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Wing and a Prayer

Monthly Archives: February 2018

catchin’ up

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Co-workers, Projects

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When ever I travel, I always have a lot of catching up to do – blog wise – when I get home.  I may not be able to cover everything that I missed over the weekend and Monday, in one post today. But I thought I’d give ‘er a go, then maybe Friday we can go over the remainder and talk about the special report from my trip.  So, let’s get going…

IMG_1288Sue was GREAT at taking photos while I was gone.  She and Ron worked more on the RCW (Romny Chicken Wagon) Thursday and they were able to get the door made. Doors are interesting little things. They really are so temperamental. Just get one little corner out of square and things don’t work at all. Sue and I both have trouble with doors. Making themIMG_1291 and hanging them. So, I bet Sue was relieved to have Ron around to help out on that. Looks like they did a wonderful job on the door and it fit right into the end wall they were creating. That final end was completed, the door was hung and they were able to prepare for the roof next and some inside work.

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Traditional

One of the inside projects is nesting boxes. I guess I should say, “two of the inside projects are” because there are going to be two types. I talked about the “best nesting box” earlier that allows the eggs to roll away to prevent eating and keep them clean. Those nesting boxes arrived on Friday – some assembly required. Sue put them together lickety-split. Prior to their arrival, she was working on – what I consider to be – “traditional” nesting boxes. She wants to have both available to the chickens, in case they

IMG_1303

New Fangled

don’t like that new fangled gadget. It is true; chickens can be young and yet traditional, recognizing the old ways as worth while. We call them old souls. 🙂 Hey! Don’t you be laughing! Chickens know what they want, it’s just up to us to try to figure that out.  The reason we’re not sure that they’ll like the new fangled box is that they often prefer to lay where there are already some eggs – that’s why we have fake eggs in some of our boxes; it encourages them to lay in those instead of on the floor or in the walls, etc.  The new fangled boxes don’t give us that option, so we’re not sure how they’ll be received. The layers have just begun laying in the last few days and Sue is finding them on the ground, behind the screen door of the coop. We hope they’ll take advantage of the boxes soon.

IMG_1300

Extra Room

Another happening while I was out: Sue called our neighbor Gloria to ask if she would be interested in helping to move the chicken fence. Actually add another fence to the littles side to try and keep them from jumping over. We have two roosters on that side, well actually three at the moment, but one is in the brooder with the banty hens. Two are out, one for the Layers, Long Legs,  and one Banty for Maeve and Imen, Mister Mister.  Mister Mister likes to chase Long Legs around, which is quite funny since Long Legs is twice the size of Mister Mister, but younger. When this nonsense is going on, the hens just run everywhere, and sometimes they would get so excited, they’d fly over the fence.  Sue figured that if they

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Gloria working away

had more room to run, there would be less flying.  Since she and Gloria added the additional space, there haven’t been any escapees on that side (Thanks, Gloria!). So, seems to be working.  Once the the RCW is completed and ready for use out in the Pasture, we’ll take the large fence and the laying chickens and give Mister Mister, Maeve, and Imen smaller room. We may let them out during the summer for a few hours each day to keep down the bug population. We’ll see… how that works with the rest of the Banties which will go out in the chicken tractor that’s on the leaf pond right now. They’ll go out there when we’ve had a chance to process the roosters.  We are hoping that the weather cooperates to do that this Saturday.  Whew. That’s a bit of information, there.  I think there is still some I haven’t covered, but we’ll get there next time. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!


Today’s Weather: We can break this down to one word… SNOW! Ok, here’s a few more. We had some snow in the forecast, was 70% starting around 1am, in reality, it didn’t really start down here until almost 7 this morning. It was snowing on me heavily all the way to work and even for most of the morning and off and on through the afternoon in Sierra Vista . Sue tried to get photos of it here, but it doesn’t really show up. I took a very short video at work that kinda shows it. Not that you’ve never seen snow before, but it’s interesting (somewhat) to have it snow here in the desert. I’ll add the video at the bottom since it comes in so huge. Currently it is 41° at 6:18 p.m.  Looks like our overnight low may be down to 28°. Brrrr.

