Birchtree Farm

Two Sundays ago a major thunderstorm parked itself over our house, and zapped us with lightning twice (so much for that old saying). It took out two computers, the cable/internet service, the Vonage phone router, both of our fence chargers, and, we just found out tonight, the two GFI outlets associated with the chargers. The outlets were still working, but one would no longer trip if you pushed the "test" button, and the other could be tripped but then wouldn't reset.

The cable/internet was restored by the next day, and Vonage sent us a new box so that was fixed by last Thursday. Fortunately we had two spare fence chargers, but they aren't quite as good as the originals, so they'll need to be replaced sometime soon. Ken is still working on the computers, and he replaced one GFI outlet tonight.

We are getting estimates for having our roof redone, and we're going to include lightning rods in the new roof. And of course now we run around and unplug everything if we think lightning might be close by. What a pain. Ah well.

In other news, I've started processing our broilers. Two were done yesterday and three more today. I can't do too many more until we get a chest freezer. However, we ate fresh herb-and-olive oil-basted chicken breast tonight with roasted potatoes, and carrots, and boy was it delicious. If we were to add up the cost of buying the broiler chicks, and the feed costs, and divide by their combined weight, it would probably be more expensive than buying chicken at the store. But, we know that they lived happy chicken lives, and you can't get fresher chicken than when it comes right out of your back yard.