Tag Archives: High Peaks

Cabin Life – #89

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The fire is crackling, the dew is settling and the full moon is so bright that I Applescan clearly see the two does quietly munching on fallen apples in the lower field.  They don’t seem to mind that Pico and I are outside, and quite frankly, I’m happy that they don’t.

Fall is here.  About half of the hardwoods around have either lost all their leaves or are changing color as we speak.  I think it’ll be a poor year for fall colors.  Too many trees have already changed, and there are still plenty that are solid green.  The colors are changing too slowly for there to be any real “peak” this year.

The other very noticeable change is the amount of daylight we are having.  It’s starting to get dark around seven-thirty at night, as oppose to the nine or nine-fifteen of a few months ago.  It’s more tolerable now, with the solar panel powering a couple of nice LED lights.  But still, winter is coming and it won’t be all that long.

I’ve got a good stockpile of wood, well over two full cords, but I will still have to buy some to get me through.  A few face cords should cover me, and I’m hoping that once the new wood stove is installed, it will prove to be more efficient than the old on.  Even if it’s not, it will still be an improvement.

The shed is two-thirds full, and once it is really stocked up, I will feel much better.  There’s a certain comfort in knowing that no matter what, I will at least have enough wood to get me trough my third winter out here.  Plus, I have some extra in the old shed, acting as a security blanket, as well as insulation.

I’ve started picking some apples too.  They’re not all quite ripe yet, but those that are have for the most part been good.  Some are sweet and meaty, while two other trees are producing big apples that have a pleasant tartness to them.  It’s fun to taste and look for good apples, and to know that pretty soon I’ll be filling my weekends and evenings making apple sauce, butter, jelly, and cider.

Well, the peaceful serenity of a crackling fire and chirping crickets has come to an abrupt end.  Pico noticed (finally!) the two deer only a few hundred feet away.  He barked as he took off after them, like he always does.  He stood absolutely no chance of coming anywhere near catching a deer, but it was valiant, though loud, effort.  Luckily for him and them that he doesn’t need to hunt for food.

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Cabin Life – #88

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I’m sitting at the table, looking out the big window at the layer of frost The Scythecovering everything.  The car has a white windshield and the chicken coop has a good layer of frozen dew on it as well.  I guess now that it’s September, there are going to be more and more days like this.

Now that fall is almost here, I’ve been thinking back on the summer.  At the beginning, I was worried that this would be the summer that never was, what with snow until early June and then nothing but rain for quite a while too.  Then there was the heat wave, followed by more rain.  August was nice though.  It was hot but not crazy hot, with some rain here and there.  Of course, it rained almost exclusively on my days off each week, but what can you do?

Last night, I rebuilt the fire pit in the side yard.  It was working fine, but I wanted a larger one out there.  I dismantled the old pit and built a new one, about twice the size.  The funny thing is that I didn’t add any rocks to it.  The old pit just had so many rocks laying around not performing any function that there was a ready stockpile handy.

I got a fire going to enjoy the new pit, and since it was still daylight out and I was out of beer, I thought I’d do some work on the side yard.  I tend to call this area the front yard, since this is what I see when I look out the big window.  But my front door faces another direction, so the side yard it is.

In a way, the side yard is a much more active place than the front yard.  I park and walk through the front yard a lot, and that’s where the big fire pit is as well.  But the side yard is where the chickens are, the junk wood pile, the compost bin and the more manageable fire pit are.  It’s also where the solar panel and the remnants of the garden are located.

As I stood there surveying the yard wondering what project I could start, I decided it could be something fun.  The woodshed is done and almost full and the chickens are happy in their coop.  The main projects I wanted to get done are done.

I’ve wanted a horseshoe pit out here for a while, and this seemed like a good time to start it.  However, the most level part of the yard was covered in small balsam sprouts and other brush.  I had already cleaned up the entangled pile of old metal roofing and burned a bunch of old lumber that was slowly rotting away under the apple tree.  The ground was clear of debris, but not of brush.

I went to the shed and grabbed the scythe.  I had never actually used one of these before, but when I saw leaned up against the outside of an antique shop, I had just given in to the impulse and purchased it.  For twenty bucks, I got the scythe and an extra blade.

