Consolidated Kansas

[Ivywoods]

Quote:
The bill addresses ONLY the 100 watt light bulb. That was to start the first of this year. The 75 watt was to start Jan 2012 and the 60 and 40 in 2013 and 2014. The bill is specific to these household bulbs and does not adress other specialty bulbs such as our heat lamps. I use a 15 or 25 watt bulb in my cookie tins with a very skinny bulb.

I assume since many of your household "specialty" bulbs are of these wattages that they will eventually be affected. The house I lived in Salina had ALL sorts of specialty bulbs. Keeping all the lights going in that house was a major headache. We've already switched many of our household bulbs to the flourescent. I don't really like them, but since they are supposed to save money I went ahead. They are supposed to last longer, so that is good, but I don't think they last any longer when they are outside, such as out in our shop. We have had to replace several of them out there already and they weren't even a year old!

 

[Hawkeye95]

I knew it was coming, but didn't realize it was so soon-- to not have the light bulbs available any longer. There are so many reasons that I LOVE the LED or the flourescent but I think there is still going to be a need for the heat producing bulbs-- like our little chandlier bulbs. Sad. I have heard of people using xmas lights inside the cookie tins as well-- NOT the LED kind of course. But I guess that will be going away too. I wonder how we'll work our kid's 'Easy Bake Oven'??? hehe!! Even if we stocked up on bulbs, we'll eventually be out and on the hunt. And I can't store that much stuff in this house, anyway.

Ivy, I have no doubt that if Boeing pulls out here, that our housing market will be in a very sorry state. It would be the perfect time to buy. Unfortunately, it will be a bad time to sell, but what else could we do? We've thought about keeping the house for a couple of years until the market comes back. We'll just wait and see what happens. That is an ADORABLE picture of your Runt with the cat! So sweet! He'd have a hay day in our back pasture with all the coyotes living in my hedge row.

Speaking of that... I was reading an article in one of my magazines ('mother earth, sustainability' or something like that). Anyway, it was talking about creating a living fence formed from Osage Orange trees. Gave step by step on how to put all the 'oranges' into a bucket and leave them outside to go thru the freezing, wet, process in winter. In the Spring, you're supposed to mix them up into a slurry and then dig a trench (however long) and pour the slurry into a trench. The saplings come up and when they hit about 3 feet tall, then you bend them over to form a scallop like formation with them and tie them down to the ground. Then the next set of growth (the next year) grows another 3 feet and you bend them all over and tie them down too! So you end up with two rows of tightly woven trunks on the bottom of your "fence". Then you let the top growth go and just keep it trimmed to about 4 or 5 feet tall-- and they were saying how coyotes, and other animals can't get thru it. They had a great picture of the process and a big farm that had miles of these living fences set up with cattle grazing on the inside. It was beautiful! I love this idea! And it's free!! (although a lot of work, I'm sure)

 

[Ivywoods]

Hey, Hawkeye, could you post a link to that article or something? That sounds so interesting. I'm sure it's more work than I would want to take on, but it sounds really cool. I'm a tree nut for sure, so that kind of thing really interests me.

Maybe I can google it and find a picture or something. I would sure like to see it.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Okay, here is the link to the article... I have the magazine, but I found the SAME article online!
http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-homesteading/living-fences-z10m0sto.aspx?page=4

It starts at the Bottom of the page where it says: "How to Start An Osage Orange Living Fence" and then it lists #1. It continues onto the next couple of pages and where it has the blue underlined text-- click on that and it has pictures. You can also search for real photos of these fences. They are beautiful! I'm totally going to do that here if we get to stay. Keep out those darned coyotes!

 

[Trish44]

IVY, that's a cute pic of your dog with the cat. Our pups absolutely love all of our cats but they're not so keen on them yet. The pups are still rowdy & the cats get defensive. There is one calico that does lay with them sometimes when they lay here on the hill by the driveway. We took the pups out this afternoon & put leashes on them to see how they would do with them now. We took treats along & they did really well for the first time we worked with them. Jasmine (the black & white one) is the alpha dog & Lily pretty much follows her wherever she goes. Jasmine is a much more serious & sensitive dog than Lily. You only have to tell Jasmine something once & she is done, but Lily is a big bouncy, waggy, kid & we have to tell her several times to stop. She was just chasing the little Yorkie around the yard & was scaring her & we had to really get on Lily to stop. Jasmine went over away from us & wanted nothing to do with Lily's foolishness, she knew Lily was in trouble. Jasmine is going to be the best LGD, I hope she can teach Lily, hopefully she will learn by example.

