Ohiofarmgirl'sAdventuresinTheGoodLand-where ya been? whatcha been doin

[kcsunshine]

OFG, the day after you posted about your loving old hen dying, I lost one of my original barred rocks. She was just fine the day before, out scratching for bugs and such. But that morning she didn't come off the roost and when I picked her up to set her down on the floor, she was light as a feather and felt like she was already stiffening up. I set her down in a soft place on the floor and she just eased down like she was on the nest. Her comb was turning dark and she had not emptied her crop from the day before. When I went back in a couple of hours, she was gone. Looked like she had just laid over on her side and passed peacefully. I sure hated to tell hubby - the rocks are his favorite.

 

[savingdogs]

I know it is sad for you guys to lose your beloved chickens, but when you think of chicken-dom, your chickens hit the lottery, the jackpot and had a heavenly life compared to most poultry. Locked in tiny cages, never allowed to scratch or run around or take dust baths or do all the chickeny things they like to do. Supposedly they only keep birds a year in egg farms and then they are done for.

A hen living out a full life and into old age on a family farm is a very very very lucky chicken. AND they got to meet you both....something I'd sure love to do.

Still, RIP Pebbles and KC's Barred rock friend.

 

[Wifezilla]

 

[Marianne]

Maybe Pebbles and my Marigold are hanging out together in Hen Heaven! (

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

well.

we got a fine dose of humanity today. we had a garage sale. the Good Neighbor Grandma/Grandpa let us use their 'in town' house to have our Big Sale. we didnt get as much $$ as we hoped - but it was more than we thought so.. mixed results. but the upside was that we got more space in the house and garage - and another donation slip for our taxes at goodwill when i dumped some of the leftovers.

but wow - the weirdos were out for sure.

me - i love garage sales and stop all the time. but being on the other side of the table was an experience for sure. my favorite customer was a 89 year old man on a scooter who showed up first thing. then it was just a variety of folks. mostly i was surprised by the number of older-than-us guys who showed up to dig in the $1 or $0.50 each boxes... they all took bits and bobs.

inevitably they all elbowed each other in the ribs and made man-humor about the size 13 bowling shoes and accompanying ball we had on the table. then they's say something like "that guy must be a GIANT" when they couldnt even comfortably hold the ball b/c the span of the holes was too far apart for them. about that time they'd give me some kind of "hey honey" thing and try to be all friendly...then i'd just nod toward my husband standing like a oak tree over in the corner of the yard. then they'd just kinda say "oh..." and scoot away.

honestly who has time for that all day? sheesh.

then we got our share of even weirder weirdos. of course the worst of the lot showed up after The Big Man had to leave me there alone. a minivan full of not quite retired guys (so i dunno what their excuse was for riding around all day).... bunch of weirdos. about then i was wishin' i had the dog. or my axe. but then they all piled into their mini-van-hoopty and took off. whew.

i took the signs down then threw everything in the big truck and skedaddled.

course....i ended up putting a big chunk of our winnings into the big truck's gas tank just to GET to town. but at least we have less stuff.

anticipation to the garage sale was tough around here. i'm pretty sure i have a bleeding ulcer, i have a twitch in my eye, and i had nightmares over the whole thing. and its one of the few times TBM and i go ugly with each other. there were a few tug-o-wars over whether all his junk should or should not go in the 'sale' pile. there was finger pointing and "oh yeah"-ing. but we survived. specially when the older well dressed gals showed up, parked their Cadillac's on the curb and got to the hard bargaining and loaded up. once the cash starting pouring in he thought the whole thing was a great idea.

the worst customer was the gal who talked on the phone for 20 mins over whether she should or should not buy a table cloth for $2. i finally just shoved her in her car and took her money. she was scaring off the paying folks for sure.

anyway. thats what happened. i think i got plenty of "in town" to last me a while.

makes the barnyard look downright peaceful.

 

[valmom]

Oh, sorry to hear about your old hen! We still have 5 left from our original group who are 6 and 7 years old. We are losing them one by one to old age and it is sad. We are burying them out by our roosters in the sugar maples.

 

[FarmerJamie]

RE: garage sale....

Thanks for a not-subtle reminder of selling stuff in the pre-Craig's list world. When we lived in "the big city", we had a moving sale. There was this woman, preggers, with 3 kids in tow, listening them fight over how they were going to spend their dollar on the toys marked 50 cents. If broke our hearts, so we "sold" the kids something like 8 or 9 toys for the dollar (and then snuck the dollar back to the mom). An hour later, this loud, disgusting being showed up bellowing she wanted free stuff, too, because she was more poor than that other woman. We lived near the police station and knew many of the officers, by chance, one came by right at the right time.

Never again.

 

[freemotion]

You sound exhausted! And me and my big man have the same arguments and finger pointing....but we all know it is all his fault, don't we, gals?

Yay for any cash nowadays, and yay for more breathing room.....you are inspiring me yet again!

 

[Wifezilla]

I wonder what people think about me when I pull up to their sales

 

[savingdogs]

You sound exhausted! And me and my big man have the same arguments and finger pointing....but we all know it is all his fault, don't we, gals?

Yay for any cash nowadays, and yay for more breathing room.....you are inspiring me yet again!

I can't get Hubby to do "garage sale". So you are Waaaaaaay ahead of me. I point fingers and argue but the piles remain. Sometimes he pulls a rabbit out of his hat......er......pile of stuff....or a rabbitry, but the pile always remains.