Full disclosure: this may be a rather short post.  It has been so incredibly windy the last couple of days, we haven’t really been working on many projects. Keeping our nursery of trees watered has been keeping Sue busy.  Not to mention making sure that things don’t blow all over the neighborhood. Generally the wind comes from a prevailing direction, but the last couple of days it just comes from random directions. Craziness.

IIMG_1420t’s been so bad, we’ve been sitting here talking about a windbreak for the trees we’ve purchased to plant as wind breaks! We’ve decided not to plant them out until the spring because we’ve had such poor luck with new plantings simply getting desiccated by the winds in the fall and winter. So, we have them in our “nursery” area; they are a tad protected because they are under one of the larger oak trees, by the house, and close to a water source so we can water them every day, or twice a day, as needed.  Today though, we noticed that some of them are being blown around too much and getting bent over in their little pots. So, we were kicking around the idea of putting up a temporary break made out of lattice. We’ll see if it does any good and if it can stand up to the wind itself.

Eventually we’ll be planting these trees out in the field areas in a pattern that will, hopefully, provide a break for the area right around the house, as well as eventual shelter for chickens, or whatever. In addition to protection for livestock, wind breaks can also provide barriers for sounds, sights, or smells; wildlife habitat – which we’d really like to encourage, for the most part; and an aesthetically pleasing landscape element. Boy, that sounds like it came right out of my landscape design 101 class! I know it sounds funny, but the truth is that our area is home to one of the widest varieties of bird species in the Southern Arizona region. Here’s a paragraph from the Southern Arizona Bird Observatory’s website: This small sky island mountain range is one of the most famous of all locations in southeastern Arizona. Many rare species of animals and plants have been recorded here in more than a century of scientific study. Birders delight in regular occurrences of “rarities” such as Elegant Trogon, Whiskered Screech-Owl, Blue-throated and White-eared hummingbirds, Sulphur-bellied and Buff-breasted flycatchers, and Red-faced Warbler. Like all higher elevations in southeastern Arizona, the Huachucas are quiet bird-wise between October and April, but from spring through early fall there is plenty to excite naturalists of all persuasions. Birder’s do come here from all over the world. We’d like to do our small part in providing a home to some of these neat creatures. And not just birds, but all sorts of interesting wild life.

Tomorrow we’re going to go to the Cochise County Fair in Douglas. It’s more like a country fair used to be. We hope to talk to some of the chicken ranchers or maybe find out if there are hatcheries near by, so we wouldn’t have to ship across the country. I think it’ll be worth a special report. So, we’ll see what new, neat information we can come up with! And you know we’ll share whatever we get — even the cotton candy!
Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s weather: see above. Bleh. Although it’s been relatively calm while I’ve been working on this.

Egg Report: Yesterday we ended up with 22 chicken eggs and 3 duck eggs. Today we 18 chicken eggs and 2 duck eggs.