Things I never knew I needed...

There are some things in life that I never knew I needed.

Here is an example. On New Years Eve Chris and I had supper at our friends house. My friend said to me, "Guess what I found for sale in the Uncle Henry's?" (This is a local swap type publication.) "Calf hutches!" I barely blinked before I said, "Call them! Call them right now! I need a calf hutch!" And this how I found myself spending several hours of a precious day off driving through the gray and muddy countryside with my friend when I should have been doing something fun with my husband.

We ended up at a dairy farm. The young couple that own the farm have two small kids and 450 head of cows to milk. (And that, is a LOT of cows. Here are a few of them, munching on silage and sipping on clean water.)

And they were selling calf hutches. Which look like this. Calf hutches are the things they put new baby diary cows in after they take them away from their mothers. They live in the hutches until they are weaned and old enough to be part of a herd. Please note that I don't think this is a very nice thing for the cows or their calves, but no one asked my opinion and this is how dairy farmers do things. At any rate, these particular farmers have made a calf barn and are selling their calf hutches at a quite reasonable price.

So, why, you might ask, did I need a calf hutch? Well I'll tell you. I am thinking a calf hutch would make a dandy house for lambs in the spring. Or maybe for turkey poults, (my next venture? Attempting to raise Thanksgiving turkeys.) The hutch would also be an excellent shelter for the meat chickens I plan to raise again this year, or even for a couple of piglets if I get very adventuresome in the food raising scheme of things. In fact, I'd really like to go buy 2 or 3 more of the calf hutches, but I am trying to restrain myself.

So, that is the story of how I had a small adventure and purchased a large, odd object that I never knew I needed. And had a fun time doing it!