Hawkeye, I looked at that fence article, it looks like a lot of work & man are those hedge trees nasty to work with. They have some kind of substance that when I get scratched they really get inflamed. We have a lot of those darned trees here, I hate them except they're good for firewood. They're not pretty trees & they're awful to deal with. They may work good for a barrier if you worked at it for that long, but I wouldn't want to deal with them. If you cut one down you get a bush in it's place, instead of one trunk you get mutiple ones, so you may not even have to do it like they were showing. If you just grew them for awhile & then cut them to the ground you would get a network of multiple branches coming up really close together. They shoot out little branches all over all the time & I have to go around cutting the ones off that stick out & grab me & then new ones shoot out in another place. I just heard on the radio on the way back from Missouri that the housing market is picking up, so that might be good news for you if you have to move. People who work at Boeing are kind of all spread out all over the place, so it wouldn't just be one area where the houses would be selling. Derby might get hit a little harder, I think there are probably quite a few living there. They're still building new houses & businesses in Derby, they really never stopped that much. I really miss living there, I lived there for 23 years & even though I've been gone for 13 years I still miss it.

Yeah the light bulb thing is going to be the pits for some things I agree. We've already been using the new bulbs in all the house lights except our two little bedroom lamps. I'm not sure what we'll do about those. But we'll have to figure out something else to use for the cookie tin heaters. I just got a bunch of tins to make mine with. I'm getting some rabbits next week so I will need one for them. I just couldn't resist these rabbits. A girl on our buy, sell, trade thing in Ark City got a deal on a bunch of rabbits & she didn't need that many so she's selling some. I'm getting a pair of Castor Mini Rex & I think they'll be adorable. I wanted some Netherland Dwarfs too, but she said she thinks they're all spoken for. I used to raise Netherland Dwarfs, but I've never had the Rex before or the mini ones. I didn't really want the full sized Rex because they're so big, so I decided to get the mini ones. I may be able to get a free hutch for them if the guy will answer me that has them. I had mine in hanging cages inside a shed before when I lived in Derby, but I don't have a free building now since I used my shed for the chicken coop. I could put them in the horse shed, but it doesn't have a front on it & it's too far from the house I think. I would be afraid of predators getting them, at least until my pups get bigger. I'm excited about getting them though, I love rabbits!

 

[Ivywoods]

UGH! I HATE taking pictures of chickens!

I just finished taking a bunch of pictures, and almost all of them are not good. I am to slow and my camera is too slow. Once you take a couple shots of them they start getting suspicious and acting weird, pacing back and forth and assuming unphotogenic positions. They must be thinking, "What is that crazy old lady up to now?" Anyway, I will weed through them tomorrow and try to get some of the better ones uploaded. It takes me a while and I don't have that much time today, so Sunday or Monday will have to do.

Trish I did manage to get some pictures of the black ameraucana roosters. They just happened to be wandering around in the barn, so I took a number of shots, but then again they weren't very good pictures and those roosters started getting suspicious of me following them around.

On the bright side, I did get my linoleum installed in my pens. It worked better than I thought. I had been trying to figure out how to get it so the shavings didn't fall down between the floor and the door. The little boards I put in there just weren't big enough to hold all of it back, especially when they all got to scratching around. The linoleum, however, was just wide enough I was able to leave it turned up in front of the doors and it comes just to the bottom of where my feeders hang, so it was perfect. The little boards hold it up so it stays out of the way of the doors and when I need to clean the pens I can flip the boards up, bend the linoleum down and sweep everything out. It's pretty good quality linoleum so it seems to be pretty flexible and I think it will hold up to being bent back and forth every once in a while.

I just love it when things work out right!

