Don't tell the wife, I'm growing fodder in the 2nd bathroom!

[gtaus]

UPDATE: 11/11/2019 I got found out!

After weeks and weeks of carefully hiding my fodder growing project, after all the work and effort I put into concealing my fodder affairs, after following all the great advice from the community on how to best hide my bathroom fodder enterprise, I ended up getting caught anyway.

So, for those of you who have been following this story, my latest attempt to discourage my wife from going into the spare bathroom to clean (and thereby discovering my fodder tower and bins full of growing barley fodder) was to put a new handheld shower head with hose and a bunch of tools into the bathroom - making it look like I was attempting to install a new handheld shower head in the bathtub/shower. I figured that would discourage her from wanting to clean the bathroom with all those tools and such laying around.

So yesterday, my wife asks me if I am finally going to install that new handheld shower head in the spare bathroom. OK, not a big deal. I had an excuse already prepared for that question. I responded with, why yes, I certainly was planning on installing that new shower head but the old shower head was a plastic holder and the new hose was metal. The metal hose did not fit the plastic holder and I was looking into options and maybe I would have to order some other parts. Perfect! I thought. Handled that one without breaking a sweat.

Not giving up, Dear Wife asked me if that was going to take very long to get the new part for the metal shower head. Well, I calmly responded, it could take awhile, but did it really matter because we never use that bathroom in the winter anyway?

She looks at me and calmly says, I suppose not, considering you are growing grass in there anyway!

What? I responded, trying to play dumb for the time.

So Dear Wife states, did you think I didn't know what you were up to growing grass in the spare bathroom?

Did you think that I would not open the shower curtain and see your tower growing grass?

Do you think that I'm not aware of all your attempts to hide it from me?

I tried to respond with my list of well rehearsed excuses I have complied from this thread, well I...

No! She cut me off immediately. You can't hide anything from me and I knew about this from the start! But it's OK for the winter cause I know you are feeding the chickens that grass. You can move it back out to the garage in the spring.

I don't often state this, or even admit it, but, truth be told, Dear Wife both outsmarted and outclassed me on this one. My weeks and weeks of sneaking around the house with this fodder project were for naught. She knew about it all the time.

The only question I have left is if she would have allowed me to grow fodder in the spare bathroom if I had asked before setting up the project, or if she just enjoyed knowing that I was trying to hide this fodder growing tower in the bathtub and she knew what I was up to all the time!?

Whatever. I'll probably never know. But my wife does enjoy the fresh eggs we get every day from my chickens and after 30+ years of marriage has probably decided it's not worth her time trying to train anyone new to replace me. So maybe I dodged the bullet this time. My fodder is doing well, the chickens are giving us some good eggs, my wife is still putting up with me, so life is good.

 

[Sequel]

UPDATE: 11/11/2019 I got found out!

After weeks and weeks of carefully hiding my fodder growing project, after all the work and effort I put into concealing my fodder affairs, after following all the great advice from the community on how to best hide my bathroom fodder enterprise, I ended up getting caught anyway.

So, for those of you who have been following this story, my latest attempt to discourage my wife from going into the spare bathroom to clean (and thereby discovering my fodder tower and bins full of growing barley fodder) was to put a new handheld shower head with hose and a bunch of tools into the bathroom - making it look like I was attempting to install a new handheld shower head in the bathtub/shower. I figured that would discourage her from wanting to clean the bathroom with all those tools and such laying around.

So yesterday, my wife asks me if I am finally going to install that new handheld shower head in the spare bathroom. OK, not a big deal. I had an excuse already prepared for that question. I responded with, why yes, I certainly was planning on installing that new shower head but the old shower head was a plastic holder and the new hose was metal. The metal hose did not fit the plastic holder and I was looking into options and maybe I would have to order some other parts. Perfect! I thought. Handled that one without breaking a sweat.

Not giving up, Dear Wife asked me if that was going to take very long to get the new part for the metal shower head. Well, I calmly responded, it could take awhile, but did it really matter because we never use that bathroom in the winter anyway?

She looks at me and calmly says, I suppose not, considering you are growing grass in there anyway!

What? I responded, trying to play dumb for the time.

So Dear Wife states, did you think I didn't know what you were up to growing grass in the spare bathroom?

Did you think that I would not open the shower curtain and see your tower growing grass?

Do you think that I'm not aware of all your attempts to hide it from me?

I tried to respond with my list of well rehearsed excuses I have complied from this thread, well I...

No! She cut me off immediately. You can't hide anything from me and I knew about this from the start! But it's OK for the winter cause I know you are feeding the chickens that grass. You can move it back out to the garage in the spring.

I don't often state this, or even admit it, but, truth be told, Dear Wife both outsmarted and outclassed me on this one. My weeks and weeks of sneaking around the house with this fodder project were for naught. She knew about it all the time.

