Easy Saturday
I feel like i got a lot done today, and at the same time, i had a pretty easy day.
Nice. A twofer.
In addition to using my pressure cooker/canner to cook down bones to feed to the dogs, andwatching helping GSSH clean up the front yard a bit, i've been doing some mental and written organizing.
Chicken organizing.
Lemme splain.
Because i went a little nuts with my incubator when i got it...willy nilly producing tiny chickens without regard for how i would house them when they turned into flighty winged pigs, we are bit overrun right now.
I have 23 adults, one 10-weeker, twelve 8-weekers, and twenty-one 5-weekers. Are you adding that up? That's fifty-seven chickens. And they grow up. And want to be fed!
Therefore, i had to unplug the incubator and get a brain about myself before bringing more cute little fuzzy eggs with feet into this world. The incubator has been unplugged in the corner of the living room for weeks now, which is very sad, and today i figured out when i can use it again.
As sad as it is, very much of the reason we have chickens is so we can eat them. So, i sat down with a couple of calendars and couple of pads of paper and a couple of different colored pens and eventually my computer calendar, and figured out how often i can incubate chicks with our current accommodations for housing, and how that works out for the filling of our freezer and pantry with edibles.
Happily, we settled (i settled, and he approved) a plan to incubate every ten weeks. This will allow us to process about 100-120 chickens for food each year, which will go a very long way toward our food sovereignty goals. If we can get those rabbits reproducing soon, we may plausibly produce more than 50% of our own meat in 2011. Wouldn't that be grand?!
And healthy.
And think how much chicken and rabbit stock i could put away if we do that! Groovy!
After i color-coded my calendar and settled all my dates and got happy about being able to produce that much meat, i let my left brain get plum out of control, and i made a spreadsheet of my adult chickens and their respective i.d. numbers and identifying details. It was a grand evening!
Look here, you people who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog -- it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
James 4:13-17
I almost forgot. When can i incubate again? Happily, i need to set eggs this very next weekend, according to my calendar. And if the Lord wills, i will do it and follow this plan.
Nice. A twofer.
In addition to using my pressure cooker/canner to cook down bones to feed to the dogs, and
Chicken organizing.
Lemme splain.
Because i went a little nuts with my incubator when i got it...willy nilly producing tiny chickens without regard for how i would house them when they turned into flighty winged pigs, we are bit overrun right now.
I have 23 adults, one 10-weeker, twelve 8-weekers, and twenty-one 5-weekers. Are you adding that up? That's fifty-seven chickens. And they grow up. And want to be fed!
Therefore, i had to unplug the incubator and get a brain about myself before bringing more cute little fuzzy eggs with feet into this world. The incubator has been unplugged in the corner of the living room for weeks now, which is very sad, and today i figured out when i can use it again.
As sad as it is, very much of the reason we have chickens is so we can eat them. So, i sat down with a couple of calendars and couple of pads of paper and a couple of different colored pens and eventually my computer calendar, and figured out how often i can incubate chicks with our current accommodations for housing, and how that works out for the filling of our freezer and pantry with edibles.
Happily, we settled (i settled, and he approved) a plan to incubate every ten weeks. This will allow us to process about 100-120 chickens for food each year, which will go a very long way toward our food sovereignty goals. If we can get those rabbits reproducing soon, we may plausibly produce more than 50% of our own meat in 2011. Wouldn't that be grand?!
And healthy.
And think how much chicken and rabbit stock i could put away if we do that! Groovy!
After i color-coded my calendar and settled all my dates and got happy about being able to produce that much meat, i let my left brain get plum out of control, and i made a spreadsheet of my adult chickens and their respective i.d. numbers and identifying details. It was a grand evening!
Look here, you people who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog -- it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
James 4:13-17
I almost forgot. When can i incubate again? Happily, i need to set eggs this very next weekend, according to my calendar. And if the Lord wills, i will do it and follow this plan.
isn't it grand when God lets us dream, and then lets us follow through on those dreams? Glad you enjoyed playing with chicken spreadsheets!
ReplyDeleteBTW - coffee + homemade wheat bread (our pastor's wife) + APPLE BUTTER = :D for breakfast
You are SO organized! Congrats on that. It's a goal I have never achieved, so I look upon your efforts with enormous respect !
ReplyDeleteBeth, I wish I were as organized as you. How funny to have chicken spreadsheets. You're a woman after my own heart.
ReplyDeleteAmy