Sue is really good at building and rebuilding things, re-purposing, re-using, re-configuring. It happens on and off… build something that the ducks don’t like and repurpose it for the chickens. Build something as a tractor, reuse it as a shade shelter, or in this case. Take something that was a tractor, then made into an above the ground shelter and now repurpose it back into a tractor. The photo shows the tractor on it’s back, the legs have already come off and then Sue’ll begin to take the chicken wire from the bottom. This one sits right on the ground, so she didn’t want the chickens to tear up their feet as they try to scratch through wire. We’ll be moving it out near the “leaf pond”, setting up a fence around it and putting the Banties out there to have some fun in those leaves. We’ll put hay down inside the tractor and surround it with hay bales as well. Eventually, we may be able to let them out of the fencing to free range in the yard – even just an hour to begin with. They’d love it and they could help with bug control in the spring. We’ll see how it goes. Continue reading
small renovations
20 Wednesday Dec 2017
Posted in Uncategorized
Things always keep going, no matter what. Even if they are little things. Or nature – type things. While I was out in California, it seems we had some weather. Sue said that it rained for a couple of days – snowed in the mountains just above us. First snow of the season, really. It’s been quite cold at night; this morning I ended up having to scrape the windshield. We really needed the rain, so I’m glad we were blessed. I’m also glad that I didn’t end up driving home in any type of rainy weather. Sure makes for a pretty view. 
That’s a very good question. Is it just me or did this week seem to simply fly by? When I got home today, Sue said, “I sure didn’t do anything today.” Then she proceeded to tell me all the things she did work on. The biggest of which was research and planning for completing the trailer-cum-chicken tractor. There are a lot of things to think about: needs to be strong enough to withstand the winds and be towed all around the pasturelands, needs to be tall enough for people access, yet not too big or heave so that it can be towed all around the pasturelands, needs a storage place for food and a tank to harvest any water that is collected from the roof, needs to have enough nesting boxes for 30+ chickens as well as indoor roosting space. That’s a lot to take into consideration. Plus figuring out what lumber is needed… there’s math involved in all that stuff! Takes some brain-power; glad she’s doing it! 
I have no idea what to call this update… you can only use the title ‘Update’ so many times. So, I’m calling it “Deconstructed”, in reference to Sue’s trailer project. Even though we’ve been busy with various and sundry things, there’s not much to report – project wise, since Monday -other than her progress on the trailer. From the photo on the left (or above – depending on your viewing apparatus), you can see that Sue has almost completed deconstructed the camping trailer! She’s been working so hard on it over the last several days. At first we thought that the floor was in really great shape, but it turns out that much of it was rotted underneath the linoleum – especially in the corners where there was a great deal more water damage than you could initially see. So, looks like we’ll end up taking more of it to the trash than anticipated, but there will still be many more pieces remaining to re-use. Pretty amazing! 
Yep. AWOL all week. I guess sometimes you just need a break for a bit, and now I’ll try to cover a week in a few minutes. Luckily, since we had company, there weren’t a lot of projects happenin’ for the week. Before my parents and niece arrived on Sunday, we were able to finish off the gabion wall planters. Here’s an overview of what they look like newly planted. We put in some flowers along with seeds… just so that they look like they have something in there for a bit. I did purchase some herbs and winter vegetables for these as well. This is another big
experiment, you know, like everything else. I have this untested theory that the gabion walls with the planters. I’m thinking that, since the rocks soak up the heat from the sun in the afternoon – it’ll keep the flowers from getting too cold at night during the winter. I think it’ll be great for winter type veggies and flowers, I don’t know about the heat of the summer tho’ – we’ll just have to see what happens then. Our goal is to plant it with herbs that we can use ourselves and feed to the chickens. So we currently have cabbages, broccoli, lavender, dill, parsley (curly and Italian), thyme, chamomile, sage, rosemary, oregano and some others that I can’t remember. I also planted – for us – garlic, chives, and sweet onions. Yum! The great thing about planting right now, is that we have some super warm weather still ahead and we haven’t gotten into freezing weather yet. I’m hoping they’ll get established enough that they’ll be able to over winter without needing too much covering over. 
Sorry for another quick-post… but I have an work event in Tucson that I must attend. So, I just wanted to quickly share a bit about molting. Chickens tend to molt during the fall and early winter… some wait way long and are uncomfortably cold in the later part of the winter. We had one, Imen, who molted in the middle of the summer, which was unusual. Right now we have three that are in mid molt. It’s pretty funny when they start – they just have bunches of feathers flying off everywhere… the nakeder they get the more you can see their new feathers coming in… then they start to look like Hedgewig (that’s my pet hedgehog). During this time, they generally stop laying because, as you can imagine, it takes a lot out of them. You really can’t do too much to help them through except to make sure that they have a good source of protein -hopefully not eggs- and that they are being kept warm by the other feathered friends. We have two now that are staying in the nesting boxes at night; I guess they feel more comfortable there. To me, the process of growing in the new feathers always looks somewhat painful. I certainly hope not. Molting happens across many bird species; some of our doves are molting (at least that’s what we hope is happening) and we’re just hoping that their feathers grow in quickly.
Sometimes Monday’s live up to their name. Today was like that for me, but Sue seemed to get a great deal done! While I was still waiting for a member to show up for a meeting that she forgot this morning, Sue sent me a photo of what she had accomplished by 10 a.m. She was repurposing the Duck Deck into a chicken shade/food shelter, since the ducks refused to use their awesome deck which was surrounding the large water tub Sue got them, just for their own entertainment. Anyway~(thankless little ducks – ok, I’m done.) today she put a little roof over the center which had been cut out to go over the rejected tub. We’ll use it out in the field once we start letting the chickens free range over the property. There will need to be enough shelters strategically placed so that they can hide if a hawk or other flying predator comes a-hunting. This will work great! I think Sue’s going to use some left over composition roof shingles for the flat part, just so the wood doesn’t keep weathering away. It’ll be a great use of the deck. We’ll need to put a few heavy rocks on it though, to keep it from sailing away during the windstorms. Easy enough. 
Wing and a Prayer 