It's been said over and over, that our kids are not as bright as they used to be.
In other words, Dad, Mom, you ARE smarter than a 5th grader!
You and I know that.
UNTIL you start to do something your grandparents did, and they thought nothing of it.
Like, raise chickens.
That's right.
The simple act of raising a chicken was easy "back in the day". We have some friends that are a few days older than we are, that said when they were first married they used and old Model T, I believe was the car to raise their chickens in because they didn't have a coop.
She later explained that to butcher them you simply nail 2 nails into a stump, in sort of a V shape them place their heads in and, well, their history.
We were doing good.
Sure. we had a couple just drop dead on us, but that's life on a "farm".
Then they started laying like crazy, about a dozen a day. The refrigerator filled up, we shared the eggs with our daughter, we filled our refrigerator again. Dreams of an egg business started to form.
Then we did it.
We aren't sure exactly what we did, but we did it.
The chickens quit laying. A picket line formed.
The chickens all agreed that unless demands were met, there would be no more egg production.
We talked, we pled, we demanded that the hens lay their eggs.
Just short of squeezing the chickens, we gave up.
Now I know Dean's grandpa would have a few choice words for our in ability to raise chickens. He would no doubt shake his head and say, "You can't.....and still get eggs. You need to move back to the city!"
We then asked our friends who raise chickens, they had no idea what we had done.
"Did you change feed?" No, we replied.
"Did they get scared?" No.
"Are they getting enough food and water?" Yes, as usual.
Head scratching began.
Our daughter who gets to work with the Amish, asked a wise Amish lady.
She asked, "Did you feed them squash? If they eat the seeds they will quit laying."
Guilty.
I could swear I saw my aunt take scraps out to the chickens, and thinking I was being the good farm wife, I did also.
Another friend said, "They need lots of light. Do you have light?"
Up until then, they had plenty.
So the once easy, "anybody can raise them" chickens just became picky, demanding birds.
So far, out of our flock of 9, we get 2 eggs a day on a good day.
The days pass and I wait for the eggs to again arrive. Each day, I swear the chickens are snickering at us and saying, "Those city-ots, know nothing."
I've started pricing an axe, looking for an appropriate stump, and making room in the freezer.
Two can play at this game.
What they don't know is that while I don't have a clue about raising them, there is one bit of knowledge that I do have, it involves a tree stump and an axe.
I also know how to make some wicked homemade noodles. What could I possibly make with those?
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