{"id":3104,"date":"2012-02-09T16:38:26","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T21:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=3104"},"modified":"2012-02-09T18:04:49","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T23:04:49","slug":"could-you-have-nest-box-checking-disorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2012\/02\/could-you-have-nest-box-checking-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Could You Have Nest-Box-Checking Disorder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Anyone who works at home should have a chicken coop. Forget rummaging through the refrigerator, surfing Facebook, or even sneaking a spell on the couch to flip through catalogues (I never do that)\u2014checking the hens\u2019 nesting boxes for eggs is the best procrastinating maneuver ever. I should know. I\u2019ve been getting up from the computer about 12 times a day to go outside and look for eggs. I guess I have Nest-Box-Checking Disorder, because I can\u2019t help myself. Finding an egg in the hay\u2014especially when it is still warm and I can hold it in my cold hands like a little hot water bottle\u2014is like Christmas morning, over and over again. (Much better than Groundhog Day.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>During the darkest days of winter, we were only getting a couple of eggs a day. Now that the days are growing longer (we\u2019ll have a whopping10 full hours of daylight on Feb. 11), the ladies are laying more. (Some gals were molting, too, so they were redirecting their energies towards changing their feathers rather than laying.) Sometimes when I go to check, there are three or four eggs lying together\u2014almost always in the same box, as these girls have a strange preference for crowding. We keep a special bowl in the mudroom for collecting the day\u2019s eggs, so that anyone can add to it. (Roy often checks the boxes first-thing when he comes home from work, as he has Nest-Box-Checking Disorder, too. The hardest thing to do for both of us is to refrain from checking when Libby is here, because, after all, it\u2019s not a very nice thing for an adult to usurp this especially kid-friendly activity.) At the end of the day, we count up the eggs, ooh and ah over the different shapes and colors and speckles, and refrigerate them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Even if there aren\u2019t any eggs in the boxes, I still get a kick out of visiting with the ladies. They make all kinds of clucking noises and rush from their outer pen to greet me, as they know I often have lettuce or hamburger buns or leftover roasted vegetables for them. It\u2019s a good life these gals lead; we just got them a special heated chicken-waterer so their water isn\u2019t frozen over in the morning. (Actually, the present was more for us, as walking back to the house to change the water every morning is a pain.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>While I love checking on the ladies, I have elevated the art of procrastination to include all of the animals on the farmette. Cocoa Bunny literally runs circles around her cage if you bring her a green treat (like these Brussels sprouts), and Farmer is up for a good walk about a zillion times a day. Most mornings, and usually almost every evening around dusk, Farmer and I track the wild bunnies, which thrive here in a Watership Down<\/em> kind of way. God knows how many there are\u2014maybe thousands? There were so many tracks in the snow this morning that Farmer\u2019s nose was snow-encrusted with all that sniffing.<\/p>\n

If all else fails, my last procrastination technique is to look out the window right next to my desk. If there aren\u2019t birds snacking at the birdfeeder Roy has kindly hung within my sight, then a group of six or eight wild turkeys is often strolling by, just a few feet away. They\u2019re good for a glance or two. But I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever get Bird-Watching Disorder. After all, looking out the window is not half as much fun as actually getting up from the computer and walking outside. And coming back in with something good to eat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who works at home should have a chicken coop. Forget rummaging through the refrigerator, surfing Facebook, or even sneaking a spell on the couch to flip through catalogues (I never do that)\u2014checking the hens\u2019 nesting boxes for eggs is the best procrastinating maneuver ever. I should know. I\u2019ve been getting up from the computer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[10,103,6,45,1],"tags":[83,46,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3104"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3125,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions\/3125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}