Keets arrive today, maybe?

Well, for most of you, this is the day marked by mailing in your taxes. (If this is the first you have thought of it, you need to file an extension.) The BIG event of the day here is the arrival of our guinea keets by US Mail. I can't imagine this really works so if they are still cheeping when they arrive I will be amazed. They are coming from Mt. Healthy Hatchery in Ohio. I am a little uneasy with the name of the hatchery. It's like they are trying too hard to convince me the chicks were disease free when they left Ohio. Why would you need to do that unless they are usually sick when they arrive at their destinations.

Maybe expectant chick receivers all go through this anxious state just before their chicks arrive. The postal service just seems like the least likely delivery method to make this happen. I think it would be difficult to get the chicks here from Ohio if you personally picked up the chicks, boarded a plane with your cargo, had a direct flight with no lay overs, drove straight from the airport to Surry and put them in the brooder.

Well, we will see shortly. I am sure that the hatcheries usually get their chicks there alive or they would be trying something else. Kris is going to the post office to pick them up while I go to Bangor to pick up our taxes and mail them off. (If the chicks need mouth to beak recessitation, I want to be somewhere else.) Besides, I need to stop at Tractor supply and look at fencing. We need a cheap way to keep the goats and chickens out of the garden. They sell electric fencing for chickens and there is a dark corner of my mind that finds some humor in the vision of feathers flying and flapping after a chicken gets zapped. Having raised chickens, I doubt they have enough brain cells to put two and two together and figure out to "step away from the fence." You may end up slowly barbecuing hapless chickens too dim witted to just move, so, I am looking to go with the more traditional woven wire fence. It has to be sturdy enough to keep goats out and have weave small enough to keep chickens out.

Well anyway, it is a big day here at Missed Skeet Farm. Animals are bringing life and rhythm to help complete a pretty near idyllic existence here. Soon the road will firm back up and we will be driving in and out. We don't mind walking in and out but you can't ride the horses on the road when it's like this and that is making us antsy for the road to dry up. We had a dinner guest go in up to her knees with an errant step and it does make you feel bad when that happens. Still living at the end of the road is a pretty good way to live and it's going to get better today.