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Morning confessions, afternoon daydreams, and evening wind-downs. |
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This is dedicated to my daughter, Azalea Paige Kraynak. You're half the cause of some of these entries, but that's why I love you. There's rarely a day that you don't surprise me with the things you do and say. I've changed since the start of this, of course I think that's to be expected - I'm not an overworked pessimist anymore. I'm and adequately worked, for the most part happy idealist who holds the occasional cynical view of someone whose done seen some @$*#. That said, these are the new and improved ramblings of a guy who lives a life that I find to be occasionally comical. |
| Well, I call it a morning ritual, it's more of a 'when I wake up' ritual. I work swing shift so I'm not always waking up in the morning, but the routine is always the same. Wake up, brush my teeth, make some coffee, put my lunch together, and then take care of the animals. I raise chickens and rabbits in our little corner of Pennsylvania. If you have ever considered doing it, do it! I mean it, it's a very enjoyable hobby. I don't know why I find it so pleasant, but I really like the sounds of chickens clucking. The eggs are an added bonus considering how absurdly expensive they are nowadays. We have 5 hens so we get about 2 to 3 eggs a day. My wife, kids, and I aren't daily consumers of eggs so that's more than enough to get us by. But I need to complain a minute about these eggs and well I guess the chickens. This isn't my first small flock of chickens. We started with Black Australorps and Production Reds. We had 6 of them then. Bruce, Kyle, Steve, Kevin, Kenny, and Craig. Yes, they had boy names. Those birds had the decency to use nesting boxes to lay eggs which is awfully nice considering I didn't have to pretend every morning was easter. This new batch of birds are a good bit dumber and so have dumber names: Breakfast, 2nd Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Supper (an ode to lord of the rings). These ladies have nice, literally brand-new nesting boxes. Where do they lay their eggs? On my table saw of course. Perfect place to lay an egg. But we can't forget behind a stack of summer tires for my car, or on top of a compost pile. The morning routine used to be, go out, change water, feed, get the eggs in one spot. Now its, go out, change water, feed, find the first egg, go from there. Used to take maybe 10 minutes, now it takes a half hour. I literally went 2 weeks thinking they just weren't laying because it was so cold out. That's when I found the spot behind the tires. There were a dozen and a half eggs in there, all cracked because they had frozen - it's pretty cold here right now. I wasn't mad or anything but I was a little perplexed. I tossed them all into the compost pile (eggs make for great compost,) so of course the chickens saw that as the new spot to lay an egg. Why not? I can say, at least the compost pile is a few degrees warmer so they won't freeze there. Now anyone that has had chickens might say: try putting ceramic eggs in their nesting boxes. I have tried that. They're dumb but somehow, they know. They kind of just roll them around with their feet. Another might say: Put one of their eggs in the nesting boxes. Tried that, didn't work. Someone might say: Move the nesting boxes somewhere else, yeah I tried that. Trust me, I've tried it. I've tried all of it, at this point i kind of just look at as like F%#k it, lets just have a scavenger hunt every day. |
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Thanks! Life is good, frustrating, but funny. I try to find humor in my day to day world and I'm glad you enjoyed it.