It’s always fun to give at any time of the year, but it’s doubly fun at Christmas… at least for me. My co-worker feels the same way and she told me she had a blast shopping this year. One of the gifts she found was for us to use on the farm and she could not wait to give it to us. So, Wednesday she made me bring home something to try out. I was kind of afraid to use it, but today it was time to put it to the test.

Here’s the deal. For a number of weeks we’ve had this Banty egg in one of the tractors that is completely out of reach. I’ve been thinking that I need to get a rake or hoe or something, to try to reach it, but I only think about that when I’m putting them up for the night and I don’t want to disturb them then. THEN- the other day I saw this little egg precariously perched on the corner of a support beam and a roost. I have absolutely no idea how that could have even happened.  You can see the two little eggs way back in the corner. This tractor happens to be up on blocks, so we can’t crawl in – like those that are sitting directly on the ground… it would never hold our weight. I was in a quandary on how to get to them.  Especially that one that found its way on the support beam. How in the heck? Enter the egg picker-upper. Ok – the actual name of the gadget is Poultry Farm Egg Picker 32. I only know that because I had to search the web for a photo of it. I was afraid that I’d be crushing eggs left and right – but it does an amazingly wonderful job and holding on with just enough tension to pick up an egg, but not squash it. The little egg perched on the beam ended up being a very thin shelled egg and pecked, or simply cracked, in several places, but I didn’t know that before I reached for it and the picker didn’t damage it at all. I was amazed. The chickens certainly weren’t very impressed, actually I’d describe them as “quite ticked”. Mom said that, after I extricated myself from the doorway of the tractor and was climbing over the fence, the little rooster puffed himself up and stormed up the ramp to see exactly what I had done to their little space. If you know Banty Roosters, you know what I’m talking about.  Anyway~ Rebecca, my co-worker, wanted me to take a video of the first actual use and send it to her, so I tried to do that as I was picking up the eggs. I had to do two takes to get everything, but I thought I’d share them with you. That’s all for now, I suppose. The weekend may bring other things – Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

(Ok, I screwed that up, so you  have one from the youtube channel and one I had to upload directly – sorry about that.)

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Today’s Weather: We had a really nicely warm day today – started out at 43° when I left for work around 6:30… our high was at 74°. Currently, at 6:40 p.m., it is 59° with 34% humidity. High tomorrow is supposed to be the same, overnight low is predicted at 41°. Today sunrise was at 7:14 and sunset at 5:21.

Egg Report: Thursday – 15 chicken. Friday – 16 chicken.