Around the Homestead: Bantam Chickens, Dead Fox, and Bypassing Nonsensical Regulations

Which Came First?

The egg of course! We just got 34 baby bantam chicks from the Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa. Baby chicks can survive 3 days after hatching and they come via US Mail in a flat box with holes, chirping. The first thing we do is teach them to drink water. We keep them under an infrared light as they grow. We’ve been raising chickens for 30 years. The fresh eggs are worth all the work.

Foxy

Found this beautiful creature, hit by a car, last week.

I skinned it, stretched and salted it down, and after a week, rolled it up in a poster tube and shipped it to Bucks Country Furs in Pennsylvania via UPS. In about 2 months I’ll get it back via UPS, beautifully tanned, a process I find to be a minor miracle.

Oak Firewood: I Fought the Law and I Won

I’d seen a downed oak tree by the side of the road for a few weeks. On a Friday I took Marco and a chainsaw along. We cut it into liftable pieces and had just got the truck (fully) loaded when along comes a ranger. “You can’t pick up wood by the side of the road,” she says. I walked over to her SUV and said, “You know, this is a win-win situation. You guys don’t have to pay money to have it removed and I get good clean firewood, which will heat my house all year and I don’t have to use electric heat, which comes from coal-fired electric plants, or burn up non-renewable propane.” She gets it, sort of. But then says, “You’ll have to unload your truck.” She’s gotta be kidding, but she isnt. Marco tosses the first piece down the bank, and I say no, no, dump it next to the shoulder. He looks at me, puzzled, then grins. We go home with an empty truck. Dumb, huh? Now I assure you it didn’t occur to me to get up at 3:30 the next morning, go down the deserted road and by the light of the full moon pick up the whole load. I would never do that. No, that would be resisting authority.