A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

I believe one of the most important skills one can have is the ability to solve problems.  I’m not talking about the word problems that plague math students every where.  I mean real life problems like how to open the door of the chicken coop from the inside when it shuts behind you.

I recently had to employ this skill while filling the chicken waterer.   The waterers have a lid that is removed to fill the tops and a small lid that covers the spout so water will not come out while it is being filled.

We have three waterers and somehow we have managed to lose all but one of these small lids.  This means that each time I carry a waterer to the hose, I must make sure I have the little lid. This week I failed at getting the small lid and I didn’t realize it until I had started to fill the waterer.

Rather than stop and go back into the chicken yard to get the lid, I used my finger to stop up the hole.  This was a little challenging because my index finger is still numb from having the tip cut off this summer.  So I used my middle finger.

As I stood there holding back the flow of water with my finger, I thought of the story of the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the hole in the dam and held back the North Sea.

I’d say fingers are a very important part of the problem solving process.