I've committed myself ....

....to chickens.

Which, of course, means I should be committed .... elsewhere.

See, my friend, (who, for reasons of her own personal safety shall go unnamed) wanted to add to her tiny "garage band" of hens, but couldn't fill the minimum order requirement. Knowing the degree of my lunacy and that I live on a farm, she logically contacted me to see if I wanted to help her fill her order by taking a few egg machines myself.

"But of course!" I replied, knowing full well my barn is not sufficiently chicken-proofed at this time, but figuring this would light the fire under me arse to git 'er dun. If I know my little chickadees will be knocking down my door end of March, surely I will have said barn fully prepared.
Ha.

I've been looking forward to having chickens for some time. I have an arrangement with Henry, one of my Amish neighbors, to build me a chicken coop in my barn, but with the "no hurry" clause added on, which has resulted in he and I both biding our time for years now. But now the time is nigh (how do you spell nigh?) and we must accomplish this item on the To Do list.

Of course, getting the coop built, caring for near a dozen chicks, and eventually gathering eggs will be the easy part. The hard part will be dealing with the carnage that always seems to go hand in hand with chicken ownership. Between freak accidents, disease and predation, I'm hoping for a 50% one year survival rate. If I can do better than that, it will be the icing on the cake.
Or should I say, the cheese on the omelette.