Eggmobile Down

Our farm sees its fair share of wind.  The land is open, there are woods lining the edges of the farm but mostly it is exposed and sits on top of a small hill.  It is hard to describe how windy it can get.  On Wednesday the farm  experienced the largest gust of wind we have ever seen here. 

Eggmobile earlier this spring

Most of Wednesday was hot and sunny, with temperatures above 90 degrees.  We spent the day transplanting in the field.  Towards the end of the day as we were close to the end of planting the cherry tomatoes, which we have been anxious to get into the ground, the weather took a dramatic turn.  Loading the last of the tomatoes onto the trailer to take them out to the field we began to see lightning.  As the storm grew closer we made a dash inside to wait out the storm. 

Right after we got inside a gust of wind and rain whipped across the farm, accompanied by claps of thunder and lightning.  Our neighbors in the field next to us had been making hay all day and they were stuck in the middle of the storm, waiting it out in their truck, trying to race the rain to get the hay off the ground that they had spent all day cutting.  The wind tore across the land, whipping around in a circular motion.  A minute later it was over.  I spent the whole storm anxiously watching the cold frame, where I keep all the transplants right before they go out in the field.  Nothing seemed to budge, except for the empty containers that we had just brought back from planting. 

It seemed the farm had stood up to the wind just fine.  It was still thundering out so I figured I would start to make dinner.  Then the phone rang.  “Hello Margaret, do you know that your chicken house is on its side?”  On its side? I thought, impossible.  The egg mobile is 8 x 18 x 7 feet.  It is a hen house on wheels so that the chickens can be moved to fresh pasture regularly.  It houses all of our egg laying chickens.  We went to go check it out.  Sure enough the whole thing was on it side.  The chickens were all running around eating and drinking.  They seemed to have not been phased by the event.  I thought that it was going to be impossible to get the thing back up.  We went and got some rope, tied it to the hen house and to the tractor and decided to give it a go.  I thought to myself, there is no way this thing is going to budge. Our tractor is not very big.  Kevin backed the tractor up and miraculously the egg mobile began to move.  I wrapped another rope around my hips to try to soften the tipping and be sure that it did not just keep going and tip over on its other side.  There was some wobbling and then the egg mobile was back on its wheels.  It was getting dark.  The chickens began to walk inside to go to sleep.