The only question I have left is if she would have allowed me to grow fodder in the spare bathroom if I had asked before setting up the project, or if she just enjoyed knowing that I was trying to hide this fodder growing tower in the bathtub and she knew what I was up to all the time!?

Whatever. I'll probably never know. But my wife does enjoy the fresh eggs we get every day from my chickens and after 30+ years of marriage has probably decided it's not worth her time trying to train anyone new to replace me. So maybe I dodged the bullet this time. My fodder is doing well, the chickens are giving us some good eggs, my wife is still putting up with me, so life is good.

Haha! This has been a fabulous adventure!

 

[Kusanar]

Lol!! She was probably enjoying watching you sneak around to try to keep it hidden! Sounds like you may get permission to do this again next winter too since she said it was fine to keep it in there and it could go outside in the spring.

 

[gtaus]

Haha! This has been a fabulous adventure!

Yeah, it has been interesting. Thanks for taking the adventure with me.

 

[gtaus]

Lol!! She was probably enjoying watching you sneak around to try to keep it hidden!

Yeah, I think the joke was on me all the time.

Sounds like you may get permission to do this again next winter too since she said it was fine to keep it in there and it could go outside in the spring.

Growing fodder in the spare bathroom has really not caused much mess at all. And like I have mentioned, there is practically no smell noticed that I was initially worried about. Thank goodness the hens are laying some nice eggs. I have 10 hens and have been getting as many as 8 eggs in one day! Don't know if the egg production will keep up as the daylight is getting shorter and the days are getting much colder. I guess I'll find out. At any rate, I have the rest of the winter to try this out and see how well this fodder works for my chickens.

 

[BDutch]

Yeah, it has been interesting. Thanks for taking the adventure with me.

Thanks for sharing Gtaus. Nice happy ending. And if you need a hand fixing the bathroom again. My tiny chickens always like to help:

And thanks whoever it was that suggested sprouting popcorn. I am soaking my first bowl with popcorn rught now.

 

[gtaus]

Thanks for sharing Gtaus. Nice happy ending. And if you need a hand fixing the bathroom again. My tiny chickens always like to help: View attachment 1958003

And thanks whoever it was that suggested sprouting popcorn. I am soaking my first bowl with popcorn rught now.

Love the picture. Thanks. I have composting chickens, and they do a good job. Where did you find those carpenter chickens? I'm getting to the age where some extra help is most welcome!

Let me know how the popcorn sprouting/fodder works for you. I don't know what you pay for popcorn seed there, but here in the USA it costs me about $2 per pound of popcorn seed, whereas the barley seed is about $8 for a 50 pound bag.

 

[BDutch]

Love the picture. Thanks. I have composting chickens, and they do a good job. Where did you find those carpenter chickens? I'm getting to the age where some extra help is most welcome!

Let me know how the popcorn sprouting/fodder works for you. I don't know what you pay for popcorn seed there, but here in the USA it costs me about $2 per pound of popcorn seed, whereas the barley seed is about $8 for a 50 pound bag.

Bought these capenter Dutch bantams as chicks from a hobby-breeder. It was the succesfull chicken training that made them carpenters.

The popcorn costs here € 2,66 for a kilo (2.2 pound) from the grocery store nearby. Barley unpeeled bio € 26,- for 25 kilo/ 55 pound. But this is not available in a store nearby. I count € 31,- / $ 34 by mail.

 

[gtaus]

Bought these capenter Dutch bantams as chicks from a hobby-breeder. It was the succesfull chicken training that made them carpenters.

The popcorn costs here € 2,66 for a kilo (2.2 pound) from the grocery store nearby. Barley unpeeled bio € 26,- for 25 kilo/ 55 pound. But this is not available in a store nearby. I count € 31,- / $ 34 by mail.

Yeah, I'm not so good at training my chickens. I mainly just watch them to see what they can do best and try to work with it.

Post a comment on how your experiment with sprouting/growing popcorn fodder works out for you. I asked my local mill if I could sprout whole corn and/or grow corn fodder, but they told me that the whole corn kernels were "dead" and would not germinate. I think the whole corn is dried out somehow and kills it. It's good for feed, but will not grow.

 

[BDutch]

The popcorn I bought is for making popcorn and for human consumption. As you say chicken mais might be too hard. But there is also a chance it will not sprout because of the poison (GMO). I rather give food withouth insecticides to my flock.

I only bought a small bag (1/2 pound). Just to try. The popcorn is welding 16 h now. And I see it has been absorbing water. The corn is almost twice the size as the popcorn in the bag now. I suppose it's better to weld it longer as barley seeds. I'm considering to put some compost under and over the corn to let it sprout and grow more easily.