Consolidated Kansas

[Deerfield Acres]

I'm way behind again -- getting ready for relatives this weekend! Just wanted to pop in quickly. So here's how things go. I had eggs scheduled for hatch tomorrow, which would mean I have one or two left to hatch on Saturday when family would be here. As luck would have it, those little buggers are popping out of their shells like popcorn tonight! LOL! Oh well. Safe arrivals are the main thing. All my German New Hamps and Wellies are doing well, too, and the Swedish in the pen outside are doing great.

After the relatives are gone, I've got to get back to work! I need to cut another ventilation window for window also. I have it marked, just need to get in there and get busy.

Oh crap! There're those darn coyotes again. Gotta go yell "BANG!"

 

[lizzyGSR]

Oh crap! There're those darn coyotes again. Gotta go yell "BANG!"

 

[maidenwolfx80]

So anyone know on the dosage for the tylenol for the turkey?
I plugged in a red 100 watt lamp in the other half of the brooder today so I could clean the heated side and now they want nothing to do with the 250watt side they just stay huddled under the red one. I wanted a red one in teh first place but could not find one anywhere looked at so many places and red ones were out they just had clear so that is what I had to get. I am going to take the temp at that end and who knows in that little bathroom it may keep the heat well right now it is holding at 89 which is hotter than I had the heated side.

 

[Trish44]

lizzy, no here is the vent I'm talking about. I actually found some on eBay, but you can do a search for them & see where the cheapest place is to get them: http://mobilehomepartsstore.com/Mer...581_a_7c3429&gclid=COjdkMuo-rICFQKRPAodpy0A7Q. They work very well & open & close as needed. As I said I haven't had any problem with getting rain in through them. They're very easy to install too, that was a plus. You can't tell by looking at that picture, but behind that screen are the louvers that open & close. Here is one I found on eBay & they have them in different colors too: http://www.ebay.com/itm/White-Autom...862?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4608351776

I just got back awhile ago from Sunflowerparrot's place & picking up another load of cattails. We're supposed to have rain tonight & tomorrow, so I figured I had better go load up another load before the place is a bog again & I can't drive out there for awhile. This is a wetland area, so when it rains it really is a bog or in some areas a swamp. There is a grassy area I have been driving the truck down inbetween the bogs, but even that gets mushy when it rains. I told her that she should start stockpiling the stuff before winter for her own use in case she can't get back there later on.

I found out today that it's not going to be possible to buy bulk feed around here. I don't have a feed hopper or grain cart of any kind & they will only load 1100 pounds just right into your truck or whatever. I can't put that much weight in my old truck & I can't imagine shoveling 1100 pounds of layer feed from the truck to something else anyway. They sure don't make it easy for anybody wanting to buy in bulk. I know some CO-OPs will load into barrels because I have seen posts on the swaps about it, but not around here.

Well I haven't found the other two little guineas as of yet. I figured they would come out at dark & be sitting out there where I could see them, but they didn't. I hope they didn't get lost inbetween a bunch of boxes or something & can't find their way out. I got the other 3 moved out to the peacock/guinea pen. It was kind of funny that the biggest one is the biggest scaredy cat, it just yelled it's head off & flew around like something was after if when I first put them in there. The other two just went along with the crowd like they usually do.

I haven't been feeling all that well today, I think my DH gave me his cold darn him. He always likes to share his colds & coughs with me, I wish he wouldn't. I really don't have the time right now to be sick.

 

[Kansas Prairie]

Trish,

I hope you have a good night's rest and feel great tomorrow!
Did you get a flu shot? My dh took me on a flu shot date, that is about as romantic as he gets.

 

[cherwill]

I started using multi-quote, but I was so far behind that I would have a monster post if I replied individually to everything I want to. So many of us are having a hard time lately with predators and sick chicks and fish tanks and unfinished or problem projects ... I hope it changes quickly and good things start to happen. I love the stories of birds recovering from something we'd never dream they could -- like being nearly frozen and tangled up in fencing. Whether our chickens are pets or egg layers or chicken dinner, everyone here really cares about their birds.

