Consolidated Kansas

[lizzyGSR]

No rain here yet, but apparently it's all around us.

They are saying that there's a good chance of severe weather here today. I'm as ready as I can be. As much as I hate severe weather, I know that we desperately need the rain. Hopefully, we won't get anything too severe. The last time we had a storm, we got nickel sized hail, and both horses stood out in it, despite being only about 20 yards from the barn. I also had one goose that chose to stand right outside the duck (and goose) house instead of going in. Silly creatures! I felt terrible for them, but I knew there wasn't much I could do. Thank goodness the hail was relatively small and soft!

 

[JosieChick]

We had an above ground pool as kids and LOVED it. So many fond memories and we always had friends over and parties. It was a well used pool for sure. I wish I had time to take care of a pool, when the baby is a bit older I am going to use her as an excuse to get in my bathing suit and play in a big plastic kiddy pool!!

As for the pool, I doubt that we will have enough money to get an inground pool. We are water people and love to swim so having an inground pool will be nice. I'm the one who cleans the kids' pool now as well as the koi pond so it will not change if we have an inground pool.

Lizzy we have dog food bowl games around here. Marshmallow will bark and chase the birds that get close to her bowl but they know it is a bluff. They run then come right back until she gets tired of chasing them. Fluff on the other hand will walk away and look hurt if the birds come up to eat when he is eating. Marshmallow taught him from the beginning that she ruled the food bowl and he should just stand back and let every one else eat first. I sneak him treats sometimes because he is so submissive.

I feel like my kids are going to ask me this someday!!!

About cleaning ... when I was a kid if we came home from school and mom was cleaning house we would ask "who's coming over?" wonder where I get it.

Cute cochin babies, I love cochin chicks. I had an accidental crew of broodies start setting right after the baby came so we have been having this ridiculous staggered hatch. It is like a cochin chick a day and the moms are complete flakes and keep moving around to set on the other eggs and leaving the one poor chick unattended so I keep going out and collecting them and adding them to the group in the brooder.

Went out to feed the chickens on Saturday morning and found 3 chicks had hatched from one of my broody Cochins. I have 4 Cochin hens and 3 of them went broody around the same time. The first one was sitting on 4 eggs and none of them hatched (looked like they started developing, then died not too far in). But the next one was sitting on 4 eggs and she hatched 3 of 4. I have one more that is still sitting (she has 8 or 10) eggs. I think she was only a couple days behind, so her eggs should be ready to hatch in the next couple of days. The 3 chicks seem to be doing great...momma must be taking good care of them. She is protective of them for sure. I moved them to a separate little house/pen inside the Cochin pen and they seem to be getting along just fine. They are so cute!

The guy I bought peas from does the same thing. He broods the eggs under cochins for a certain period of time then transfers them to the bator. I have about ten stinking broody hens right now, I don't really care I just hate having to haul them all out to collect eggs every night!

The thing with the AC sounds like something my DH would do!

That is really strange about the ducks not hatching their own eggs, but you can hatch them in the incubator. I'm getting some peafowl eggs soon & the guy I'm getting them from said they're hard to get started, so some people start them out under a broody hen & then transfer them to the incubator. I don't know whether to try that or not. He said they're really hard to hatch & gave me this big long list of instructions to follow. I hope I can get some to hatch.


It's really cloudy here today too & the humidity is awful. I had just gotten my DH talked into turning on the AC the other day & then he said it wasn't working right & turned it back off. I told him he had better get the air conditioner guys to come back out & check it because it's been awful in here. They were just here the other day & checked things & changed the filter. My DH had installed this new thermostat that is computerized, we can use our smart phones to control it, which is nice if you're away from home & need to adjust it before coming back. But now he doesn't know if he wired something wrong or what. The heat worked fine this winter, but we have a heat pump & I don't know if it's more tricky to hook up for AC or not. I guess we'll find out tomorrow since the guys are coming back in the morning to look at it. I wanted him to be here when they came so he can tell them about the thermostat since it's not the one they installed with our new heating & cooling system we had installed last year.

I wish my chickens would eat june bugs, they are everywhere right now!!

