A Day In The Life

This week’s A Day In The Life spotlight is on one of our egg vendors, Laurie Cuddington!

Laurie started with out market as a loyal customer. She frequents as many outside farmers markets as she can. She became interested in selling eggs for this little local market of love, and you know her as…Anchor Acres!

Thanks for the submission, Laurie…it’s so fun to read everyone’s snapshot of a day in the life…

A Day in the Life of Anchor Acres – hard to find “typical”, but I’ll try to give a snapshot and some background. My chicken adventure is fairly new, almost two years now, and I keep thinking it will become more routine, but of course that never happens with real living beings. Especially when I get more (or just have to change something) somewhat often. :-) At the moment (and I do mean the moment), I have 49 chickens, 6 ducks, and a turkey. And a dog, and a new cat who just showed up recently. Right now, that means 9 waters and 9 food containers, two or more times a day. Also right now, the sun is dictating that roosters start to crow at about 4:45am – at least the roosters think so – and I currently have 12 roosters. :-P I often try to grab a power nap in the afternoons, because I am getting older and did not get to start my “adventure in agriculture” early enough in life, I don’t think. My husband has been active duty Navy for 29 years (and still counting) which has meant moving often and usually renting or living in base housing, all of which was never conducive to owning animals or even planting a garden. So, I have jumped in with both feet now that we have a lovely spot in Ohio from which we only have to move if or when we want to (because my husband will retire from the Navy in one more year). Even though my ability to grow or raise my own food has mostly been limited, I have always been tuned in to healthy food and the sick American food industry system. For example, I started grinding wheat to bake bread and make pasta and similar endeavors about 20 years ago. (Unfortunately, I have not steadily kept that up.) I looked forward to the day when I could do more. Now, I get to rise early, check all foods/waters and clean/refill as needed, and let appropriate creatures out to explore and find fresh natural food, shade, or whatever else they want to find. I then refresh bedding as needed, gather eggs a few times during the day, keep an eye on everyone, and generally shoot for my goal of happy, healthy animals. I make adjustments in waterers and feeders, feed (sourcing organic feed, for example, is actually somewhat challenging), fences, shelters, etc as they all grow up and as the weather changes. I also have expanded my garden and try to continually improve my gardening skills. Then, at the end of the day, the sun also dictates that I shut everyone in prior to dark, before the raccoons or other predators come out. It is a lot of work but very satisfying overall. Meanwhile, as I work on my own “homestead”, I seek to source as much as I can of the rest of my family’s food locally and from health-driven sources, which is why I became a very enthusiastic customer of this Virtual Market as soon as I heard about it, and then was very happy to progress to being even a minor vendor. I do not have enough eggs for everyone who wants them, but I love to make wonderful eggs available to as many folks as possible. Assuming success with my new ducks, I hope to be adding duck eggs to the market in a couple months, so watch for that. :-) One last thing, my mini-farm’s name… You may have guessed that “Anchor” relates to my husband’s Navy career, and it does, because that has been a huge part of my life. However anchor has a double meaning, because my other and most important “Anchor” that holds me firm through all of life’s tossing and turning is my hope in Jesus. The verse is Hebrews 6:19. :-) Thanks for reading! Laurie :-)