Similar to some research I did. I tried alfalfa pellets but my birds wouldn't touch them I even chopped them up and they still wouldn't eat them. That is why I gave them alfalfa hay and they still weren't interested.
chickies duckies there is one point I read on that site you sent. Your self mixed feed has no fillers so it is much higher in actual protein and supplements than a processed bag feed. And I must say my birds like it so much better. I was feeding layer feed in a feeder in the hen house but it was getting old because they like my feed mix better.
I was looking for some pics of previous upholstery projects I did, without much luck. I need to start putting pictures in files better so I can find them. They are much more impressive when you can see the work I put into them. So here are a few projects:
Antique love seat: This was vinyl on top and the wood was awful and black. It is a gorgeous cherry wood that was hidden under years of filth. Total redo including retying springs. In the background you can also see a pink couch. This was also a total redo that took forever. The springs, the woodwork and the cushions all had to be redone. I wish I could find a full picture of it so you could see how awful it was. Below the loveseat pictures is a picture of it today.







The finished previously pictured pink couch below: Much better!!!

And a chair that was previously pink flowered cotton. It didn't have the button tufting before. I added that to class it up a little.

And a current project. This one has been waiting for me to fix a leg on it. It is half finished. There is still a lot of woodwork to go back on it. There is too much light in this picture. This is actually a dark burgundy color.

I will take pictures of the current project later. It is loaded on the truck right now until we can get it moved to the basement.

This makes me miss my grandpa. He was an upholsterer when he was a younger man; when my dad was old enough, he helped and learned quite a bit. Dad has helped me reupholster dining room chairs in the past, but Grandpa could do all the tufting and tacking and could spit tacks at lightning speed! He did it old school and went out of business when factory made furniture became plentiful and cheap, and he had a heart attack and couldn't spend the time on his business that he needed to. Beautiful work you've done.

Yesterday we had a scare DH had is chemo session shortly after starting he had severe abnominal pain. They ordered an Xray but nothing showed up so they ordered an emergency cat scan but thank God everything was okay he had a reaction to chemo he doc said he thinks its time to stop the chemo. They wanted to make sure he hadn't perforated his bowel talk about scared i was just thinking to myself how am going to take care of him and our kids.

I hope it's a good thing that the chemo can be stopped. Either way, your DH has my best thoughts for his recovery.

Not crazy about lots of people tromping around here. Just got home, sister-in-laws house was broken into. They are not home, Ransacked the bedroom, but do not see anything missing, but I have not gone through her house taking note of what all is around either. Hopefully they can get home this week. What a mess!!!!

I hope everything's OK at their house. It's such a scary thought that someone can be messing with your stuff and in your house without your knowledge.

I do have a sort of funny story related to this, though. My friend's car was broken into once and most of her CDs were stolen. She didn't know whether to be relieved or insulted that they left her John Denver CD behind.

Ahh.... My brain is mush. Must hit the hay. Will share a pic of our newest egg though Its's the one on the bottom right. I think our wheaten ameracauna laid it

Hope everyone finishes the week strong!

Such a pretty bunch of eggs; thanks for the picture.

Hi all,

Sorry I am so far behind that I don't know how I could possibly catch up with all of you! Very chatty bunch today! Lucie is doing well. She was sling walked several times today and was able to urinate on her own. She is also eating well and able to take oral antibiotics and pain medication so if all goes well overnight she will be able to come home tomorrow! I am so excited but also kind of nervous to have a bouncing Lucie home with two plated broken legs. Hopefully she won't get to stir crazy. It is amazing to me that she is already up on her feet and able to bear weight. I think I would still be in bed!

Stared my new job today and it about killed me. I was so tired I could have laid down on the floor and gone to sleep! It is amazing how quickly your body exhausts when it is busy putting a baby together. But I made it through and got home and took care of everyone. Hope all is well with everyone!

I'm glad Lucie is doing so well. I wonder if it might help both you and Lucie if she could have some kind of mild sedative for the first couple of days?

Ned Kelly, my male turkey, suddenly matured overnight and is a displaying fool this morning. As I walked down to the yard I could see him displaying (albeit the middle tail feather is missing due to molt) and stopped to watch this rare sight, but didn't need to. All morning every time I turned around there he was displaying again. I opened the turkey pen so they could go in and get their morning gamebird feed. Madge rushed right in. I asked NK if he wanted to go in and he muttered "can't...right....now....too....busy....displaying". LOL. I get such a kick out of these guys.

