Long before Sears rebranded themselves to represent “Life. Well Spent,” even before they revealed their Softer Side, they sold farm incubators. Like these, from the 1951 Sears general merchandise catalog. The incubator I have at home is the first one on the page; it sold for $18.50 in 1951. My husband Mike bought ours for $20 eight years ago at the Moose Lake chicken swap. There’s one right now on eBay for $149.99. You can see why I’m starting a business with this guy.
With the exception of one industrious hen, our free-range chickens tend to lay eggs with the forethought of squirrels burying acorns for the winter. They’ll start a nest, walk away, and begin another nest somewhere else. That leaves it to Mike and me to collect forgotten eggs from atop hay bales and from inside every nook and cranny imaginable.
A few days before Hatch Day we prepare a container, a cardboard box or perhaps an old cooler, for the new arrivals. The container is lined with a layer of pine shavings, is equipped with a waterer and a feeder filled with chick starter, and has a heat lamp trained on it. No matter how many clutches of eggs you’ve incubated, the first peeps heard from inside the shell never cease to delight. By the time the chick pecks its way out of the shell it is exhausted, slumped on the bedding like a person who has washed up on the ocean shore. If you're thinking of starting a summertime project with your kids, this site has good information about the hows, whens, and whys of successful incubation.
It doesn’t take 21 days for an idea to hatch, but all ideas benefit from an incubation period: overnight, an hour, or even a few minutes working on something unrelated to clear your mental palate. Letting an idea steep—or as my friend Richard calls it, marinate—allows you to return to the project with a fresher perspective and the ability to find a solution that you may have not seen before.
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