How many chickens???

Today I went to the cattle sale with hubby and we got an enamel-metal bowl I plan to use for lye part of soaping (3 or 4 qt size) and a cute little coffee grinder/coffee jar for $5, 2 big seedless watermelons for $5, hubby got 2 WWII metal ammo boxes for $8, and my BIG score was sugar in 25lb bags for $9 (I got 2 – that’s $0.36 per lb when I usually pay almost $0.50). 50 lbs of sugar should make a LOT of jam!

Then we went to Jones’ Feed and Seed to get chick starter food, bunny food, and goat food (50 lb each). When we got there, Duane was running bushels of Lima beans through the pea sheller. I asked him what he does with the spent shells and he said some folks get them for their cows. He said I could have ‘em for the compost pile, too. Then he started shelling pink-eye purple hull peas. He said those would be great for the goats. I got 3 bushels worth of spent hulls. Duane said there should be lots of peas still in there because some of them were too green to shell properly. We brought home a trailer full of spent hulls and got the kids outside in the trailer with us in the shade and began sorting through to find peas. We got that enameled bowl FULL of peas from that stack of free pea hulls!! We’ll be eating fresh, delicious peas tonight with risotto rice (cooked with a bit of schmaltz), and lots of squash fresh from the garden – all accompanied by home-made hot pepper sauce, corn bread and freshly brewed sweet tea, of course.

We fed the hulls to the bunnies who LOVED them, and then to the goats. They loved them, too. Oh, yeah. While I was at Jones’, I met Paula who just started working there. We were chatting when she told me about the baby girl pygmy goat she got at the humane society!!!! It was Spencer’s little sister!!! She has no intention of keeping her, but has become so attached; she is having a hard time THINKING about giving her away. She was so glad to find out about us and what we’re doing with our animals and Spencer. She thinks she wants to let Flossie come live with Spencer!! We are so excited about that possibility!

Also, Duane had 12 little 3-day-old golden buff pullets leftover from an order that wasn’t picked up by the customer. I couldn’t let those little orphans stay at the feed store!!!! They are in my chick brooder now with the week-old babies! Now I have 126 chicks between 3 days and 3 weeks old. YAY!!!!

On the way home, I checked the cell phone which I’d left in the car, and I missed PIANO lessons for the girls!!! YIKES! I called and apologized profusely about my scattered-ness, but I definitely have amends to make.

The afternoon was peaceful and quiet under the shade trees shelling peas with my family and chatting about the animals. The children all remarked about how “fun” it was to shell peas!! They really enjoyed it! Of course it wasn’t the actual shelling of peas, but the sitting with each other, contributing to the family’s enterprise, and having conversation where everyone could speak and be listened to (not just heard.)

The thunder started just about an hour ago, and I rushed out to pick whatever I could in the garden before the monsoon hits again. I got about 8 more squash (es?). Then, the thunder stopped and the sun hasn’t stopped shining yet. Hmmmmmmph!