Monthly Archives: April 2021

lazy day?

24 Saturday Apr 2021

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I mentioned that I enjoy Saturdays, right? Always a great day no matter what we’re doing. This Saturday was a bit different because we were celebrating a couple of friends’ birthdays. So, while it wasn’t exactly a lazy day, it was a day of celebration that we don’t really enjoy often. Sue did get a projected completed this morning, so I thought I’d show what she did while I did what I did, then what we both did. 🙂

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water babies

22 Thursday Apr 2021

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This logo is for a company that promotes teaching babies to swim, so that they do not drown if they fall into a pool or body of water. I’m using it because I’m talking about ducks and geese that arrived today! They are all the cutest little water babies.

Sue purchased 8 ducks, Peking and Khaki Campbells, four of each, along with two more Tufted Roman geese. Unfortunately, they were all shipped together and – we think- the geese trampled some of the ducks. We lost 3 Pekins and 1 Khaki Campbell. It is always so sad when they don’t make it through the journey here. Here is a photo from Sue showing two of the survivors. You’ll need to search for the yellow one a bit… the light turned him red and he blends in with his surroundings.

Sue wanted to try out the Pekings for butchering, but since only one little one survived, we’ll see if it is a little girl and keep her, or if it’s a nice little boy we could also keep him. The last of his kind from this little flock. The Khaki’s she wanted to try because they are on the Livestock Conservancy’s status as “watch” for heritage birds. That means they are not yet an endangered breed, but close. They are supposed to be prodigious layers and also one of the most quiet of the domestic duck breeds. Not that we really worry too much about quiet around here. Below are two photos of the adult birds. Left is the Peking and right is the Khaki Campbell. Nice looking, aren’t they?!

We hope the four we have remaining make it over the next few days. We will endeavor to take some adorable photos of our water babies and share them so you can say “awwwww”. Just like we did. Until then, as always~
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weekend!

18 Sunday Apr 2021

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I love the weekend! I enjoy being home on the farm. I look forward to working on something each weekend – we never really know what Saturday will hold, but we know that there will be something to do. We make tentative plans, but sometimes the chickens laugh and say “nope!” and we do something else.

This weekend we got a few pending things done and made planes to complete others through out the week. The first little task we were able to complete was moving our one gimpy hen out of the bottom brooder and into the little green house. She is getting better, but it’s a little early to let her out into gen-pop,

That taken care of, we moved over to the goat boy’s coop and put the finishing touches on the feeder and waterer stations in preparation for moving some of the Buff Orpingtons over there with Mr. Red. We did move everyone last night and they are settling in to their new digs. They should be ready to explore outside by tomorrow morning. This is a random self portrait with the final chicken to be moved over. She was a good girl, but didn’t hold still enough to stay in focus. Yes – I am wearing a mask out side; the pollen count is dangerously high and the mask keeps me from having immediate asthma attacks. Anyway – We’ve ten chickens total over there and they seem to be doing just fine.

Our final morning project was to hand the last set of dutch doors on the chicken coop. Sue had remade them with the aid of the Easy Gate braces earlier on Friday and they just needed to be hung up – well and painted eventually. I’m generally the gopher type assistant in these tasks. So I held the door while Sue screwed in the hinges. Below you can see the braces I’m talking about. They make the door/gate absolutely square and very stable. We didn’t get both of them up as the top one was just a smidge too tall. Sue will shorten it and then we’ll get it up. In the end, it’ll look the the one on the opposite side, which I’m showing below on the right.

The project that we didn’t get to was beginning to dig the trench that we’ll eventually use to get water up to the swales in the upper field where we will eventually plant the olive trees. I really feel they’ll do great up there if we can ensure regular watering until they are established. Sue had sprayed a line on the ground where she wanted to dig, but the wind over the past few weeks obliterated it. So, I think Monday she will repaint and get everything ready and Tuesday morning we work on it. I’m the spotter as she runs the back how, just to make sure she doesn’t accidentally dig up water or electric line :). We’re just worried about the first couple hundred feet or so, then she should be in the clear and won’t need me any more. I’ll try to remember to take some photos so I can share it with you. Until then, as always~
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use/re-use

15 Thursday Apr 2021

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We do try. I think I’ve mentioned this before. We are making attempts and reusing as much as we can, throwing out as little as possible. Finding different uses for things that might end up in our trash. Granted… we do not do as much as we probably could with containers and the like. But we give it a go. We’re pretty good about using food scraps for the chickens and the dogs. We definitely are amazing at using the yogurt and cottage cheese containers until they disintegrate. We use our wire scrapes as much as possible and other bits that we accumulate. We’d love to get more experience using building cast-offs. Thought I’d talk about a couple of projects reusing, and then one that didn’t.

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