#feedinganddrinking

This evening, I opened two enormous boxes from Amazon. What a thrill.

First, a two-gallon four-nipple water bucket that has a hole in the top so you can fill it directly with a hose! The previous waterer was a disaster. Like an annoying conversation that refuses to get to the point. You fill a bucket with water and flip it over and click a tray onto the top so that when you flip it back over, the water pours into the tray. This convoluted notion caused me nothing but heartache. The screw-on mechanism was a bunch of bullshit and I found myself trying to grip the water-filled bucket with my knees whilst screwing on the tray and the whole thing would drench me and was just ridiculous. Then the girls would knock it over, anyhow, and I’d find them without water on a sweltering 99 degree afternoon. No good. I’m deeply excited about the new watering prospects. It’s also a possibility I’m getting my hopes up.  

Behold, in all her glory:

The second box, drum roll please, was one hell of an investment: ladies and gentleman, a Grandpa’s feeder! Hurray! The Cadillac of feeders! The creme-de-la-creme! We will impress all our poultry friends and neighbors! (Beat that, chicken Joneses.) Picture a stainless steel (rodents can eat through plastic, those nasty marvels) breadbox with a step in front. Food goes in the breadbox. Breadbox opens when the chicken presses on the step and the chickens dine but not the mice. Ingenious. And it only takes 3 weeks to train the chickens to eat out of the thing!  

(I told Jesse, at this rate, I might as well teach them to also play the Star Spangled Banner on Ruthie’s kid-zylaphone.)

Here she is, the feeder of dreams:

But I don’t want to be one of those people who acts all cocky about a product before I even have it put together, who thinks an actual item-for-sale can buy me happiness, but the reviews on this item were nothing less than powerful. This feeder changes lives!

Anything is better than the one we have now. The girls like to climb into the bowl where the food is stored and use it as a poultry toilet. Yuck. The waterer is the exact same concept, except the water goes into the top part, which is closed at the top while this one is open at the top.

We’ll start the official feeder-training regiment when we return from a trip to Breckenridge next week. 

I’ll report my thoughts,findings and opinions then. 

(And I’m quite sure countless people will be sitting anxiously on their hands until then.)

(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016AO5GAI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)