IMG_1408Egg Report: We had some excitement over the weekend… Roma, the goose, started laying eggs. Here’s the report starting from where I left off after Friday:  Saturday we had 1 Duck, 10 chicken eggs, plus one chicken egg that was pecked. Sunday: zero Duck, 15 Chicken eggs. Monday: zero Duck, 10 Chicken eggs, plus one faerie egg. Tuesday: one GOOSE, zero Duck, and 16 Chicken eggs. Today, we simply had 11 Chicken eggs.  The photo above is of the goose eggs, they just don’t fit into the egg cartons! We took the top off of one and are just using the bottom like an egg stand for them. Pretty darn fun.

goings on

23 Friday Feb 2018

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

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IMG_2369Hey everyone! Here I am on the road again. Took mom out shopping and we’re at the Ramona Library using their wifi for a bit to get a little information out there to you.  Let me tell you – their wifi works better than ours at home! So nice to have this available 🙂 and for free!  Anyway, I found out that all the fun stuff happens when I’m on the road. Roma laid a huge egg today – it’s twice the size of the large chicken eggs!  This is her first one of the year! We’ll see how many we end up with. Geese lay about 35/year; more than every other week, but not quite one  a week. I think last year we ended up with only 3 all together.  So that was a fun happening this morning. Continue reading →

foiled! hopefully

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Projects

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If you’re a regular follower, you know that we’ve been having weather issues lately; I’ve been harping on it for days now – well today it’s not going to be to focus of the post, simply a minor character. I came home this afternoon, we did the chores, and as I was working on egg packaging I commented, “I don’t want to post about the weather! What else can we talk about?” Well, still the biggest thing going is the RCW (Romney Chicken Wagon – for those wondering), but the weather has been impeding the progress.  So… what to do??? Continue reading →

they just keep comin’

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Weather

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IMG_2366The winds that is. Every time I think we’ve seen the highest winds, they get higher! Today we caught a high of 54 mph as it was showing on the weather station.  At another time, I think the meter was overwhelmed because we had an amazingly strong gust, which did some minor damage around outside, and it never moved from 28 mph. We’ve had a slight chance of rain all day, and have had some; right now it shows we have around 41% chance of rain, but the humidity has dropped a bit in the last couple of hours. We might not have a respite from the wind until late tonight or early tomorrow.  Continue reading →

cagey

17 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Projects, Weather

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IMG_2351

screen shot of our rain gauge from my phone app

Definition of cagey (cagier; cagiest)~  1: hesitant about committing oneself  “officials are cagey about giving out details”. 2a: wary of being trapped or deceived: shrewd “a cagey consumer”  2b : marked by cleverness “a cagey reply”  Then there is our addition: 3: feeling drawn to making cages “its been raining for 3 days and I need something to do in the house; I’m feeling a bit cagey.”
It has been raining for 3 days now. We needed it so badly!!! Thank you, God, for sending the rain. It’s been such a nice, steady gentle rain too, the kind that just soaks in really well. Wonderful! It has filled up our holding tank to overflowing (which is a great thing because I ran it out – bone dry – accidentally one day – and we’ve just been waiting!), that happened on day 1. So far we’ve had a smidgen over 2.5″ , almost an inch in the last 24 hours. That’s great! Continue reading →

happy st. valentine’s day

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Co-workers, Projects, Weather

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chicken loveDo you feel the love? Our chickens don’t think they got much love today, it was wet and stormy. We, on the other hand, are so grateful for these wet things falling from the sky!!! The weather continues the tradition of raining on my birthday. I used to hate it as a kid, but I really have come to enjoy it as an adult. So far, our little rain guage has recorded .11 of an inch of rain, but it’s supposed to rain through out the night and into tomorrow, perhaps.  It has been rather cold, with the wind that has accompanied the rain. Continue reading →

windy much?

12 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Uncategorized

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Oh my heck! It has been so incredibly windy the last 3 days. It’s been amazing. I should have taken a photo of our weather station, because we had a 40 mph gust at around 10:30 Saturday night that shook the whole dang house. Was honestly reminiscent of some earthquakes I’ve sat through. I thought that maybe a good way to show you how fast the gusts are was to take a video of our wind meter (anemometer) going like crazy! The wind speed it measured just then was 36 mph. This type of wind that goes on for days, is exactly why they are building the Romni Chicken Wagon so solidly.  Continue reading →

wagon update

09 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Projects

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Ok, so I warned you that we were going to be talking about this a lot. It’s the hottest thing happening around here right now! Ron came back today (I can’t believe that he’s such a glutton for punishment, and a wonderful sport about the whole thing)- I think he might be actually having some fun. They worked really hard and accomplished a whole lot! Sue took photos throughout the whole day, so I think what I’ll do is upload them and let them speak for themselves! Continue reading →

romni wagon update

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Projects

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romni wagon starts

Wagon Starts

I think we might be talking about this often in the coming days and weeks, but my dad specifically asked for an update on this project when I spoke with him yesterday… so, here you go Dad! Our friend, Ron, came and worked all day with Sue again yesterday. Even though they had friends flying in for a few days’ visit that afternoon (Kathy took the trip to Tucson by herself – Thank you, Kathy, for giving us Ron for the day).