Walking back to the side yard with scythe in hand, I figured it would be best to have on steel-toed shoes.  So with the proper foot wear in place, I attacked the lower part of the side yard with the scythe.  I started out small on the goldenrod and tall grass, but soon got adventurous and tried my luck on a couple of the small balsams.  To my amazement, the scythe sliced right through them.  This was getting fun.

The huge blade on the scythe made short work of the brush, and I so had cleared a lot more than I intended to.  There’s plenty of room now for the horseshoe pit as well as a couple of raised bed gardens.  I had decided to do something fun for the night.  I may have sweaty from all the work of swinging the scythe, but it sure was fun to me.

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Cabin Life – #87

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Every once in a while, I reach for the faucet to turn on the water.  This usually happens The Girlswhen I’m brushing my teeth, but even though there’s a dish rag hanging on the spout and I haven’t had running water in almost two years, this old habit dies hard.

Summer, on the other hand, is dying a very easy and quick death.  As I walked out into the front yard this morning, I noticed a small maple that was almost entirely red.  The birches are beginning to turn yellow and even the big cherry tree in the yard was not so green anymore.

The days have been warm and the nights cool, feeling more like the heart of fall than the end of August.  This is my favorite type of weather, but I’m not quite ready for it yet.  I still want some summer.

Even though we had a late start to summer and what looks like an early end to it as well, I have gotten a lot done, and had a lot of fun.  The wood shed is built and half full, I got the house shed cleaned up and organized, and the chickens are happy in their coop and run.

But really they might not be that happy.  I put them out in the run every day so they can eat bugs and plants and stuff like that.  Every morning I open the coop door and they all fly right in to the run, and in the evening they hop back up the ramp and into the coop to roost for the night.

Since they’re only out during the day, the run is not built as a completely predator-proof structure.  It’s very safe with chicken wire and metal roofing, but the end that I let them in and out of is just a mix of some wire, a piece of wood and some old plastic insulation.  Like I said, this is built to keep them, not keep predators out.  Still, every day when I get home I look into the run on my way up the driveway just to make sure all the girls are still there.

We had a pretty nasty thunderstorm come through yesterday while I was at work.  I thought of the chickens, but was not too worried about them.  However, when I got home, I noticed the insulation flapping in the wind.  I had tacked it shut like always, but the wind had blown it wide open.  There were no chickens in the run.

Pico was barking and Ed was crying at the window, and it had been a long day for Pico and the cats.  I had gotten a flat tire on the way home and so they had been cooped up for ten hours or so.  But I knew that if I let them out, there’s no way I would be able to catch the missing chickens.  That is, assuming the girls hadn’t been eaten yet.

Even though I had kind of self-vowed not to get too attached to the girls, I was worried about them.  There are so many wild animals out here that could easily snatch up a chicken and trot off into the woods.  Chances are all I would find would be a couple piles of feathers to tell where the girls had been eaten.

Then it dawned on me.  All along, when I fed the chicks, I had always called out “Hey Ladies!” ala the Beastie Boys.  I was hoping that Pavlov was right and the girls would associate my call with the presence of food.  I called out and within a few seconds, Midget and Brownie came out of the tall grass and trotted right up to me.  I smiled and grabbed them and tossed them in the coop.  I called out again and both Blondie and Whitey came out as well.  I had to chase Whitey as usual but I finally caught her and put her in the coop as well.  Blondie jumped in on her own when I opened the door.  I tossed in a handful of bird seed to keep them happy.  After all, my distinct chicken call had worked well, so I guess I want to keep them coming to it.

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Cabin Life – #86

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Well, it’s finally happened, I have electricity.  Granted, it’s not much The Panelelectricity, but it’s a start.  I don’t need enough to run appliances or a whole house, just enough so that my phone and computer don’t go dead, and hopefully a light or two to read by.

A few months ago I got an email from a reader who said he had an old solar panel lying around and didn’t need or want it anymore.  It was mine, he said, if I just came and picked it up.  You never know who you’re meeting through an email, so I was a little wary.  So, fighting the urge to tell everyone where I was going and with whom just in case I didn’t make it back, I drove the little ways to his camp.  I did bring my girlfriend with me, you know, for protection.

He was nice enough to pick us up at the boat launch and give us a ride out to his camp.  It was a nice place, bigger than mine, but much better set up.  He had running water, internet, and a beautiful location right on the water.  We got the solar panel and hung out for a little while, then headed back to the car.

I’m sad to admit it, but that was almost three months ago.  For three months, I’ve had this solar panel sitting in the cool shade of my shed, doing nothing.  I even had the charge controller and a deep cycle battery, but was too busy (lazy) to get around to hooking the thing up.

So this week I pulled everything out to the yard and set I up just to see what would happen.  The charge controller showed a charge, and I was angry with myself for putting off what turned out to be a ten minute job.

I left the panel out all day in full sun and went to town to buy an inverter.  I picked up a nice one and did some other errands before getting back home in the evening.  I was excited and ripped open the package for the inverter and hooked it up.  It immediately started flashing and beeping, and not in a good way.  The charge was too low on the battery to power the inverter.

No big deal I thought, it’ll take a couple of days for the battery to get fully charged.  But, since everything else seemed to be working, I set the panel up in its full-time place on the south side of the porch.  I moved the battery onto the porch and drilled a couple of small holes for the wires to run through.  I then fed the wire through, and the positive wire was about eight inches too short.  Of course.

The next day I went to the hardware store (again) and picked up some wire.  The thing was now fully set up and actively charging.  But not fast enough.  I took the battery to work the next day and plugged it in to the trickle charger.

Now, the battery is fully charged, the panel is up and running and hopefully it will be enough juice to keep the battery charged.  It’s a big step up in the cabin life, and the prospect of having light this winter is very exciting.

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Cabin Life – #84

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It’s another beautiful summer night with fall weather.  Ed is helping me out The Girlsby sticking his butt in my face and stepping on random keys on the computer.  He’s always a big help in his own way.

We had a bit of a milestone out here at the cabin this week.  The chickens are no longer residing in a large box on the porch, but instead are enjoying their new digs and much larger coop.  While it’s not quite done, it is habitable and since there are no building codes or inspections for small wooden boxes, I figured the girls could use the room to stretch their wings.

It must be a big improvement, going from a box that almost always had a cat sleeping on top of it to a detached coop complete with nesting boxes and a perch.  Not that they’re going to be laying eggs anytime soon, but I have some idea of how they feel.  I too live in a small, cramped area with three other living beings.  Hey, at least the chicks never had to step in cat puke at two in the morning.  They just had to deal with seeing Herbie and Ed’s bellies all the time.

I used an old cart to build the coop, and again, the total cost of the project was only a box of screws.  Much like the woodshed, the coop is not square, but it is functional and will keep the birds dry.  I’m really happy with the way it’s coming so far, even though I still have a fair amount of work to do on it.  I need another door, latches and some small windows still, but it is a big step up for the girls.

I was very happy with myself when I was finally able to move the chicks into the coop.  I should have done this a while ago, but they seem happy in their new home now.  As I stood there in the sun, smugly enjoying the non-masterpiece of carpentry I had just completed, I thought how nice it would be when I get the one wheel fixed and can move the coop so it butts up against the chicken run we built a while ago.

The thought occurred to me that the girls will be very happy when they have a nice safe outdoor area right next to their home when I realized that I had never actually measured the coop and the run with the point of seeing whether they would fit together.  My shoulders drooped and I ran inside to grab the tape measure.

Obviously I had measured each structure while I was building them.  But building them so they would fit together just never entered my mind, even though that was the plan all along.  Maybe I shouldn’t have built the run two weeks before I got chickens and then built the coop two months after I got them.  I should have built them together.

I measured from the ground to the roof of the coop on the back side and got forty-two inches.  I literally ran around the cabin to the run and measured from the ground up to the lower edge of the top of the run.  Forty-three inches!  I couldn’t believe my luck and I was ecstatic.  My shoulder’s drooped again as I  had another realization.  The run was tall enough, but was it wide enough?  I measured the width and ran back to the coop.

I knew on my way that it would not fit, because the coop was forty inches wide without the roof, and the run was only forty-one inches wide.  Sure enough, the roof width was about forty-four inches.  With the overhang of the roof, I was not going to be able to fit the coop snuggly inside of the open end of the run.  Thoughts ran though my head as I pondered rigging chicken wire around the sides to keep the girls safe.  There was a quick mental image of a new door built into the run so I could access it.  But I want to be able to move the coop and run.  This was getting complicated quickly.

I stood there, slightly dejected staring at the coop as if an answer would suddenly pop out of thin air.  I ran through multiple scenarios, each more work than the last, and far more complicated than I really want to get with this whole setup.  Suddenly it dawned on me:  I own a hack saw.  I can just trim the back of the roof so that it still fully covers the coop but allows me to slide it into the end of the run.  Problem solved!

I grabbed the hack saw and walked back out to the coop.  Then I remembered that the girls were in the coop, and using a hack saw on the roof probably would not be good for their psyche or their hearing.  I’ve held off on trimming the roof, justifying it by saying that the girls need to stay in there for a while to get used to it.  Plus, I can’t move the coop right now anyway because of the busted wheel.  That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway.  It’s a lie, and I could do the roof right now.  But I spent a lot of time on this coop, and I kind of need a break.  If anyone asks though, it’s because of the girls’ hearing.  Yeah, their ears, that’s it.

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Cabin Life – #83

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I really enjoy fall weather, just not in July.  The last few nights have been The New Shedbeautiful, though cold.  I really struggled on Wednesday on whether or not I would get a fire going in the stove.  I decided not to, based solely on principle.  I will not be using my woodstove in July.  I just won’t do it.

But it has made the evenings pleasant.  The water is warm when we go swimming, and the heat isn’t as oppressive as last week.  On top of the coolness of the nights, they have also been really clear.  With a big moon in the sky and the stars shining, it’s been great.  As the moon moves to one side of the sky, the stars come out on the other, making a whole-sky panorama with the Milky Way visible on one end, and nothing but the slate gray sky around the moon on the other.

Now that the wood shed is done and partially stocked, I’ve been able to relax a little bit after work.  Ed and Herbie get to go outside for a while and the chickens have been enjoying eating bugs and grass in their run.

I was sitting on the boulder that serves as my front step the other evening, letting the day’s accumulated warmth keep me comfortable.  Pico and Herbie were lying in the dirt by the car, but Ed was not immediately in sight.  I then noticed something moving off to my left in the taller grass.  A lifetime of toys and free food have left Ed lacking in the hunting skills department, but he still gives it a good effort.

I watched as he not-so-subtly snuck down through the grass and toward the chicken run.  It took him a while to get up the nerve, but he finally launched an attack and ran smack into the fencing.  He seemed to have taken the girls by surprise, but they were safe the whole time.  They squawked and ran around a bit, but settled back into the rhythm of being chickens.  Ed settled in at the end of the run and hung out for a while to watch them, no doubt dreaming of hunting glory.  Soon, they’ll be bigger than he is, and I’m not sure how Ed will handle that, psychologically.

After watching Ed for a few minutes, I glanced over at the new shed.  I have a full cord of wood in there, and will need probably another two full cords to get through the winter.  I like the way the shed turned out, and with a grand total cost of about fifteen bucks, I think it was a good project to get done.

My dad had come up to help me build it, and along with my friend, we built the whole thing in about four hours.  I used a bunch of old lumber from underneath Upper Camp and only had to buy a box of wood screws.  The old metal roofing has holes in it, but they’re small and it will keep the vast majority of rain and snow off my wood.  It’s comforting to have it built, though now I really feel the pressure to get it filled.  Unfortunately, I’ll have to buy some fire wood this winter, but it won’t be as much as last year.

When my neighbor came up to brush hog the lower field, he noticed the new shed.  He said that he’s built a few sheds, and the biggest problem is that when you build a new shed, you fill it up, leaving you no choice but to build another shed at some point.  I like building things, so this wouldn’t be so bad, but luckily this new shed will be filled and emptied by the time next summer roles around.

Now I just need to figure out what else can go into a shed, so I can build another one.

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Cabin Life – #81

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I just got back from the neighbor’s house, where we had a couple of beers The Big Snakesby the fire.  Even though I tend to have a beer by the fire whenever it’s not raining, it is nice to share the fire with friends.  Plus, how often do you get to drive a four-wheeler to your friend’s house?  On top of the pleasant evening, it is actually starting to feel like summer.  We’ve had almost three whole days without rain.  I am really excited.

There’s been a lot going on out here at the cabin.  I bought a new woodstove and am waiting for it to be delivered.  The new woodshed will be up and doing its job within a week.  The chickens are growing and the coop will be built and operational in two weeks.  The peas in the garden are growing like crazy, and the few that I’ve eaten were sweet and crisp.

