Hugh showed me how to do the chicken detail. It takes about 1 1/2 hours at 7:30 AM to open all kinds of doors, electric gates, and to weigh the chicken mash and feed. There are 3 chicken houses far from the farm house, and they were moved here 3 weeks ago with a huge tractor onto the old potato field, so you have to move a wheelbarrow in between furrows and over the bumpy furrows. The water dishes have to be empty, scrubbed, cleaned and re-filled, chickens let out, eggs gathered, feed placed into the feeders, and each house has to be recorded separate from each other with the # of eggs found.
I will go back at 10 AM and do the job all over again with measuring the feed, wheelbarrowing the food back up the hill, unlocking the electric gate, changing the water, and collecting eggs.
At 2 PM I go up to collect eggs and check water. Eggs will be laid all over the large field and I have to go on an egg hunt.
At 10 PM I have to go back, again, and put hens to bed. The littler hens may have to be hand carried back in and onto a perch. Then the gate has to be turned on to electrify the fence for the night. Chicken day is a lot of responsibility and I have to hand wash all the poopy eggs, allow to dry, then place into egg cartons to sell in our market.
There are currently 300 chickens on the farm.
Before going out at 7:30 AM I washed some pretty nasty, muddy clothes, and when I came back at 9 AM, they were hung out. Praying for a good dry day. This is my 2nd wash since arriving Sunday evening. We have to share one small washer and a small clothesline between 7 of us so I try to be courteous of water usage and sharing the lines.
It is 9:58 AM and Hugh has gone off to Penzance to the dentist, and I am on my own doing round 2 of chicken care. I hope my shortness of breath due to the concussion/bulged disk in my C 5 - 6 will not hold me up. I need to pace and go slowly, but pushing a wheelbarrow uphill with head bent is a bit of a challenge.
Carry on, as they say!!!!
Andrew made an amazing lunch - pizzas on Vicky's artesian bread, mashed turnips, steamed veggies, pasta baked in cheese sauce. So delicious.
I've pulled the wash in as it began to slightly mist at 2 PM. We are all going to the chickens to do the weekly scrubbing out of their 3 houses. Lots of chicken poop.
I had to run the store from 12 until 1 so I quickly learned pounds per kilo, and the British coins. I had 4 customers and they were all so polite and pleasant.
It is 4:45 PM I am back from the 3rd trip up the hill to the chicken houses. This time beside changing the water, gathering more eggs, and searching a huge field for more eggs, I had to break up multi grain loaves of old bread and feed th 300 birds this bread. Also several woofers had to use shovels and wheelbarrows and scrape out tons of chicken poop and bring the barrows to the composting area. I washed more eggs and the total for the day was 144 eggs gathered. They were placed and labeled into egg cartons with June 27 2018 as expiration date for selling.
I have to cook dinner, tonight for 7:15 PM and go out at 10 PM to lock up all the chickens. This is NOT a 5 hour work day, and I'm so exhausted, I go straight to my room and collapse. I need a tooth brush, desperately, and a trip to the Post Office, and was told it is a 15 minute walk to town. With both big toes damaged from walking in this ill fitting L.L.Bean Duck Boots from the main road when we planted the flowers, there is pooling of blood underneath both nails and it is quite painful. It's all I can do to get into bed and elevate my feet. Even my ankles are swollen at the end of the long and very hard work day. I am about 45 years older than the other volunteers. Not too shabby for a Grandma working neck and neck with fit and lovely millennials who are very polite and nice to be around. I need to close my eyes as I never slept a wink last night from over exhaustion on the farm.
The field is massive and is an old potato field. Searching for eggs in it is a very big job, but Hugh, Bastian, and Loddie all helped with the task and we found 41 eggs along the fencing, mostly, well hidden. All washed, in the shop, and I have to lay flat on my back and ease the pain for a few hours. I have to cook dinner by 7 PM.
PS
I went downstairs at 6:15 PM to make dinner in extreme pain in the lower back, and feet. I washed dishes in the sink, took a handful of garden mint and a lemon, 3 green tea bags, and made a pitcher of tea when Andrew and 2 others came into the kitchen to tell me I didn't have to make dinner, after all. There was plenty of lunch leftovers, and everyone was exhausted. I was so grateful. So I set the table, sliced bread, put cheese out, and the hot carafe of mint lemon tea, heated 3 large bowls of leftovers, and went upstairs to bed. I brought up a very small plate with some food. While laying here with laptop on my lap, and head propped on pillows by the open window facing the sea, there was a knock on the door. It was my little 24 year old friend, Markie, from Ohio, smiling and walking over to me with a brand new tooth brush. She heard I didn't have one, and had been brushing my teeth 10 days with a Q-Tip and toothpaste, and knew it was too much to walk 15 minutes into town with my toes in such pain from deep purple bruised toenails. She and Bastien had driven into town.
I feel blessed and happy right now. What I love the most about Cornwall are the people!! <3
