Susan with her garden.

By Susan Shanklin

Oh, I thought spring would never come! For us here in the upper Midwest, winter wasn’t too snowy, but rather cold and gray. Everything stays brown and gray for so long.

I started tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cabbage, cauliflower, basil and a few squashes under a shop light on top of a hot water radiator. I call it my indoor garden. I talk to the plants and have great vision for them. I don’t want any weak ones and I certainly don’t want any to die.

Due to the sizes of the different varieties of vegetables, I needed to transplant into bigger pots the tomatoes, cabbages and squash a few days ago. Their leaves were casting shadows on the smaller slow-to-grow peppers, cauliflower, and basil plants.

Since the re-potted vegetables were doing so well, I thought they could handle the cooler days and nights on the porch.  This will make them hardy. I don’t want any wimps. They need to start learning to suck in as much sun as they can on their own.

Even though I want them tough and strong, they still need the gardener. They are still dependent on me to look out for them. I make sure it’s not too cold and keep turning the trays of plants to let all sides absorb the sun.

The baby chicks, now, arrive in two days! I ordered 30 broiler meat chicks and 8 brown laying varieties chicks. I’m sure they will give me an extra broiler chick just in case one passes on.

Baby chicks.

At least two weeks ahead of time, you place your chick order at the feed mill. You tell them what breed and what sex you want. I ordered all male broilers (they grow faster) and all female layers (they are more productive). Ha!

I cleaned my brooder house yesterday. I washed up the waterers with white vinegar and water and hosed out the feeder trays and feed can. And I tested the two heat lights.

I placed  bundles of wood shavings next to the circular shield that serves as a mega-large draft guard, so that the chicks stay behind until they get some feathers on them. Putting up and taking down the draft guard is Tom’s job. Every poultry farmer needs an assistant. Ha ha!

I want to be ready. I don’t want to wait to the last minute. Little lives are depending on me. All this preparation leads up to my favorite day of spring, chick day.

The night before I get the water and newspaper set up, I fill up a gallon jug with water and animal electrolytes. I don’t want to give my new born chicks freezing cold well water! Easy does it. I put newspapers under the heat lamps that are hanging 18 inches off the floor.

An old brick smokehouse is my nursery. Here I welcome life, care for, apply healing balms, feed and feed and feed. They never tire of eating. Thankfully the broilers only take about 56 days to be 8 pounds. They call this good feed conversion, folks.

The little egg laying pullets will continue growing until they too have reached their maturity and graduate to the barn and become bona fide egg laying hens.

The morning of the due date I turn on the heat lamps, fill the feed trays, invert the waterers, and wait for the CALL.

Mid morning the feed mill calls and says, “Your chicks are here!” Giddy with delight, I pick up my rather small boxes of noisy chirping peepers. I place them in the car trying to calm their fears by telling them the plan. I do leave out the chopping off their heads part though. I’ll get into that later.

So I say to you! Spring is here! Enjoy!

And then there’s the sheep. But that’s Tom’s gig.