My girls won't touch june bugs. They just ignore them. They love the grubs, but once they turn into june bugs, it is no go.

You can lead a horse to water....

I just console myself with the fact that they have shelter and can use it if they want to. I know what you mean though about them standing out in the weather. I think they don't like to be in a building in the hail because the noise of hail on metal is really loud and they can't hear anything over it. I try to remind myself that they are range animals and in the wild would be out in the great wide open in all kinds of weather and that they are designed to withstand whatever mother nature dishes out.

They are saying that there's a good chance of severe weather here today. I'm as ready as I can be. As much as I hate severe weather, I know that we desperately need the rain. Hopefully, we won't get anything too severe. The last time we had a storm, we got nickel sized hail, and both horses stood out in it, despite being only about 20 yards from the barn. I also had one goose that chose to stand right outside the duck (and goose) house instead of going in. Silly creatures! I felt terrible for them, but I knew there wasn't much I could do. Thank goodness the hail was relatively small and soft!

So I think I am heading back to bed here in a minute. The last two mornings I have had to be up early and taken no nap during the day so I am "short" on hours of sleep. The little munchkin was fussy this am so I got up an hour and a half ago with her and was planning on going back to bed after she ate and was changed and settled down. I figured I would let the house dogs out quickly while I was down here and our heeler got out the back gate and went and rolled in something foul smelling (some kind of poo) so I am still up. Ugh!

On the topic of mowers, we have a husquavarna zero turn and it is fabulous. I do all the mowing and it doesn't shut off unless I stand up out of the seat. I just figured all mowers were like that.

We got the back horse pasture fenced with hotwire so we can turn the horses out to graze! Yeah!!! We have been burning through hay like crazy so it is nice to have them out on grass a bit. I didn't want to leave the baby in the house because the monitor hardly works back there so we put her in the back hatch of the car in her bouncer and she slept while we worked on the fence. Lucie (one of our outside pyr mixes) came out and "babysat" her the entire time we worked. I will have to see if I can upload the pics, she was such a good girl. I was really impressed with her dedication to watching the baby. Every time the baby would fuss she would pop up out of the tall grass and go to the tailgate of the car!

Everyone have a great day and stay safe if you have severe weather!

 

[Polishpal]

Still have not got my guneas yet but when I do I will try to upload a picture.

 

[deb516]

this little guy came out of nowhere yesterday, blue sky, storms off to the east but none in rush county so i thought. Everyone be safe today, hearing its suppose to be a pretty rough day. watch the sky, listen to your radios, news etc.

 

[chicken danz]

Josie you've got to get that picture posted. That was so adorable. I'm saving it. I've got to try to figure out how to get it transferred to my computer. I still need to put electric fencing up around the rest of my property but I am still reeling from all the money I spent on the front fence. DH still hasn't even started putting the gate up. I would almost pay to have the fence builders come back and install the gate just so I could have it up. But that would be more money I shouldn't have to spend. I don't want to bug him about it because I don't want to get the speech about it is time to slow down and I have too many projects.
Speaking of projects I have 8 English Orpingtons being shipped. They should be here in the morning. Other than finding some partridge orpingtons, that should complete my list of orpington colors. If I can find a partridge, the intent is to breed a crele orpington or "legbar orpington" as they are sometimes called. This is the newest color. Of course by the time they get old enough to breed and I work with the offspring, the market will probably be flooded with them and they'll be cheap by then. I still want to get some English whites but I can live with the exhibition whites if that is what I have. I've had a heck of a time even getting those going. I'm a long ways from having enough to breed with.
Then to continue my work on the brahmas.
Deb516 I was watching the weather on TV last night and the tornados were hitting everywhere north. I saw where several touched down at least for a while. Marysville for one got hit but it was just north of town and a couple other little towns were spared from direct hits by it coming down just outside of the towns. Every time I see storms like that I get concerned about what would happen to all my birds if a tornado touched down here. There was one here a couple years before I bought this place. It took out a big metal barn. I could sure use that barn now, but am thankful it happened before I owned the place.

