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Wing and a Prayer

Monthly Archives: May 2017

Quick update 

31 Wednesday May 2017

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I’m writing this on my phone tonight, so it’ll look a bit different. We are currently at church, waiting for the Vesper Service to start and I thought I’d get a jump on things. 

We’re moving Kinda slow on projects because of outside issues, but Sue is still making progress regardless of things that are interfering.  Yesterday she put in the “tunnels” that we’ll use for composting and where we’ll first introduce the worms.  It’s very difficult to see the wire in the photo, but if you look closely, you can see the at she has attached the chicken wire the bricks so it does, indeed form a tunnel.    Today, she cut the boards that will go on top. These will provide us a walkway to get into the garden and to keep the worm area shaded and, hopefully, damp or moist enough for them.

Other things continue along. We had to send in a weed whacker for repair that was less than a year old.  And took one back to Home Depot that Sue just purchase on Sunday- the motor just completely burnt up then very first time she used it!!! It’s difficult to get high quality tools anymore.  So far we’ve gone through four staple guns, a couple of shovels, several bits for the drill- it’s amazing to me!  We just keep track of everything. Maybe one day we’ll be able to take some of it off the farm taxes! I’m sure will share that great nugget of information with you- until then ~ as always,  thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: quite hot, I think it was around 95 today.  Sue said the wind started around 9:30 this morning and was quite fierce.  Still going strong tonight.

Egg report: we had 7 eggs tonight- yesterday we had 8.  

Memorial Day Doin’s

29 Monday May 2017

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Fun Stuff, Projects

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FullSizeRender (17)It’s a holiday, so I’m making this short. We took it a bit easy today. It started off pretty exciting… when Sue went in to get some Timothy hay for the goats, this lizard cutie, poked his head out and said, “What you lookin’ at, Willis?” She said he didn’t move out of the way (I think he might have been a little cold) and Sue just tried to take a bit of hay without disturbing him. We’ve been seeing more and more lizards lately and we sure like them.  They help keep the spiders and the ants under control – of which there many. Continue reading →

We are the Goat Boys

26 Friday May 2017

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Fun Stuff

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As I said the other day, not much has been reported on the goat boys lately.  They don’t change much,  really. They just kind of – are. They are silly. They are always hungry. They are always tussling with each other. They are fun to have around.

If you haven’t been around since we started, the goats were gifted to Sue from her friend Le Ann. They were getting after her youngsters too much, and she wanted to get rid of them. So, Sue went to California and trucked them over here. It was a frightening adventure for them,  it they survived to tell about it and have made themselves at home here.   Continue reading →

Lowdown on the Update

24 Wednesday May 2017

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It’s Wednesday. Things are just humming along, but what I have for you today are simply updates. I think I’ll have a photo to go with each update, so it’ll still be a fun look into what’s happening with the co-workers. Here we go…

IMG_0883Lining Stonehenge. Here is the Circle Garden… the lining is almost complete, we just need to add a little bit around the edges where the wire didn’t go up high enough. The bad thing is, by the time we’re done with this… it’s going to be too windy to do the following steps until maybe Sunday.  Saturday might be calm enough… we have to pick up manure from Mr. Kelly before we can lay down the cardboard, so that the manure goes right on top of it. Moving manure in winds upwards of 36 mph is not a fun job! Neither is trying to work with cardboard that wants to be free to fly! We’ll just have to gauge the severity of the winds and see.  We might be on hold for a few days.

img_0879.jpgLet us out! This is showing how we’ve had to resort to multiple barriers to keep the Specks in their appointed area at night. The just want to be OUT! We’re a little hesitant to allow them access to the general population because they are still so small, comparatively.  They are a pretty small breed anyway (see More Chickens? for info on Speckled Sussex) and seem very dainty.  Lately, when Sue goes to the coop in the morning, they all rush the screen to be taken out… she no longer has to chase them around the brooder, they wait – somewhat patiently – to be carted over to the Chicken Tractor to enjoy their day out.  In the evening, if we leave them till dusk, they’ll come to the door of the Chicken Tractor to be taken in.  So much easier when they get what is supposed to happen! We think these little guys are smart! Plus, they are one of the top 10 breeds for layers. That gives us three of the top 10!

overlookSpeaking of the top 10. Here’s a shot of a day in the life of the Delawares. It’s been hot, so everyone finds some shade during the afternoon. This guy is on watch. I think he might be the rooster… some of the others are peeking out from under the chickshaw. They stay like this for a long time. It’s a cool place to rest during the heat of the day, but the rooster is en garde! By about 4:30/5:00 p.m. the temps start dropping and they again are out in the grass, chasing bugs and scratching up the ground. They’ve got it pretty good. Last night, around 7:30 p.m., they were still out and about; we had to chase everybody in.