It seems when something disturbs our regular routine things begin falling apart. The best thing for this is to continue the routine. I used to get super stressed when this happened but I found if I get up earlier and work on the things that are falling apart and then continue my daily routine focusing on what is most important then I can at least keep other things from falling too. My kids and animals are the most important things in my life and their care is number one and when I feel myself slip and one gets sick or injured because I did not carry out their needs it devastates me. It does happen and every time I blame myself because I feel like I could have avoided it and now it is my job to bust my butt to make it better. I totally understand how you feel and I am right there with you.

Good advice. If it's not something urgent, like a fish tank, and it's just that I've gotten very behind on the routine stuff, I forgive myself and hit the reset button. I start the next day as if I'd never gotten behind in the first place. It's amazing how quickly things will look like I never got behind. If it's a bigger project, but still not urgent, I try to assign myself a certain amount of time each day to work on it, even if it means letting a routine thing (like dusting or something) go for a week. Of course, I haven't dusted in weeks because of the painting project .... well, I did finally get the upstairs cleaned yesterday while DH mowed.

Chickens are VERY cold tolerant - I wouldn't worry about them being cold. Honestly. Chickens are raised in Alaska without supplemental heat and do just fine so I think they can handle pretty much anything Kansas can throw at them. What will make it hard for them to get through a winter without cold related issues are poor ventilation and drafts. So rather than thinking of it as allowing more cold in, look only to adding ventilation without creating drafts. If you can smell ammonia, you are right that there isn't enough ventilation, and that will cause problems for them this winter. When you hear people talking about frostbite, it is because there isn't enough ventilation to vent the humidity from the exhalations from the birds' breathing.

Yes, mine will sit around outside in the coldest weather. Unless it's super cold and windy, I leave the windows open just a little. It might let in a little bit of a draft because two of the windows are right where they roost, but it's never caused a problem. That might be partly because of the heat lamp, though.


I've just returned from Sam's Club and is it just me or is that place one of the biggest rackets out there? I'm the type of person who tends to remember prices and more often than not I find that things at SC are actually more expensive than at Dillons. Plus, at Dillons they provide bags, employees to bag it for you, employees to help carry it out to your car (if you want them to, which I never do) AND they don't charge a membership fee. I do still shop at SC but do it very, very carefully. As an example, last week I bought Roma Tomatoes at Dillons for 99c/lb. This morning I saw a big sign at SC: "Roma Tomatoes - 3 lb for $6". Ummm....I can do the math here folks and that is twice what they cost me a few days ago. A 10-lb bag of potatoes was $2.98. I paid $2.88 at Dillons last week. Plus, most of the stuff they sell at SC isn't even the kind of food I would want to feed my family. You can't find brown rice, whole wheat flour or whole wheat pasta there - everything is white. It is even hard to find decent quality whole-wheat bread. So much of the food there is over-processed, packaged food that we just never eat. So all I really go for is the fresh fruit/veg, and I often get a salmon, and some block cheese there. So it was disappointing to find that the fruit/veg was more expensive there than at Dillons this morning. Even the gas, which is supposedly 5c per gallon cheaper really isn't, because they just inflate the price they start at. As I was leaving I noticed they had a sign up saying today's gas price is $3.61/gallon. Then I drove past QuikTrip where the gas was $3.63 - only two cents higher, not five.

I keep a price book for things I routinely buy. I only update it if the price changes. I have found that Wal-Mart most often has the cheapest prices around here. Dillons is the most expensive for almost everything, even when an item is on sale. Usually the only things I buy at Sam's are toilet paper, kleenex, cheese, almonds and coffee. And baking soda and vinegar because I use them to clean everything and for laundry. Those things are cheaper at Sam's than anywhere else I've checked. Most produce is cheaper at Wal-Mart and with just two of us, we don't need the great-big-giant-economy-size. I don't buy too much in the way of canned goods and no pre-fab food, so I don't know how they compare. As you said, they don't carry the kinds of flour I use. You can't even get unbleached white flour, never mind whole wheat. The few canned goods I buy are cheapest at Aldi's. I bring my own bags because I have no use for more plastic bags and I think I already have a lifetime supply! Gas is kind of random. Sometimes it's cheaper in McPherson, but it's usually cheaper in Salina (where the nearest Sam's is) by 3-5 cents, and then Sam's is usually 3-5 cents cheaper than the rest of Salina.

Hang in there Lizzy!