 

[lizzyGSR]

this little guy came out of nowhere yesterday, blue sky, storms off to the east but none in rush county so i thought. Everyone be safe today, hearing its suppose to be a pretty rough day. watch the sky, listen to your radios, news etc.

This looks to me like what they call a "land spout". It is essentially a tornado that doesn't have a supercell associated with it. These are usually always small and are harmless most of the time, but they can get to be strong enough to be equivalant to an EF1 or EF2 tornado. The weather service will issue a tornado warning on land spouts, so if you see one you should always call it in to the local authorities (the NWS or the police department).

Sorry, I don't mean to go all "teacher-y" on you, but my husband is a forecaster for the National Weather Service, so I get this stuff drilled into me all the time. We had a tornado warning the other day South of Goodland, thanks to a land spout as well. They are nearly impossible for the NWS to warn on without someone on the ground to call them in because they are almost impossible to see on the radar.

Oh, and I know that it is too late to go this year, but I would definitely recommend you go to the Storm Spotter meetings the NWS puts on every year. They are chock-full of good information aimed at keeping the public safe!

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now...

 

[chicken danz]

That's awesome Lizzy. I love weather. I dreamed of being a forecaster since like 5th grade. I used to sit glued to the weather channel (as an adult) when they had their shows about forecasting weather. Yes it does look like a land spout. We used to see those in Oklahoma quite a lot. Most of the time there was no moisture or very little in them.
Consequently when my parents lived on the North Carolina coast we would see water spouts. Basically similar but they would pick up water off the ocean. Most of the time they just stayed over the water.

 

[Ralph Moyer]

Has anyone used the solar-powered niteguard lights? I have seen then advertised for 79.99 a 4 pack. I have had good luck using regular solar-powered lights sold at Walmart for .97 cents each. I place them in pairs at the top of my 6 ft high pens and at the bottom about a foot above ground level. The cheaper lights are visible in all directions, not just one. I know they don't stay bright all night, but they do for the first few hours when the varmints are looking for food. I think the Britte light messes up their nite-vision. So fare I haven't had any problems with blacksnakes either, since I started using these lights.

 

[lizzyGSR]

That's awesome Lizzy. I love weather. I dreamed of being a forecaster since like 5th grade. I used to sit glued to the weather channel (as an adult) when they had their shows about forecasting weather. Yes it does look like a land spout. We used to see those in Oklahoma quite a lot. Most of the time there was no moisture or very little in them.
Consequently when my parents lived on the North Carolina coast we would see water spouts. Basically similar but they would pick up water off the ocean. Most of the time they just stayed over the water.

My husband and I are very different when it comes to weather. I'm scared to death of severe weather, while he is completely fascinated by it. He always tells me that he should take me storm chasing, though, because the weather seems to gravitate towards me and away from him. I grew up in KS but didn't see my first tornado until on my DH's birthday a couple years ago in Cheyenne, WY. He had gone on a work trip and was on his way back when the tornado hit. He only got to see the dark, ominous clouds. I didn't know a tornado was close and only got to see it in my rearview mirror. By the time I realized it was close, I had gone over a hill and couldn't see it any more. I was gonna go get my camera and take a picture of it (Except for the hill in the way, I could clearly see it and it was all the way on the opposite side of town as I was. Cheyenne has a population of about 30000, so the tornado was several miles away). However, my DH was scared for my safety and told me (on the phone) to get into the cellar.

Then, a while later, I was making a trip by myself to my parents' house on a day that they were calling for a good chance of severe weather. I ended up directly underneath a funnel cloud (that never touched down, as far as I know). My DH had gone storm chasing with a coworker that day. All they saw was some hail - there weren't any tornados in their area for them to see. After that experience, I am even more scared of storms.

BTW, I refuse to go storm chasing with my DH. The storms scare me way too much!

 

[deb516]

thanks lizzy any information is always welcome. i moved here from washington state 4 years ago and every year i learn something new. we called it in to dispatch when we seen it, we are on the fire department it was paged out and it was by a baseball field full of kids so we had them sound the siren. every year we go to the storm spotter meetings and every year learn new information.