The Chickens are Coming...Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the day…the chickens will arrive one day early.  I can’t stand it any more…I’m too excited, so I arranged to go get them a day earlier.  Daddy and I are half way completed with the chicken pen.  Earlier today we scrapped the chicken tractor when I realized I couldn’t lift it, let alone move it, by myself.  I’ll wait to make this part of my plan a reality.  For now, I just want the chickens to be here at my house, in my chicken pen, in my coop. 

I wore him out today…seriously, I did.  Daddy asked to stop working.  How horrible a daughter am I?  I didn’t see that I was pushing him…I was too focused on the goal.  Later in the evening, he asked me if I ever sit down.  Ugh!  So for tomorrow, although there is a lot to do, my mantra will be to “slow down” and enjoy the experience. 

Although the chickens arrive tomorrow, we have a brooder set up in my shed…they are still babies, after all.  The chicks will not be living in the coop any time soon.  I want to be able to put them in the pen so they can get used to scratching and eating bugs and grasses, but mostly they will be in the shed, protected from the elements and predators, until they are fully feathered.

The coop arrives in the early afternoon, which will enable us to complete the pen.  We have all but 3 sections of the pen completed, so we will have to make those as well as attach the wire.  The wire is the most difficult part of the process…both Daddy and I have bruises and calluses on the palms of our hands from the wire cutter!

Building this pen together is what is important to me.  I feel vibrant from the process…being outside, building something useful from scratch and doing this with my dad, the conversations, the problem solving….I can’t imagine the experience being any better than it has been.  So, tomorrow, I think we will accomplish a lot, but I am also going to work hard not to push my dad so hard and to enjoy this process. And tomorrow night, I think I will have a hard time sleeping knowing my new babies are all alone out in the shed.  It will be a struggle not to bring them into the house….