Zinnia’s school had an egg hunt yesterday at which the “Easter Bunny” made an appearance. The Producer fled with her bucket, a similar reaction to the one she had at their Christmas party with Santa. I realized that she has an innate sense of facade, a trait kids seem to share. But adults tell them to stifle it, “come on it’s just fun,” and then when we get older we simply turn that into, “what are you, a conspiracy theorist?!” I have also noticed that The Producer has an innate desire to participate and help around the farm. I can see how parents would say, “I’ll just do it myself because kids are messy, awkward, take forever, etc” but once again we have discouraged what could turn into the curiosity of an adult who is engaged in his or her community. Just some thoughts on this Easter weekend. Being a parent continues to teach me so much about why Jesus said, “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” For those of you celebrating the empty tomb today, hosanna! One of my favorite verses in John is the very last line, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.“
We buy a roll of hay every other week not so much because the cows eat it all but because King Peter likes a nice fluffy bed that doubles as a look-out station. Of course he and Tod end up urinating and defecating on the hay which makes it less than ideal for the cows. We are working on putting up yet more fencing so the boys don’t have access to the cow hay but for now Pete is living large.
We have several refrigerators and freezers (as do most farmers), and for a while, the goat milk and eggs were in the same one. Recently however, I have turned the temperature down several degrees so it is barely above freezing so as to rapidly chill the milk and keep it very cold in order to extend its shelf life. However, as maintaining our fridge temperature is not a perfect science, we have had several moments of discovering frozen food and liquids in the fridge - never the milk - but for instance, celery juice. Then we discovered a frozen egg. I have since separated the eggs into a new refrigerator so they are no longer with the milk. We had fun peeling the frozen egg and examining it! Our dog, Zinnia, was very happy to help taste test. There is no life like the farm dog life! I did do a search and learned that it is safe to eat an egg that has frozen after thawing it, though not recommended if the egg has cracked.
Everyone who has chickens knows the struggle toward maintaining enough egg cartons, always asking friends to save theirs and bring them by. I was just thinking how I’d need some more when I drove by unknown trash on the side of the road. It looked like it might be egg cartons so I pulled over and sure enough - yes! 🙌 It was worth all the stares I got. Has this happened to you? What is something you needed and fortuitously found?
