democrats are much more friendly to labor unions and I have strong beliefs in rights to organize. I believe in our 2nd ammendment rights to own a gun as do Republicans. So I geuss I’ll follow this thing all the way to the end before I decide.

Yesterday was shaping up to be a good day. My dad came down and spent some time helping me trace down a short in a fan at the chickenhouse. That gave us an opportunity to talk and for him to see how much time I’m spending busting my backside here. I think we both came away from it with a better understanding of what we expect from each other. We’ve agreed on a salary that is a minimum I will receive plus a bonus if we get any egg bonus. The money for the grass seed came from the farm account too. We both want this farm to build some operating capital and to be self sufficient. We have talked about building a second set of these houses and bringing my older brother in to run them if he wants to.

I say yesterday was shaping up to be a good day because everything was clicking right along until we broke the tie rod mount on the 7010. My dad and I headed off to disc the 20 acres we cleared in the fall with discs on the 7010 and the 6000. I was getting all the rough and tight spots with the 6000 and the lift disc while he was doing the main part with the pull type disc on the 7010. I’d forgotten how much I like the 6000 and it’s sheer bulletproof simplicity. I noticed I hadn’t seen my dad in a while. Then I saw him walking toward me. I thought “this can’t be good”. He said we got trouble and I thought he had turned it over because a part of it is steep. Turned out that he had turned a tight left and the tie rod mount broke loose from the axle. It took him a few minutes to figure out what had happened. This will be the second trip to Valley Farm Equipment in less than a week. Earlier in the week I had to get a FEL hose replaced on the 7010.

Well as always lots to do here so I better get busy. We have set up a yahoo! mail account for those of you who wish to contact us in a less public way. Just send mail to musablog@yahoo.com and be sure to check out all the pics I’ve added to the site! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy!