Foggy Ridge Dispatch: December 9, 2024
Chickens. Coops. Carving wood. Big snow. Vermont exercise. Audiobooks. The Claims Adjuster.
Here are the things of note from last week (December 2 - 8).
First off, sorry I’m coming in a day late here, folks. Between shoveling lots of snow, catching up on studio and homestead tasks, and grinding on work for a client, last week was a doozy. Likewise, the Being Good Vermonters segment may get postponed this week, airing next week instead.
But now, on with our regularly-scheduled programming.
First off, let’s get the big event out of the way: the UHC CEO was iced by a young, ideologically-motivated vigilante now being called “The Adjuster” or “The Claims Adjuster”.
You’re probably tired of hearing about this by now but if you’re not, I made a dedicated post about it; you can read it here. The gist of it is that if you’re derisive about folks celebrating this assassination, then you’re not one of the people this young man was ideologically representing with his actions. If you don’t ideologically condemn the French Revolution but you do condemn the actions of this young killer, then you might just not yet realize the moment we’re living in. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the "ancien regime" (old order).
After all, history has to start somewhere, sometime, with someone. Why not him?
Anyway…you can read that post here, if ya like. If not, no worries - here’s the rest of Foggy Ridge Dispatch for this week.
CHICKENS. Wonderful, opinionated, sassy, useful, delightful CHICKENS.
And, of course, their coops.
I ordered our hen chicks last week. But don’t worry - they’re not scheduled to arrive during these snowy months. Eighteen (18) Barred Plymouth Rock chicks (my favorite!) will come home to Foggy Ridge Farmstead in mid-August 2025. On the recommendation of a neighbor, we ordered our chicks from Meyer Hatchery, where they were $4.58/each for straight-run ladies. Look at these lovelies!
One thing I really respect about Meyer Hatchery is that with each chick order, you’re given the option to add a free “Meal Maker Day Old Chick” to your order. The idea here is that you raise the hen to production age and donate the eggs and/or meat to your community. How nice is that?
You also have the option of adding a free “Homestead Helper Day Old Chick” to your order - a rooster chick to grow up and help protect the flock. We’re opting for no roosters this year, but we’ll most likely have to add three next year if we want the minimum number of roosters for the minimum number of breeding groups required to maintain a wholly-internal + not-inbred perpetual flock operation.
To that end - maintaining that perpetual flock through breeding groups - we’re in the process of designing a coop and run that will let the flock stay unified for most of the year but be separated into three for annual breeding periods. Here are some sketches from the design process:
We’ll figure it out eventually, and no doubt Greg will make an incredible set of BIM diagrams and cut lists for the coop. When it happens, we’ll make them available!
In other news, we’ve enjoyed some BIG snow over the past week - around 14” - though I’m afraid we’ll lose most or all of it to a thaw over the next couple of days. But while it’s here, I’ve been enjoying shoveling it off of our deck - or, as I call it “Vermont exercise”. Some folks gain weight in the winter; when I was a Southerner, I certainly did. But that trend doesn’t seem to hold here. The maintenance of living in a true winter climate creates its own necessity for physical activity - and I’m grateful for it.
As I’ve been doing this Vermont exercise, I’ve been listening to a stellar audiobook: The North Woods by Daniel Mason (also available in print form, of course).
The interwoven stories and timelines are rich with mystery, detail, and feeling and the narration is incredible. It’s the kind of audiobook that makes you greedy to get back to a manual-labor task just so you have an excuse to listen to it. Highly recommended!
The joy of shoveling snow aside, I hope the abundant powder will be back in time for a white Winter Solstice + Christmas, though. It makes me feel like I live in a painting of a Piet Oudolf landscape to look out of my studio window and see this:
May it be a good winter for more scenes like these.
Finally, on the indoors front of Foggy Ridge happenings: my first new woodblock print designs in years, and deluxe new carving tools to bring them to life.
I used to have the non-Premium Deluxe Palm Set and the Mini and Micro Palm Sets…but they must’ve gotten lost in the move from Randolph to St. Johnsbury because I can’t find them for the life of me. Just one more expense attributed to the ADHD tax, I’m sure. Nonetheless, I suppose it was good to have an excuse to upgrade to the Premium tools; I much prefer the feel of these cherry handles to the ash on the non-Premium palm sets.
To put these babies to good use, I created four wood block designs and asked my Instagram fam to vote on which should get carved first. Here are the four designs:
Which one is your fave? These will all get carved eventually (except that last one, which will likely be in a different form) but the fine folks of Instagram resoundingly voted for the first design (the Mahler quote, mystic forest version). So, that one it is. I’m aiming to start it this weekend, after I sprint through a metric crap-ton of educational audio/video work for a client.
That’s all for this week’s edition of Foggy Ridge Dispatch, friends. If you have thoughts or questions, feel free to drop a comment below. And as always, thanks so much for reading.
Warmly,
Jack
Hi Jack. Nice update! Those designs for a wood cut print are dope.
On the chicken front, I am wondering why the flock needs to be internal? And we have the ladies use a ladder rather than a ramp, it takes a little bit of training, but it also seems to provide an added security from some predators like skunks.
Elise and I enjoyed "The North Woods". Have you read "Gather" yet?
I hope to see you around soon. Thanks for sharing all your words.