egg cartons

Yesterday there was a radio program about bottled water that I heard a snippet of while driving home from my newest lease. When I repositioned eggmobile1 by the way it was tilted wrong and the water overflowed the gutter on the opposite side of the water tank and I wasted all of yesterday's storm without collecting any water :( But the new property they are on is on a creek next to a huge forest, a very beautiful old orchard, lovely forage for the chickens, and full of wildlife (and predators) so its a good test of my electric-net fences. They've been there almost a week and so far so good. All this driving back and forth wears a farmer down, but having small properties is the fact of California so I've gotta make this farming model work. Also, the eggs are better this way. Just when your pathogens and predators think they know the drill...

eggmobile2

eggmobile1

Back to the radio, the speaker was lamenting the recycling of plastic water bottles. They are made from petroleum, and always made fresh. When we recycle water bottles he said, they are almost always shipped across the sea to china and "down-cycled" into carpet batting and other parts of things, but never back into water bottles. Apparently there is one company thinking about building a plant to "close the loop" but this hasn't happened yet.

Enter my egg cartons. They are made from recycled water bottles. OK, its not a water bottle, but its a product being purchased here in the U.S. and its clear PETE plastic containing a food product just like the original water bottle, so its closer to closing the loop than carpet batting. It is labeled with a 1 on the bottom so it can be recycled again. I am not aware if carpet batting gets recycled. I need to look into where these cartons are manufactured, that's the one thing, if its happening in China that's sad. Anyway, I got the clear ones because they display the colorful dozen that is so superior to anything else on the market, but I also knew that providing a market for recycled materials here in the U.S. is a good thing. When we get rid of plastic water bottles, I will stop using plastic cartons from the recycled product.

Weds and Thursday last week I worked back to back 17 hour days acquiring new sheep because of customer demand, so now I can start taking orders for fall lambs because I got 14.5 more sheep in 2 days. All hair sheep (8 are barbados, 5 whethers, 3 ewes, the rest are St. Croix). The half sheep is because Silva Star and I are sharing a St. Croix ram because we got someone's entire flock. I also picked up 2 Italian sheep dogs called "Maremmas" from someone who couldn't keep them anymore. They are a year old and unfortunately aren't yet bonded to sheep like they should be, so its going to take some work, but they are very good with the sheep already, they do not harass the lambs at all. I have been working non-stop every day since then so I haven't taken any pics yet, but I'm going to try to get that done in the next few days.

Lastly but not leastly, poor Madeline was playing on the swing (standing) and fell off forward and broke her arm a little. I say a little because the doctor said its a very small fracture and the cast only needs to be on a week. Still, its uncomfortable for her, and she was very frustrated about it. She seems to be getting used to it now. She wanted me to take this picture of her and Ruby.