Romni Wagon w Ron

Ron, working his magic

I think they started out by painting at least part of the studs. Then they went about the measuring, planning and cutting. Then attaching the studs securely to the frame of the trailer. I believe that Ron has been a huge help and is giving Sue the confidence that this project can actually be completed!  I think they’re doing a smashing job and that, in a couple of weeks, we’ll have an amazingly sturdy, warm, traveling coop for the romni wagon ribslayers.   I say “a couple of weeks”, because they can’t work on it every single day. Take today for instance; Ron and Kathy – who have company, remember – held an “E-Day” luncheon at their home today (has something to do with the Euler’s Number, 2.718), so there couldn’t really be time to work on it then. Plus, Sue goes with the church’s Outreach Department to collect food that is donated by the county on the first Wednesday of each month. Tomorrow, Sue will be dispatching the roosters in the morning – hopefully, if the weather cooperates for a change – and Ron will be out with their friends hiking and visiting neat places in the County.  So, the next work day for the wagon will be Friday. They ended yesterday with around a third of the studs up! I think it’s going really well!  And I just want you to know that I think Sue’s doing an excellent job of getting photos taken 🙂  Friday we’ll show you some more progress and talk about the processing and prepping of the roosters. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!


Today’s Weather: I am so tempted to just continue to add snap shots of our weather station here. Would that be rude? So, today’s high was 78°, looks like our overnight low will be around 43°. Winds have been low: 5 mph tops. No rain insight but we have 24% humidity… doesn’t feel like it, feels rather dry.

Egg Report: Yesterday we had 12 chicken eggs, plus 1 duck!!! I really thought we were starting to take off; however, today we only had had 5 chicken eggs (one of those was eaten!), but we did get another duck! [6:24 p.m. Quick update before I head out to choir rehearsal… just put the chickens in and picked up 8 more eggs (two were severely cracked – so I may have interrupted an eater!), so that brings today’s chicken egg total up to 13, surpassing yesterday’s total!]

Cool Thing: Ok, you may have been reading today’s blog and thought, “Why would friends visit out there?” Well, let me tell you – there is some really cool stuff to see here!!! Take a look at this video – if I can embed it correctly – maybe you’ll want to visit us too. We’re always open for visitors!

the romni chicken wagon

05 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Wing and a Prayer in Co-workers, Projects, Weather

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IMG_2313 (1)

Floor down!

The second part of Sue’s “deal” with our friend, Ron, began today. They have started construction on the Mobile Chicken Coop. I’m not exactly sure what we’re going to call it. I like “The Romni Chicken Wagon,” but we’ll probably settle on something quite mundane, like “The Chicken Trailer”.  Can’t you just see it painted red with colorful floral designs, we could hang solar lanterns from the corners and unfurl a shade cloth when it’s not too windy. I think I might be idealizing it a bit,

wagon

Actual Romni Wagon

but that is my want. Anyway~ I came home from work and quickly snapped this photo because I said to myself, “Sue has probably been working away and not thinking of taking photos at all! Especially not any action shots with Ron in them.” So this is on the fly shot. Then, she surprised me by sending a photo after they had the floor attached. They did a lot of planning today and figuring out the best way to do the overall project. Then they started out with the floor. Sue had purchased these screws that were supposed to go through the metal frame, but

IMG_2318

Sue’s “end of day” photo

they ended up having to drill pilot holes through the metal frame first and then put the screws in through the wood into the frame. Whatever the method, the floor is now attached. Ron’s coming back tomorrow and they may begin framing the structure. I’ve asked Sue to take copious photos of the entire process, so we’ll see how that works out. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!


IMG_2319

Warm weather bath sharing

Today’s Weather: It was a really nice day today looks like 72° was the high, currently – at 6:27 p.m., it is 66°. Our lows overnight continue to be in the high 30’s; tonight the overnight low is going to 37°. No rain in the forecast.  Our winds stem from the west, currently at 11 mph, gusting to 18 mph.  The warmer weather has the fowl in great moods – it’s like they can sense spring is right around the corner. Even Roma was in the mood to share the little black pool with her favorite duck. I was cleaning out the kiddie pools, so they were looking for a good place for a clean soak. Sue was able to capture this from outside the fence… Roma always seems to know when you’re trying to catch a photo of her.

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Just looks like spring!

Egg report: So… our egg numbers continue to fluctuate… it doesn’t help when I drop the things. Happens almost every day – except today. Over the weekend, this is how we fared: Saturday we had 7 chicken with one 1 broken, 1 new duck. Sunday zero duck, 10 eggs with 1 broken, zero duck. Today, we still didn’t have any duck, but collected 10 eggs, and I didn’t drop any. Also, shot this right quick while picking up eggs this afternoon… doesn’t it just look like spring?! I love the colors we’re getting. No two eggs are alike at all. We even have someone laying light beige eggs with brown spots; very cute.

 

← Older posts

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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