The Front Porch Swing

[Beekissed]

My DH will just

when I tell him I wanna outhouse

We couldn't live without our outhouse! Comes in handy when the electric goes out for extended periods and also for when we have family reunions and don't want folks running in and out of the house all the time.

Hi, Just me, some random thoughts, first hope every one is great today. [I know some aren't, I'm so sorry]
Didn't see the guy with video of ducks but know about ducks so can well imagine. YUK!

I too and not afraid of critters at night at all, just the 2 legged kind, now THEY scare me.
But I have two dogs who go with me everywhere and of course the guns.
Google earth is a life saver around here and I love it, did you see where it had pics of a dead body by the RR tracks and the boys father saw it and sued them?
They had no idea you could even see him and there he was for much longer than it should have showed.

NOW, one more thing, the thing I wanted most to say. Someone mentioned about being refreshed, with tea I think, and Bee replied that that was a good word...refresh.
Made my mind go immediately to the scriptures and I spend some time looking up and reading every verse that had "refresh" in it.
I spend too much time on BYC and feel quilty, but I do love it! And specially love this Porch. And YOU!
So this is how I justify spending time on computer, looking for the "nuggets" that send me to the Bible.
It's a great thing, exercises your mind, gets you into Gods Word, helps you find scriptures you might not have thought of and it just brings me joy. There fore it has become a "thing" for me.
Please excuse the disjointed thoughts, just wanted to share that last little bit with you.
Acts 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
PTL, Cheryl

That's how I justify it too!!!

It's my fellowship and my Bible study, teaches me patience and forgiveness. I've met more wonderful, friendly, wise godly women on this forum these past several months than I have in all the churches I've attended in my life.

I love that verse!!! Do you see the promise in it? Can you just feel the relief of it all?

I don't know either way, except I used to feed them back to them after microwaving them.....BUT I don't anymore, it is cheap to buy oyster shell, and I don't want to teach the little darlings to eat EGGS!!!!

I'm going to put your mind at ease.....been feeding just the unprocessed shells and even whole, cracked eggs back to my flock for 38 yrs, and my mama before me and my granny before her and we've never had a habitual "egg eater" result from this practice.

Go ahead and feed them egg shells back, whole and unadulterated....it's how God made them to be recycled.

huh?

I must be doin' it ALL wrong then. I toss them egg shells right in the run......nothing different or "improved" with them. I don't even rinse them out.
Of course, I have had any of the issues with my flock as so many others I read about. I feed 'em,water 'em, and let them be chickens.
They play in the dirt, find bugs, eat frogs, ......and I ignore 'em.

Me too! It makes for a joyful time of flock keeping.

Y'all know what I really really want? ...an outdoor shower and outhouse.

That brings us back to doing bodily things outside. A few summers back we had this tremendous wind storm in this area that took out electric for almost 2 wks and took down many, many trees down. Then we got a lot of rain, so I set up some rain barrels to catch water for watering animals and for bathing. One night it was raining, warm and those full rain barrels were calling my name while the rain spouted off the roof.....so I went out, dipped my hair in the rain barrel, washed it, rinsed it under the spout and washed off. Felt great!

Then I told Mom about it and she laughed and asked, "What if the neighbor had driven by?" and I said,"So? No lights, honey...he can't see a thing!" ....then she went out and took a quick shower/bath too!

Hi everyone.
Well we did it!!! Put a deposit on two Scottish Highland heifers!!!!!

My husband and I have been wanting them for some time. They are really low maintenance. They will happily walk over a pasture to munch on brambles, (and do we have brambles) only have to have supplemental grain when it is extremely cold and they are sweet and friendly. We walked right up to the bulls and scratched and petted them. They are small, shaggy and very calm and cute with big sweeping horns. He is holding them for us until we can get the electric fence up and running. I will post pictures as soon as they are home. We are getting our Great Pyrs on Sunday afternoon so the kennel will have to go up tomorrow for temporary use until they get used to our property and know it is home.
I will need a rocking chair on the porch when this week is over.
Hope everyone is feeling better.

My sis has had Highlands for some years now....you won't need to grain them to keep them in condition. They stay fat and sassy on just graze and hay, no matter how cold the weather gets. You'll have to post some pics of the woolly bears.

 

[SonRise Silkies]

I don't mean to go back and rehash this subject but about the cats being raised in the chicken house. Wonder if they will develop a taste for eggs?
I KNOW not to turn baby chicks in there loose but now I am thinking maybe the whole idea was dumb.
Maybe a ferret!!!! YEA! I adore ferrets, used to raise them, not only do they live to kill mice but the smell of the ferret keeps the mice away naturally.
Hey! great find to day, took the back way home and in a trash pile near the curb found a nice large plastic carrier, it was in excellent shape and had no door but I use them for nest boxes sometimes anyhow.
\Only drawback was it all ready a rooster in it.

Oh! Mega dead! Like last year dead!
Nothin new around here though, Don came home with a nice dog house one day, complete with dead dog. But he was kind enough to remove the dog before he gave it to me.

 

[SonRise Silkies]

Oh to rrmamma, Make sure if you didn't all ready buy the electric fence to get "sheep" fence. Regular elec fence won't stop a Scottie.
The hair is too thick and they love to hook it with their horns too. We used sheep electric fence for Longhorns and they stayed in......TILL they wanted to leave.

