Deals and Plans

Seems the last of the snow visible from the house has fiiiiiiinally melted last night. The picture is from yesterday and shows the last lil bit of snow that had been hanging on for the past two weeks. 

I've been bartering and it's terrifying. lol I mean everyone's nice enough but that's the scary part. With money, it's easier to haggle. I made a deal with a gravel driveway guy to do some work for some machines that came with the house, and I made a deal with a neighbour to trade a two dozen of her eggs for some of my baking. It's so hard to tell what's "fair". 

I feel more secure that the driveway deal was fair because he wanted those machines a lot and I wanted the gravel work a lot... But small stuff like eggs and cookies well... it feels more tricky. Especially with folks I see regularly. 

There's been too many assholes in my life and far too many folks who were more nice than they were kind. I don't want someone to say "sure, no problem" and really mean "I guess, but I hope you offer more next time". I've just gotta trust that folks will say what they mean because I'm not a mind reader. 

I've been thinking about chickens a LOT lately and have done a bit of reading to make sure I don't forget anything when building a chicken first aid kit. It'll take a bit more hunting for the more chicken specific items like BluKote and RoosterBooster but I have the basics of wound care ready. Most of the stuff is useful for humans too but some of it I had to re-buy because, for example, bandages that are 3" wide are less likely to be useful than the smaller sizes.

I promised myself that I would not bring a living thing onto this property until I could care for it... so I have to keep reminding myself to not look at chicken rehoming posts or let myself get swept up in chicken frenzy. Just a few more things for the first aid kit and a bag of feed plus a bag of crushed oyster shell.
Chicken time is soon.

"Chicken's on the grass" by g0d4ather is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The garden fencing is likely going up in the next week or two even though nothing is getting planted until May. I'm hoping that the deer will be warned off / trained before there's anything worth eating. I've been warned by neighbours that the deer definitely eat entire plants sometimes so...Wish me luck? :-)