CHICKEN LADY OR EGG WOMAN?

... those were the nickname choices given to me by my father. I choose "silly sunburned farmer girl." Yup, two days into my farming experience and I have burned shoulders/neck/arms and a ferocious farmer's tan steadily developing on my thighs. Attractive, to say the least.

After about a 30 hour bus/truck ride from Boston to Bonifay, FL I was exhausted and greeted by Renee Savary (my wwoof host) who is a very warm, welcoming woman from Genoa, Switzerland and Lynn (short for Lyndell, my co-wwoofer) who is a really interesting, sweet man from Madison, Wisconsin. We ate a scrumptious meal together, talked passionately about organics and society and everything in between and around. Each morning I wake at about 6:30am to a fog covered farm and we eat breakfast together before going out to wake the chickens. She has about 200 birds - three different varieties (Dominics, Rhode Island Reds, and Leghorn Greys). We open each of the five coops, check for eggs in the laying hutches, fill their feed and water bins, and then head back up to the house for other projects. The first two days were mostly constructing a different, larger coop. (There are pictures in my slide show!). Today was a little abnormal in that we moved all the chickens (in their pens - aye yaye) to a new section field. It took a quite a while but eventually we got everyone situated. Chickens, I have learned, are hilarious creatures who have a whole lot of personality. They make funny sounds, move in silly ways, and are chock full of SASS! Looks like we are getting along fine so far;)

The other few friends I have made are MistiGris (the cat who comes in for meals and nap time), The Rooster (the lone rooster who lives all by his lonely self, fattening up for a meal soon), and Germaine & Josephine (the lesbian hen couple who have their own personal coop by the house because they don't like the other hens).

The weather is gorgeous, the days are long, but it is fun and interesting so far - I feel like I can't even keep in all the information that flies around all day. I will try to post more often and give some more specifics about my day to day activies but for now... I am ready for my pillow!