McClary Hill Farm Liquidity Crisis... Submitted by Dave
The McClary Hill Farm crisis of liquidity is upon me. I should have seen it coming -- shortening daylight hours, falling leaves and chickens slowly fattening in their chilly coop. But sales of our birds had been steady throughout the spring and summer and in a fit of irrational exuberance, I determined to carry a few for the holiday market. Alas had only I processed and frozen all of the birds before frost became a regular occurrence, I would not now be battling liquid assets frozen in water lines.
Early Monday morning I went to check on the calf, Sparrow, born on Sunday. I had slept poorly worrying about the little thing out in the cold but had determined to leave her out with her Mom as the skies were clear with no rain or wind in the forecast. She was a hale little calf quick to get onto her legs and start nursing and barring some real serious programming problem that I couldn’t see, I figured she’d be alright. My flashlight powered visit to the pasture proved that she was doing fine, curled up, nose pressed to her side, a dark lump next to her mama.
Pleased that my decision had not gone badly wrong, I turned my attention to the broiler chickens. In November their waterer often freezes and frozen water results in a feathery scrum around the waterer when it starts flowing again. The thirsty chickens crowd around the watering bowl putting downward pressure on the valve which prevents water flow as effectively as freezing. This results in more chickens piling on and even less water getting into the bowl. This is the chicken equivalent of a run on the bank. When this happens, I understand, viscerally, how those serving in the Federal Reserve and Treasury must feel these days.
I waded into the chickens, the embodiment of the promise of free flowing water. The chickens, eager and thirsty, pecked at the frost particles on my boots and generally milled around my feet waiting for something to happen. My solution involved thawing out the line and then holding up the watering bowl so that the water kept flowing even as the chickens flew, jumped and rappelled onto the bowl. My flashlight lit up an avian mosh pit. For obvious reasons, the waterer is close to ground level and in order to hold the watering bowl up, I needed to crouch very low and stretch my arm while steadying myself with my other hand on the eave of the coop. Once committed to this task, one really can’t move until most all the chickens have a drink. Skills like these in combination with the fact that I can see Deerfield and Northwood from my kitchen window has to mean that I’m qualified for some elected position that involves giving money away.
Additionally, these contortions put my face close to chicken head height and provided an unusual opportunity for bird and human shared contemplation.
As an aside, one that is important to this story, I have noticed that, as I have gotten older, my nose runs much more freely in the winter. This indignity was another that none of my elders bothered to tell me was coming. As temperatures on this particular morning were below freezing, my nose was performing in Olympic fashion forming drops that rolled off its tip with a precision that would make members of the Chinese synchronized diving team envious. From my drippy crouch, I could almost see the little cartoon balloon form over one particularly attentive chicken’s head. In it was written, “Hey! There’s water running off the end of the guy-who-brings-the-food’s nose.” In my life I have few moments of clarity, but at that second I knew exactly what that chicken was thinking. Unfortunately the recognition of my moment of clarity delayed me in wresting my arm from under the pile of dehydrated chickens.
With little fanfare, the chicken went for the drop on the end of my nose. The chicken missed. Instead, its beak closed on the end of my nose.
In case you’ve not been bitten on the nose by a chicken, it hurts. A lot. After commenting loudly on this turn of events, I realized my eyes were watering, a result that had consequences too dramatic to contemplate. I departed the coop in haste. The chickens could go without until the sun rose or until I could don a face mask.
Walking to the house rubbing my nose I comforted myself that my farm’s crisis of liquidity would come to an end in the very near future. Fortunately for derivative brokers and other financial ne’er-do-wells they won’t share the same fate as my chickens.
