Which Came First?

On some farm somewhere, our four chickens are currently sitting peacefully in their eggs under toasty heat lamps, without a care in the world. Come next week, they will be thrust into the harsh light of reality, then a day later tucked into a box and will likely travel the farthest they ever will in their little chicken lives to our home.

I’m getting stressed out just thinking about it.

We are really, really lucky in this whole chicken-rearing endeavor simply because, four days out of the week, I work from home. I’ve planned to go into the office on Monday of next week, and I’ve notified my co-workers that, sometime on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, I will get a phone call from the post office saying that they have a peeping box on their hands and asking me to please come pick it up. And that I will then be MIA for the rest of the day.

Still, though… my biggest fear is I will somehow manage to mess things up royally and irreversibly. This weekend, I’m going to be studying my chicken books, setting up the brooder, and probably getting massive rounds of butterflies in the stomach. THE CHICKENS ARE LANDING!

Enough of my neurosis and first-time-mother worries, though. Spring has officially sprung, and my hoop house, of which I was so proud, is hardly even needed in central Indiana this spring. While my first round of lettuces are surviving to varying degrees (i.e. half look like they’re dying), the spinach and peas look quite well. We have a second and third round growing under lights in the office anyway, so I’m sure we will at least eat a LITTLE bit of lettuce and spinach this spring.

Suddenly, everything in Indianapolis is blooming - including our wild and crazy bush in the backyard, home to countless birds (and subsequent tormentor of two cats who would love nothing more than to eat the birds).

At some point this weekend, in between my obsessive re-researching of baby chicken care, I’m sure we will go on a bike ride to see all the amazing blooms.

And would you just look at those lovely little peas! The pea trellis is sticks from our yard and jute. Fancy, I know.
Go, peas, go!