Big Rocks and Small Steps

There is a transition that I feel in my body when spring sets in. It feels like Susu, our farm dog, looks in the afternoon as he curls up on the mudroom floor to take a nap. My body aches at the end of the day, and yet as I think back on the day there was nothing particularly strenuous about it. This week was full of activity, and I can tell!

The source of the activity was many different projects getting underway all at once. With the help of Benji and Tully we are almost done with our brooder expansion project in the barn. Benji calls it “farmer brown” construction, using what we’ve got on hand, and as cheap as possible. We have rough cut 2x4s from the local lumber, used billboard tarps for a roof and bits and pieces of used metal roofing that have seen many uses on the farm. 

Starting this week we will have a new batch of chicks arrive every week all summer long! That is 450 chicks per week. This will be a first for us. With ventilation fans and plumbing in place we’re just about ready.

We also had an excavator here this week to clear an area for composting our chick bedding. Excavators are mesmerizing machines. The kids ran down to watch it work after school, and I can relate. Even after years of owning and operating one of these machines and having watched them work many times, I still catch myself staring in fascination as the diesel burning machine moves earth that would take me days to do with a shovel. While the excavator was here we also built a gravel pad for a new freezer to go on. 

The excavator also helped us do some spring cleanup, which is always very satisfying. We consolidated some scrap steel to go to the scrap yard, we moved a few large boulders and we fixed a few driveway and road issues. 

I even managed to make Racey’s favorite cake for her birthday this past Saturday. Her request every year is Icebox Cake, and not just any icebox cake, but homemade icebox cake. Originally a 1920’s creation to promote the new icebox in kitchens across the country, my grandmother used to tell stories of how she loved the icebox cake because you could throw it together so quickly…. This is not the icebox cake I like to make. I love the challenge of taking a recipe and seeing how much of it I can make from scratch. 

An icebox cake is chocolate wafers layered with whipped cream, then put in the fridge (icebox) and let sit for a few hours to a day and serve. So I have spent the last few years perfecting my homemade chocolate wafer recipe. The labor of love is not over there. Racey’s parents get fresh raw milk from our friends at North Country Creamery and they skim the cream off their half gallon of milk before drinking it. They save and freeze the cream for me and this is what we use to make the whipped cream. Homemade chocolate wafers, grass fed raw cream…Happy Birthday Racey!