I am just full of advice today..probably not worth 2 cents but......if you don't have nice large place for the dog or if you don't fence him in he will most likely create for himself what he considers the perimeter, might or might not be YOUR property though.
That's my experience, I had too small a place for her {Angel} and she just marked off what she though was fair and guarded that!
Yours might not but beware.

 

[Beekissed]

I don't mean to go back and rehash this subject but about the cats being raised in the chicken house. Wonder if they will develop a taste for eggs?
I KNOW not to turn baby chicks in there loose but now I am thinking maybe the whole idea was dumb.
Maybe a ferret!!!! YEA! I adore ferrets, used to raise them, not only do they live to kill mice but the smell of the ferret keeps the mice away naturally.
Hey! great find to day, took the back way home and in a trash pile near the curb found a nice large plastic carrier, it was in excellent shape and had no door but I use them for nest boxes sometimes anyhow.
\Only drawback was it all ready a rooster in it.

Oh! Mega dead! Like last year dead!
Nothin new around here though, Don came home with a nice dog house one day, complete with dead dog. But he was kind enough to remove the dog before he gave it to me.

Let me get this straight...you want to keep ferrets in your hen house to keep the mouse population down?

Hmmmmmmm....... me thinks you might want to rethink that one!

I've never had a cat develop a taste for eggs and you can train them off your chicks...I've seen some really sweet stories about coop cats.

 

[SonRise Silkies]

Let me get this straight...you want to keep ferrets in your hen house to keep the mouse population down?

Hmmmmmmm....... me thinks you might want to rethink that one!

I've never had a cat develop a taste for eggs and you can train them off your chicks...I've seen some really sweet stories about coop cats.

AWWWWWWW how cute but beleive me cats will eat eggs in a heartbeat! I had two big yellow Mama cats and they were always up in the nests, breaking the eggs and eating them, I chased one all over the yard and she never did drop that egg. MAYBE I can train them????
But I love cats so I just made sure the door was shut tight and all was well.
Course MY wonderful ferrets never bothered a chicken. I had waaay lots of them, but still like you say...
My favorite ferret was Miss Ferret Fawcett. She had 19 babies in just two litters!

 

[SonRise Silkies]

Soooooo busy chasing mice!!!! Cats at my house preferred cat chow and an egg or two every day.
But my how healthy, and happy they were!!

 

[rrrmamma]

Oh to rrmamma, Make sure if you didn't all ready buy the electric fence to get "sheep" fence. Regular elec fence won't stop a Scottie.
The hair is too thick and they love to hook it with their horns too. We used sheep electric fence for Longhorns and they stayed in......TILL they wanted to leave.

I am just full of advice today..probably not worth 2 cents but......if you don't have nice large place for the dog or if you don't fence him in he will most likely create for himself what he considers the perimeter, might or might not be YOUR property though.
That's my experience, I had too small a place for her {Angel} and she just marked off what she though was fair and guarded that!
Yours might not but beware.

Son Rise, We will be using a 3 wire electric like the man we are getting from has. He doesn't have a problem and has been raising champions since 1991.We have 36 acres and will be fencing woods, brush and pasture for them. The dogs will be kenneled for the first few days then walked around the boundries until they know their job.They will probably be in with the cattle. I have a run -in shed coming Mon or Tue and we will be building a shelter for the dogs. Mamma dog already works goats and alpacas. Thanks for the info and I will be sure to check into Sheep fence because they are the next on our list.

 

[Triple Willow]

@SonRise... I have been thinking the same thing about a cat in the coop. I bet it would work with the right cat. I would almost be more worried about my crazy chickens killing the cat!

My dog has been in Doggie Gitmo next door to Fort Cocks for about a month for not staying home. In the past week I have seen two cats and I haven't seen a cat here in years. I believe it's about time to parole the dog and put him back to work before a puddy cat gets any ideas. He will probably have to be on house arrest with a monitor of some kind.

 

[Triple Willow]

@Bee... a few years when we had the ice storm and no power for over a week I would have been willing to do the outdoor shower if it hadn't been so cold. lol I'd like to put up some actual walls, stepping stone floor and a camo net roof (for those Google peeping Toms) and have a real shower put in.

 

[lindz8504]

Shew, I really need some peace for my heart! I took the van to get it inspected as soon as Hubby got home. I had already set out hot dogs for supper, and it wasn't going to take me long to get that done. Well, on my way back home, I decided to stop at a little gas station and grill to pick up some chili since I had forgotten to get any at the store. After I left there, and turned off the main highway onto the road before ours, I got to the bottom of the hill, and there was a really bad wreck..... There were a couple of first responders/ volunteer firefighters on the scene and they were just getting into their turnout gear...... The vehicle was either a truck or large SUV, and had crossed center line, hit a tree that caused it to flip, and was about 7 car lengths from where it went off the road.... IT WAS REALLY BAD!!!

The vehicle was flipped over, and there was a man hanging upside down on the outside of the car.
I was stopped beside one of the first responders who was getting his gear on, and I asked him what I needed to do to get out of the way.... He told me to either go around it, or turn around, but I needed to move so they could get the fire trucks and ambulances in there.

I have a friend that works at the hospital, and gets all the 911 call information. She said that there was 1 DOA, and they air lifted one to the major hospital an hour away, and that there were kids in the vehicle. She said that the call came in at 5:52.... my receipt for the chili says 5:55. If I hadn't stopped, I probably would have been involved in the wreck, and they would have hit me head on.
God was definitely watching out for me. I just pray that those hurt are ok, and that the family is comforted with the loss.