FullSizeRender (16)And then, there’s Roman. One of the different watering options we’ve tried lately is the bucket with the little nipples; it’s a type of “water on demand” feature. You attach little metal nipples to the bottom of a bucket and the chickens – or ducks – just peck at them to get the water out. We haven’t yet seen the chickens using it, but the ducks seem to really like it. Roman, on the other hand, he just circumvents all that nipple business and drinks from the top of the bucket! He’s so big that the normal rules just don’t seem to applyFullSizeRender (15) to him 🙂  He thinks he’s outgrown the cuddling thing; he’ll follow us around, or come over to talk to us, but don’t even think about holding him. Yet, he still tries to get into his baby tub. Actually, he does get into his baby tub, he just spills out of it! But he can sit inside the tub and then drill around the ground outside of it. I guess he’s happy. Silly big goose.

IMG_0888IMG_0887Broody Much? We still have two hens that think they’d really like to sit. Here are the two culprits. Imen, the black hen, finds a nesting box where another hen has laid and claims it as her own – we take it. The Buff in the corner gets periodically chased out by the others, they lay their eggs and she sneaks back in to claim them – we take them. Today I just picked her up off the nest and set her down outside of it, have you ever heard of the term “ruffled feathers”? I think her photo was used to illustrate the term in the Dictionary of American Slang.  Just sayin’.

IMG_0891The Ducks have been thoroughly enjoying the little swimming pools – who wouldn’t with the weather we’ve been having. They do have a tendency to make the water dirty really quickly, though. Today we were changing it in the lower pool and they were patiently waiting for it to be filled. Pretty darn cute, those ducks. They really don’t seem to mind any of the weather we’ve been having; heat, cold, wind, rain (ok, not much rain) – they love it all!

IMG_0890Are they Ranging? I’m not exactly sure how our Gray Rangers got their name – ours don’t really tend to range a whole lot. It is true that they seem to run hotter than the other breeds so, during the day, they find a spot very close to water and/or food and just plop there for the afternoon. Happy as clams. Then once it gets cooler, towards evening, they have actually ranged quite farm from the coop. We have had to make sure we check everywhere for them – they hide in the most interesting areas.

That’s the update for today.  Rather a lot of silly information, but you’ve got the lowdown on all our feathered co-workers now. Haven’t heard anything about the goats in a while, I know… so maybe we can rectify that on Friday’s post. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!


Today’s Weather: More of that heat type thing. Right now, 4:30 p.m., it is 95° (phone says 86°, but that must be down by the river). Sky is clear, if a bit hazy. Supposed to be cooling off some tomorrow and Friday, but the winds are coming.

Egg Report: Six eggs yesterday, eight eggs today.  As I mentioned above, we’re stealing having to steal them :).

The Lining of Stonehenge

22 Monday May 2017

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“How was your weekend?” Isn’t this the Monday follow-up question to Friday’s “What are you doing this weekend?”. In general, I don’t ever tell people at work what we did over the weekend. They already think I’m weird enough as it is. Most of them eat, breath, and sleep Real Estate; they have a difficult time understanding that it’s just my day job. HOWEVER, you people get what we’re dong here… or at least you want to try to get it. So, we’ll fill you in on how the Making of Stonehenge turned out.
Continue reading →

The Making of Stonehenge

19 Friday May 2017

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Permaculture/Technically, Projects

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Stonehenge“What are you doing this weekend?” Everyone seemed to ask me that today; the admin at work, the chiropractor, the mailman, the teller at the bank today. Quite frankly, I wasn’t really too sure. Mom and dad sent a vacuum (that works) home with me; I could do housework, there are still seeds that I want to plant, we’re supposed to be getting berry bushes that need to get into ground, we need to finish painting the chicken coop before the monsoon season starts, we also need to work on the circle garden. I wish I had started this blog yesterday so that I could say, “We’re making Stonehenge.” Now, after researching a bit for this blog, and having a discussion with Sue, I think that’s where the focus is going to lie- our own little Stonehenge, otherwise known as the circle garden. Continue reading →

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…

17 Wednesday May 2017

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It always seems that when I travel, the blog schedule gets messed up; I always have the best of intentions, they just get way laid by schedules that I didn’t create and the fact that I need a public space WiFi, which generally means that I run into people – because, you know, it’s Ramona. So now, we’re back to our normal schedule for a while. More or less.

