Thursday, March 27, 2008

Eggs, Milk, and Gandhi

Eggs

We started some eggs in the incubator yesterday. The incubator is on loan from the county extension service. They have all kinds of stuff for people to use. Since we are not sure how this whole project will turn out, borrowing it was a better option than buying (they are a bit pricey for a one time use.) I'm not sure what kind of mutt chickens we will end up with. the hens we have are Red Star (a red sex-link hybrid), Black Star (same as the red except black), Silver Laced Wyandottes, Partridge Rocks, Rose Comb Brown Leghorns, and Araucanas. We have are one Araucana, and one Silver Spangled Hamburg rooster. Should be interesting to see what comes out.

Rowan picked out the eggs from the mornings collection. He wanted all different colors. He placed them in the turner. This is a great device. Without it the eggs would need to be turned three times a day. Too much work!

Next we added water to the channels in the base of the incubator. This keeps the humidity up which the eggs need.

The egg turner loaded with eggs was placed in the base. There is a wire mesh over the top of the water channels. Without the turner the eggs would have just rested on the mesh.

The cover was placed over everything. Then we plugged it in and watched the temp come up. The eggs need to stay at about 100 deg for the next 21 days.

Milk

A friend from up the road stopped by with her two grandchildren. They had been pestering her about seeing the goats. The got here just at feeding time and had a great time feeding the babies and gathering eggs for me. They went home with eggs, milk, and smiles.

Gandhi

The friend with the grandkids has been pestering me about getting milk from us ever since we got the goats. At first we just didn't have the milk to spare, and later I got nervous about the Law. Selling Raw Milk is illegal in Ohio. Even if we were a licenced dairy (which we are not yet) we could not sell milk to individuals without pasteurizing it. The milk police here have been pretty hard on the few herd share programs in the state. So... I was hesitant to start. The other day I ran into a commentary on one of Gandhi's speeches and that got me thinking. The state only has power if we all cooperate. Well, I'm going to follow Gandhi on this one and choose the path of non-cooperation. I drafted a goat share agreement today and sent it home with our friend. We'll see where we go from here.

3 comments:

Sherck said...

Hi Alan,

I followed your comment over at Gene Logsdon's blog over here and enjoyed looking through your recent entries. It looks like you're living the life that my fiancee and I hope to be living in a few years. All the pictures to go along with the text are great.

Good luck with your practice of civil disobedience!

Anonymous said...

Dear Alan, I've been reading The Omnnivore's Dilemma and now I'm really stressed about what I've been eating and what I've been feeding my children. So, I think you need to move to Utah so we can buy our food from you.........

Anonymous said...

Dear Alan,
Jarom pointed us to your site. It is well done and makes us proud. It brings back many good memories of trying to provide for our large family. All good stuff. Keep it up. Uncle Don

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