But on another note, the snakes may be getting a little comfortable in the yard.  Now, granted, I don’t mind snakes and appreciate the services that they provide, but I had a bit of a run-in with a few, and they’re getting on my nerves just a touch.

Last week, we had a warm, sunny day for the first time in a while.  I got the four-wheeler going and took a ride down the road.  It’s about a mile to where the pavement starts, and I cruised up there and turned around.  Not long after I turned around, I was startled by something on the handlebars.  There was a decent-sized garter snake winding its way around the cables and controls down back into the body of the machine.

The snake wasn’t big, and before I could grab it, it slithered down the controls and under the plastic body.  I glanced down in there to see if it was easily accessible and noticed a bunch of stuff that kind of looked like a nest.  When I leaned over a little farther, I could clearly see two more little garters curled up in the nest, and the one from the handlebars making its way around.

I was startled, but took off for home and figured I’d dig them out when I got back.  I pulled into the yard and my friend pointed out to me that there was a rather large snake head poking out from under the seat, right where her legs had been dangling on our ride.  Now, I’m not afraid of garter snakes and routinely remove them from places where I don’t want them (like in the chicken cage).  But this one seemed big enough that if it did bite me, it would hurt.

Unfortunately, it’s head was resting directly on the release that would allow me to remove the seat and therefore remove the snake.  It seemed pretty docile, maybe a little woozy from the ride, but I grabbed a glove and pushed the snake’s head back out of the way and released the seat.

As I pulled the seat off, I was amazed at the size of this snake.  It’s body was wound around itself quite a few times, and it’s girth was enormous.  I followed the contour of its body all the across the width of the four-wheeler and realized that this snake had a head at either side of the seat.  This was two snakes, both equally large, wide and, luckily, docile.

I grabbed each one and tossed them into the long grass at the edge of the driveway.  They were hands down the largest garter snakes I have ever seen, and the fact that they were that close to my crotch made me uneasy.  I decided to leave the four-wheeler parked in the shorter grass, and walked over to the rock pile where it had been parked.  As I walked up and picked up the tarp, I saw seven different little snakes take off into the grass.  Hopefully they find a nice place to nest.  It just can’t be in my house, car, or four-wheeler.

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Cabin Life – #80

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I love it when a few moments of laziness lead to something good.  I had weed whacked all First Strawberriesaround the big fire pit and hammock a couple weeks ago, but there was one section of lawn that I just buzzed through quickly, and I did a poor job on about a ten square foot area.  Last night as I was moving some junk wood into the new wood rack, I caught a glimpse of some bright red in the slightly overgrown region:  two wild strawberries.

Only one of the very small strawberries was ripe, so after taking a couple pictures of the first strawberries of the season, I popped the ripe one in my mouth.  That was the first strawberry I’ve had in quite a while, and man was it delicious.  There was enough flavor packed in that little pea-sized berry to make all the rain worthwhile.

After I stacked the wood, I sat back on the porch with a beer and put my feet up on the chicken cage.  The little girls are getting bigger, and spend about a third of their time stretching their wings and preening the down feathers they’re losing.  The other two thirds of their days are split evenly between eating and sleeping.  They are having a good life so far.

When I brought them home earlier this week, I introduced Ed and Herbie to the chicks.  I held Herbie over their cage and let him sniff and watch for a few minutes.  He seemed to lose interest and eventually just wanted to get down out of my arms.  Ed, on the other hand, when confronted with the chicks for the first time, recoiled and was wary of the chicks.  They are tiny, but Ed was a little freaked out.  For all his posing as a killer, he’s still just my little man who would have no idea what to do if he saw the girls outside of their cage.

As I sat on the porch letting the beer wash away the taste of the strawberry, I glanced out over the yard.  The apple trees are starting to get heavy with small apples, and I can see the lime green berries starting to form on the blueberry bushes.  With the drought last year, I got no fruit off of the property, but this year is shaping up to be a banner year for all the strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry plants.  I know it’s early and anything could happen, but I have a feeling that I will have more wild food than I know what to do with.