Today was relatively calm, as far as the wind goes. Sue started the morning mowing down the weeds in the areas that the tractor can’t reach. She ended up mowing a large swath of area between the dinky house and the garage, and on up to the goat boys. Then she tackled the depression, with all those coyote melon bushes. She said it was incredibly smelly and tasted yucky – you know… the dust. The wind had been so bad that everything was drying out so Sue watered everything today as well. It was a busy day just keeping up on the regular every day chores. Continue reading →

Life Rolls On~

16 Tuesday May 2017

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In endless song… so it’s said, or sung.  This past weekend the song rolling through my brain is “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead” from “The Wizard of Oz” because I saw it twice at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts.  That’s right, I was playing hooky yet again! Good thing my niece is in plays a lot (she got to fly!)! Plus it was Mother’s Day weekend and Mom needed some lovin’, I think; so I was out Ramona/San Diego way. It was a great weekend: I was able to enjoy a great breakfast with Alex and Becky, attend one friend’s Graduation Party (Congratulations Emma! – she reads this blog, believe it or not), see the Wizard of Oz x 2, have dinner with my folks and longtime friends, visit John and Bernadette and give her a prayer pillow; so much went on over the weekend, and I put an extra 300 miles on my car. While I was out playing, Sue was on the farm working! Continue reading →

Extraordinary Skies. Uncommon Ground.

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Fun Stuff, Weather

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FullSizeRender (12)

Distant morning ground fog, from the back porch.

“Extraordinary Skies. Uncommon Ground.” This is the Sierra Vista Visitor Center‘s tag line, and it does fit the area. The last few days have been great “Extraordinary Sky” days. We were finally blessed with some precipitation (Mom promised she would send some) along with thunder, lightening, and then some beautiful and amazing clouds. The rain ended up refilling the water barrel and Sue had to drain it into the “pond” for a couple of hours, so that’s pretty good.  Today Sue was hoping to be able to tackle the coyote melon plants in the depression, but the rain only sank in to about 3″.  She’s still thinking of attacking them with the back hoe. Still might be the best idea.  Continue reading →

Whatever Blows Your Skirt Up…

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Co-workers, Fun Stuff

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IMG_0772

Blowin’ in the Wind

…as they say in some circles. I know I harp on about the wind all the time, and I’m going to again – so just skip it if you want, but we did have an exceptionally windy weekend. The winds were predicted at 30 mph, and we had gusts that were truly Gale Force. The poor littles, Roman, and the Ducks had to be inside so much because the winds were trying to lift them off the ground!  At one point, on Sunday afternoon, we were out changing water, filling up the feed – just letting them run around for a bit – and we had a pretty good gust come up that harshly blew the Delaware chickens’ feathers all higgledy-piggledy. We both were wondering why they even wanted to be out in it, paused a beat and, as the wind completely ruffled a hen from behind, at the same time, said: “Well, whatever blows your skirt up!” It we rather funny; we thought that’d be a good name for a post, and tried to catch this in action. To try to show what exactly we saw, I’m up loading a a video and the one photo that we were hoping would capture what was happening.  I know it was one of those “I guess you had to have been there” type of things, but just watch the video.  We’ll load it at the bottom of the post. Continue reading →

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Hereford in Photos

When morning guilds the skies
When morning guilds the skies
Bits of Fall
Bits of Fall
Blues, Greys, Greens, and Browns
Blues, Greys, Greens, and Browns
Getting ready for fall
Getting ready for fall
Horizons
Horizons
Creek Action
Creek Action
Weather is made in Sonoita
Weather is made in Sonoita
Fallen Foliage
Fallen Foliage
Fall Water
Fall Water
Rain clouds held off by the cross
Rain clouds held off by the cross

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