The only bad thing was I had two little seramas ESCAPE! First a little hen flew out past my head. She landed on the ground and before she could even look around one of those big ameraucana roosters grabbed her by the "hair" and was going to do his thing. She managed to get away, but she ran outside and I am not sure where she is hiding right now. DH will be here tonight, so he is going to keep his eye out for her. The other one was a rooster that freaked when I tried to get his picture, and he flew out while I was holding the camera. He is in the barn, however, and I know where he is hiding. If he doesn't come out I will have to crawl in on my hands and knees to get him. Not a task I relish doing in the barn. I'm sure you know what's all over the barn floor!

Danz-What's with it with these little seramas? They are little escape artists. Once they decide they want out, they take off like a sparrow right past my head! Maybe it's just that they are so small and quick, and I'm getting older and slower.

 

[Trish44]

IVY, I can't wait to see your photos, even if they're not the greatest. Chickens are really hard to take pics of though, about the time you think you could get a good shot they move some weird way so you can't. They don't seem to like their picture taken either for some reason, just like my GP pup Jasmine. If you come near her with a camera she slinks off to hide. I can't imagine what she thinks you're doing, but she has been that way since she was a tiny pup & Candace tried to get a pic of her. She said she had to do it on the sly & I can see why now. Those Seramas sound a lot like the Lakenvelders I got from you. They won't let me get near them, even now, they fly out of the coop & then out of the run like I'm an ax murderer. None of my other chickens act like them. That's great that you got your linoleum to work out good. That's what I need to do in my coop, but unless I find something really cheap I don't want to spend much on it. I painted the floor with several coats of paint since it's wood & I use pine shavings in there, so it shouldn't get too wet unless someone spills water over by the door. I went out yesterday & stirred up the shavings in the coop & then put new ones in on top. I try to do that at least every other week so that the droppings can dry out. The chickens do scratch around in there some, but not good enough under the roosts to keep it from packing down. It's weird, it's warm here today, but my chickens have only laid one egg today. I had been getting 6 at least a day, but today only the one so far, I wonder what the deal is? They were shut in for that 2 days we were gone, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it, upsetting their routine or what. I've been reading on another thread about some people giving black pepper to stimulate laying & it seems to be working for some of them. Have any of you read about that? I was thinking of trying it, it's cheap & won't hurt them, so why not? It would be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Trish44]

OH, IVY, by the way I remember you telling me that your egg customers only want white eggs. So far mine don't seem to mind the brown & green eggs at all. I started selling some about almost a month ago now. I just put them on our little buy, sell, trade site on FB when I have 2 dozen to sell & they're sold within 4 hours usually. Yesterday I put them on & had more than one wanting them, so I told them they would just have to watch for now when I post them until all of my hens are laying & then I should have plenty. I think I'm about the only one in Winfield selling fresh eggs right now, there are some in Ark City, but not here.

 

[sharol]

I've come to define a "good" day as a day I don't have to go to town.

Quote:

 

[chicken danz]

Yes Sharol I totally agree!
Ivy, you know my Seramas have flown out but they are always anxious to get back in. I've got one little hen that got her head picked, in a cage in the brooder. While I'm in there working I open the door on her cage and she just stands there and never tries to escape. Do you talk to your chickens? I always talk to my birds while I'm feeding and stuff and that seems to calm them.
My phone has been busy all day. I was trying to bake a couple pies and would end up sitting the phone down on the counter with the speaker on while I worked and never missed a lick. I sometimes wish I didn't feel so pressed that I could feel relaxed just talking about nothing for an hour or two at a time. How do these people ever get anything done??
I laughed at the picture on your post Hawkeye because the lady was wearing gloves. (that was before reading every one else's comments.) Yes hedge has some nasty thorns but they can be beautiful trees when they are standing alone and not in a hedge row. (Or maybe in a trained fence. They have a beautiful twisty look to them naturally. But to those of you who hate them, think of this: People are cutting down hedge rows or bulldozing them up. It's such a loss. #1 they put oxygen in the air. #2 They serve as fences. #3 Since people have removed them in this area, it has become a dust bowl. Not only is the wind blowing harder out in the country, but farmers are loosing precious top soil because there is no longer a wind break to protect it. I hate having to work around hedge rows but personally hate to see them cut down. They do serve a remarkable purpose. Also as stated you can't find a better burning fire log or make a post out of a log that will last half a century like a hedge post.
I say go for it Hawkeye. I think it is a great project!