Genetic Anomaly

Bun with bunny ears

So we should know how many boxes of product it should take to make x amount of servings, right?

Tell me why for the last two years, every time we make mashed potatoes with the supposedly same dehydrated mix, we need more and more mix to reach our numbers? Supposedly, one carton should make 77 servings- it's made 77 servings for the last five years.

So why are we suddenly only getting 70 out of the box on average now? We're making it the exact same way every time. We make this recipe every other week. Why is it noticeably different.

We have to weigh everything to get accurate serving counts for governmental records and reimbursement from the government.

Why are the bags of frozen berries that say five pounds on every packags only weighing out to 4.3 pounds at best? We aren't draining them, they should weigh at least 4.9 because that's normal in the margin of error and the bags weigh nowhere near the difference to make it up. Now we won't have enough to make our target serving count bc we only ordered enough for about fifty extra servings like we always do.

Why is the chicken nugget brand we've been buying for years from the same brand suddenly way fucking smaller? The serving we use is 6 pieces bc legally we have to offer two grams of protein for a menued meal at the highschool level- so has our serving size changed without them telling us? The box doesn't say it's changed but we notice this sort of thing because we do the same menu every couple of weeks.

I noticed that there was a bigger egg under one of the broody chickens, when I checked. Of course I noticed, it was twice the size of the others. But I have geese. I figured it was a goose egg she’d found and stolen. It was about the right size, and I didn’t take it out to check the colour because that particular chicken gets very protective of her eggs. I’ve already got a scar on one hand from trying to get eggs away from her. I didn’t want a matched set.

That was a decision I regretted the moment I went out to feed the chickens and found a little blue-and-silver dragonet’s head poking out from under a very confused-looking chicken. The poor thing kept shifting around and looking under herself in a bewildered way, like she didn’t know what to do next. This particular chicken is a good mother, and she’s raised clutches of ducks and geese without any trouble – she’s even resigned to some of her children swimming – but this was too much. She didn’t object when I carefully reached in and fished out the little dragon.

It was so tiny, then. It fitted in my hand, with its little head peeking out one side and its tail looping around my wrist. Cute, too, with its big eyes and little snout turned up towards me.

That was when I made my second mistake. I decided to feed it before releasing it. Dragons are innately wild creatures, everyone knows that. They can’t be tamed. People have tried. The eggs are abandoned as soon as they are laid, and the dragonets hatch able to hunt, so they don’t even bond with their mothers. So just feeding it a little shouldn’t have been a big deal. It should have gobbled the meat and fled as soon as I loosened my grip on it and it saw the open sky.

It didn’t. As soon as I’d fed it, it fluttered up to a sunny window ledge and went to sleep. I went about my work, figuring that it’d leave in its own time.

By noon, it was sitting on my boot, squeaking pathetically. I wondered if maybe it was confused by the farmyard – they usually hatch in mountains, if the stories are right – so I took it back to the farmhouse with me and fed it again when I ate, then took some time away from the fences I should have been mending to walk it up to the hills. I found it some nice rocks, with plenty of lizards and beetles and suitable prey for something that size. It pounced on a beetle almost as soon as I put it down, and when I left it was crunching happily.

I hadn’t walked a quarter of the way back before something hit the back of my boot. The little dragon was holding on with all four claws, and when I looked down it squeaked pathetically. If possible, its eyes got even rounder.

Listen, you don’t make it as a farmer if you just let orphaned baby animals die. We hand-raise calves and lambs and ponies, set chickens to sit on abandoned eggs, or put them under the kitchen stove or by a fireplace. You don’t make a success of farming if you don’t value every animal. A good shepherd will spend all night looking for one lost sheep. So despite what was said later, it wasn’t just sentiment that made me sigh and pick up the little thing and carry it back to the farm.  I am a good farmer. I don’t let orphaned babies die just because they’re a little work.