It's all about the poop!

TRUE STORY: Two women in the neighborhood are out taking a walk around our block. The first woman turns to the second and says "Have you noticed it smells more like cows around here lately?" The second woman says "Yeah, it's that new family on the block, the Smiths."

Unfortunately she's telling the truth.

We finally got all the beds made and placed in the ground. Now it's time to fill them with dirt, no wait I mean poop, and lots of it. Being that this is one of the dairy capitals of the world there is a surplus of cow waste that you can get pre-mixed with chicken waste and other such fillers. Apparently it makes really good compost and therefore a great garden mix, according to Jeff. So we borrow my dad's truck and I'm off to the land of stink. By this I mean a long tunnel with piles of different kinds of animal waste along each side. The very sweet old farmer says he's got a nice mix for me and we head to a pile in the middle. He gets in is mini bull-dozer thing and gets a big scoop to drop in the bed of my truck. I immediately see all this steam coming from the pile and then the smell hits me. Rachel says "that's some stinky poop mom". So true Rachel, so true. Well we make it home OK bringing with us countless numbers of flies. It just sits in the back till Jeff gets home and then we start a-shoveling. This is sooooo not what I thought it meant to be a doctor's wife. I not really that much of a snob but come on I'm shoveling manure. After we're done we've got three of the six beds filled and I've got to go back. The next day I head back and get another load and bring it home and start filling beds on my own. When Jeff gets home we mix in a few other non-offensive things and we're done. I must admit they look really nice. This really dark dirt in contrast with the new wood and the green grass. Luckily the house next door is empty because our whole back yard smells like a pasture. Oh well, at least I'm done with the poop part.

But wait, my lovely husband has more plans. Who keeps giving him these farm books????

You know what would make great fertilizer for the future garden. Rabbit POOP! You heard me, rabbits. My next task is to go to Canton and get rabbit cages and then go to Tyler to pick up rabbits on Friday. "We'll just rotate their cages around every so often and it'll be great for the garden" he says. OK fine. Friday morning I talk to him before I leave and he slips in "get one cage for the rabbits and one for the chickens". WAIT, WHAT?!? Now we're getting chickens. "That was always the plan" he says. Whatever.




So now we have 2 rabbits, Carmel (all brown) and Sundae (white with brown spots). Get it... Carmel Sundae! And, 4 chickens Leggs (white), Midnight (black), Nuggett and no name (white and black Bramas). If you have any good chicken names floating around I'm open to suggestions.

All the new animals are a big hit. Jake's the bravest, He reaches right in and grabs the chickens and he's the official feeder of all the animals. We did have one close call the first day we had them. We didn't have a very good shade system set up and Jake went out to check on everything and one of the rabbits was drooling and not moving much so we had to bring it in and get it cooled off. Now before you call PETA we fixed the problem and all animals are doing fine. The chickens spend their time pecking in the grass for bugs and the rabbits are getting plenty of treats.

So just in case your keeping track.....
That makes 1 dog, 2 tortoises (coming shortly-our last ones died), 4 snakes, 2 rabbits, 4 chickens, and thousands of flies. We could probably charge admission by now.