Need I say more? I’m almost tempted to stop right now, but I do have an update on one of the ongoing projects. So, I’ll just start off by saying that this was a photo of our weather station readout at around 3pm today. Yes, it was 112° when we were out ding chores this afternoon. It’s is so blame hot the trees are wilting even as we water them. We can’t keep the potted plants in the nursery area wet enough, and the gabion garden dries out in a couple of hours after watering. This hot spell is only supposed to last through tomorrow. I really hope it is true; the chickens and the trees and everyone will just feel so much better.

I mean, it’s so hot that the rattlesnakes are hanging out in the shade together to wait out the heat of the day. We actually had one in the Goat Boys’ house. I think he was sneaking in to find shelter from the storms that was arriving imminently. We removed him from the premises. The two that you see in this photo are were snoozing by the RCW the other morning. We hope they had eaten their fill of mice. That day, when Sue went back for afternoon chores, they were both gone. No chickens have been harmed.

Speaking of the Goat Boys… we’ve been working on the chicken coop over there, you know, trying to get it ready to move the new little banties and maybe the first of the Buff Minorcas. We need to cut a couple of windows in the coop for cross ventilation – it was turning in to too much of a hot box with these high temps. Since they have to spend one or two days and nights in there so they know it’s home, we want to make sure they’re comfortable. This was our project for the weekend. We easily got the window cut out of the wood paneling side of the coop, up high so as to let out as much heat as possible, but a bit lower to let in some of the breeze. Our problem began when we wanted to cut through the sheet metal on the other wall. We didn’t have enough extension cords to make it from the dinky house up to the coop, and we weren’t sure that, even if we did we’d have enough power to run any tools. We decided that the best course of action was to get a cordless oscillating power tool that cuts through metal. So, we visited the nearest toy store – Harbor Freight – and picked one up that Sue liked from researching on line. It was even on sale! Tah dah!

Of course, like all cordless tools, it needed a day to charge. So, we couldn’t finish yesterday. We were hoping to finish today, but the tool overheated while cutting the first line before it was finished. (Did I mention it was hot?) Overheating causes the battery to run out quickly. So, we’ll try again early tomorrow. We’re hoping to finish tomorrow so that we can move the chickens tomorrow night. That way the Sue will have time to shuffle other chickens around and clean the brooder before our last batch of meat birds comes this week. We’ll update you, as I’m sure you know. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!