Peeps, 2026 Edition

Before class on Tuesday, I stopped at the farm store to buy pine shavings—nesting box material for the big chickens—and asked what the chick deliveries for this week looked like. I am in there so often that the cashiers know me by name and are more than willing to let me know what’s going on. I was told that there might be chicks on Wednesday, but Thursday for sure.

I took a chance and drove in yesterday morning. The word on the street last spring was that the shipping policies had changed to avoid all the problems we’ve had the past two years with chicks getting held up by the USPS and arriving dead or too stressed to survive. (The USPS still holds the top spot as the most incompetently-run “business” on the planet.) Deliveries are running more smoothly this year and the store did get a shipment yesterday morning. The store requires buyers to come in early and get on a list but won’t release chicks until mid-morning. I got there at 7:30 am and was #4 on the list. The store said they would release the chicks at 10:00 am, so I left to run errands in the meantime.

My first choice of breed would have been Cinnamon Queens, which were the ones I got last spring. Of the 12 I bought last year, only six survived the first week. However, the Cinnamon Queen chicks were in the same brooder box as the “mixed pullets,” and I wasn’t convinced the store employees would be able to sort the actual Cinnamon Queen pullets from the other chicks. I considered Barred Rocks but we still have a few and I am trying to keep breeds sorted by year. In the end, I decided on Light Brahmas. We’ve had those before and they have done well.

They seem to be happy so far. I got 12 chicks.

While I was dealing with baby chickens, the husband was working on the rental house. A tree came through the roof last year and damaged the ceiling in one of the bedrooms, so he was making those repairs. After he gets the new drywall taped and mudded, I will go in and repaint everything. He will move on to working on the bathroom. That is going to be a bigger job because he has to gut part of it, install a vent and new shower surround, and fix a few other issues.

The biggest job is going to be replacing the deck around the front and side, but he can’t work on that until the weather gets better. The forecast is for rain and snow showers through at least the middle of March. We’ll take it. We need the moisture.

I need to tie myself to my office chair today and deal with some paperwork, although I plan to take a break around lunchtime and go up to sewing at the community center. I don’t want my friends to forget what I look like. If I get all my paperwork handled, I’ll come back and work on some sewing projects. I think I am also going to start a roaster pan full of chicken stock to cook down so I can process it tomorrow.