Pitch Fork Elbow. It’s a thing. You’ve heard of tennis elbow, right?! Well, when you are sixty-years-old and live on a farm, you may come down with pitch fork elbow.

How, you may ask? Well, it’s simple. You forget that you aren’t forty anymore and you just dive in to moving about 5 or 6 tractor loads of old hay and manure into the chicken coop to winterize your coop.

To be honest, it dawned on me….for a moment….that I MAY be over doing it a tad. I just kept going and going until I had completely covered about a 350 square foot space with about 5-6 inches of hay and debris.

I was fine. Really, I was. No issues at all.

Until the next day when I couldn’t lift even a bite of food to my mouth without grimacing. Then, it was time to feed animals and every single time I tried to unlatch a gate or carry some food, a stabbing pain shot through my elbow and reminded me that I am old. Well, this whole thing of having new, unexplained aches and pains is actually REALLY what’s old.

Pitchfork elbow isn’t excruciating. It’s just super annoying because it’s a constant reminder that, unlike those chickens you are working hard to keep warm in the winter, you aren’t a spring chicken anymore and every little thing you do on the farm seems to have unexpected physical consequences.

Okay, that’s all. I just needed to tell you all about the new malady cursing the farms of us old folks trying to live our best lives out here in the country!

Oh, and Happy New Year to all of you both young and old alike! 🙂 I believe 2026 will be a wonderful year for us here on the farm and I pray the same for you!

The Head Hen