I’m hoping that my friends with kids will come around later in the summer to help clear out some of the berries and apples.  Besides making jam, apple sauce, cider and hopefully some applejack, I don’t really have any idea what to do with the bounty of fruit coming my way.  Add to this the chicken eggs and garden veggies that will be appearing in the next couple of months, and I am facing a glut of food.  Obviously, this is not a problem that requires any serious deliberation.  I’m ok with apples and berries getting eaten by deer and other animals.  I just hope that some of the bears around don’t get too cozy here.  I may be facing a surplus of wild food, but a hungry bear could easily wipe out a lot of my apples, berries, and even the chickens.  I don’t mind sharing, but a bear coming in here and eating all my stuff is not something that I would forward to.

Cabin Life – #79

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It’s been the kind of week where I am just awash in babies.  This is not a The New Chicksbad thing, although it is a far cry from my normal lifestyle.  I’m sitting on the patio of my brother’s house in Orlando, Florida, waiting for my niece and nephew to wake up.  Their official greeting of spit-up all over me was warm and gracious, if unconventional.  But trust me when I say that the two month old twins are too cute to be upset with.

The other babies I’ve been seeing a lot of lately are my chickens.  The four of them are staying in Amy’s garage while I’m out of town, but I got to spend plenty of time with them before I left.  Amy took her seven larger chicks plus one very tiny chick and put them in her new coop.  That left my four little girls to themselves in a heated cage.  Once I’m back, though, the girls will be my responsibility.

It’s amazing to think that just a week or so ago, the chicks were on a farm somewhere, being raised under heat lamps along with what must have been hundreds of other chicks.  Then, someone grabbed a couple dozen of them, put them in a cardboard box and mailed them out.  Amy had put together the order with a few other friends since none of them actually wanted two dozen baby chickens.  Her share was five chicks.

But after getting seven chicks that were hatched at the elementary school in Saranac Lake, she realized that all seven of them were going to be hens.  The school hadn’t sexed the chicks and Amy figured a few of them would be male, and that the extra five mail-order chicks would be used to replace the males of the group.  And when all of the original seven turned out to be hens, she asked if I wanted the mail-order chicks, and I said yes.

Getting to see and interact with the chicks has been fun and exciting.  I hate to admit it, but I already have a favorite.  I don’t know what breeds or varieties they are yet but for some reason the brown speckled chick has grabbed my attention.  I don’t want to play favorites with the chickens, but I can’t help it.  Luckily, they’re chickens and I don’t think they’ll notice.

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Cabin Life – #78

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Well, there’s finally been a bit of a break in the rain, and even though the Future Chicken Coopbugs are bad and the hammock is soaked, I’m really enjoying sitting outside in the sun.  After spending the last couple of weeks cleaning up the yard, I’m about ready to move on to another project.  Fortunately and unfortunately, my next project has a deadline of two weeks.  That’s when I will be getting chickens, and I’ve got a lot to do before they get here.

During my yard cleanup, I actually dragged something additional into the yard.  Back behind the woodshed in the brush was an old trailer with a wooden box built on it.  One of the tires was flat and the frame of the trailer is not square, but I pulled the trailer out into the open hoping to find a use for it.  The wood of the box is largely rotten and covered in moss, but other than not being square, the trailer is in good shape and when Amy asked if I wanted some chickens, I realized what I could do with the trailer.

I’ve taken care of chickens for friends, and they are not a lot of work.  My biggest concern out here is that I am just going to be providing a free meal or four for some predator.  Bears, foxes, coyotes, eagles, raccoons, and owls are just some of the predators that could cause me problems.  But the chickens will be farm animals, not pets, and if they get eaten, then I will move on with my life.  I’ll do my best to provide them with food, water and shelter, but am not going to worry too much about them.

The first thing I’m going to do is to build a fenced in and roofed run for the chicks.  They will only be about a month old when I get them from another local couple, and to buy myself some time, the run will be where they spend their days, and the wood shed is where they will sleep.  I figure since they won’t be laying eggs anytime soon, I’ll have a week or two after I get them to finish up the coop.

I’ve never built a coop before but have seen enough of them to have a good idea of what I want.  That old trailer will make them safe, warm, dry, and mobile.  Since the coop will be on wheels, I can move it as often as I want.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do this winter, as it will be hard for me to keep them warm.  Hay bales and hot rocks might get them through, but if not, I’ll put them out of their misery.  I’m looking forward to fresh eggs and the chickens eating lots of bugs.  I just hope that they don’t get eaten before I get a chance to eat them myself.

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