Here is what helped me.
Back when my 3 children were little, I couldn't tell people NO, I had several projects going for other people that I didn't have time to do, they were good things like making a cookbook, helping with funeral dinners, teaching classes, babysitting peoples kids so they could go to the city, and the list goes on and on. A very WISE lady looked at me, she said what's wrong? I explained with tears in my eyes, I have so many things going on I forgot to send a card or call my Grandpa and tell him happy birthday yesterday, and that was important to me and to him. She told me something to this day I hang on to. She said You have a kind and helping servant's heart, YOU HAVE to tell someone NO, tell others NO or your family NO. She said do you understand if you agree to do something for someone else it takes time & energy then you have to tell your precious family NO. She said she'd been married for 60 years and there are times in a marriage that you may need to kindly explain to your husband that you need help or that you can't help him that day or maybe that week. She was right, now when someone asks to do something I think of her saying " tell them No or my family NO". Hope this helps someone else as much as it's helped me over the years.

That's my biggest problem. I can't say no. I mean to, and I tell myself I will next time, but I don't have the guts. I'm the opposite though, in that it's my family that takes all my time. I have so much family here in town, both my own and DH's, and they demand so much time it's hard to fit in friends. DH's schedule of 24 hour shifts makes it even harder to fit something else in besides family obligations because when he's off, everyone wants a piece of our time for this project or that chore ... Sometimes my dogs are pretty neglected, too. It makes me mad and sometimes very depressed, but I still can't say no. It's so ingrained in me that my first duty is to family, but why does it always have to be extended family and not my own? Just because I don't have children doesn't mean I don't have a family of my own. I can't tell you how much of my fantasy life involves living somewhere else.

I guess I should clarify one thing. The coop smells like ammonia when I open the coop in the mornings. By the time the birds go back in at night, it no longer smells. When it's not raining/snowing out, I leave the front, right door open. Even if the door isn't open, the smell is completely gone by the time they go back in that evening. As far as I can tell, the straw dries out nicely during the day. I have 5 khaki campbell ducks (very small, all about 4 pounds each), 2 swedish ducks and a swedish cross drake, a duck I believe to be a rouen, and a Chinese goose. My coop is 4 wide by 8 feet long. At the tallest point, it is 4 feet tall (from floor to ceiling).

When was the last time you changed the straw? Do you do the deep bedding method? I do, with pine shavings, and I've found that the strongest smells happen shortly after we've changed the bedding. It seems like it takes a week or so to reach a balance where there's no strong smell of shavings or chicken poo. The only time I smell anything is shortly after changing the bedding or when it's time to change the bedding (and often the decision to do that is based on the amount of poo rather than smell).

I haven't been feeling all that well today, I think my DH gave me his cold darn him. He always likes to share his colds & coughs with me, I wish he wouldn't. I really don't have the time right now to be sick.

Don't be sick, we're all supposed to be getting better and not having problems!

 

[cherwill]

It was a monster post anyway, wasn't it???

 

[sharol]

I go to Sams for specific items, too. I can get various berries (blueberries, blackberries, kiwi berries etc. much cheaper than anywhere else. On the other hand, Strawberries have been cheaper all summer elsewhere. Aldi's has had avocados for 29 cents off and on all summer. What a deal. You owe it to yourself to keep track of pricing (unless you are independently wealthy). Sams is great for some things, and they have some things you can't get anywhere else, but you really have to watch the pricing.

Sharol

 

[HEChicken]

That's my biggest problem. I can't say no. I mean to, and I tell myself I will next time, but I don't have the guts. I'm the opposite though, in that it's my family that takes all my time. I have so much family here in town, both my own and DH's, and they demand so much time it's hard to fit in friends. DH's schedule of 24 hour shifts makes it even harder to fit something else in besides family obligations because when he's off, everyone wants a piece of our time for this project or that chore ... Sometimes my dogs are pretty neglected, too. It makes me mad and sometimes very depressed, but I still can't say no. It's so ingrained in me that my first duty is to family, but why does it always have to be extended family and not my own? Just because I don't have children doesn't mean I don't have a family of my own. I can't tell you how much of my fantasy life involves living somewhere else.

That last line of this did kind of make me chuckle but the sentiment expressed in the whole paragraph....I know just what you mean. I really have a hard time saying "no" too. My extended family do not place too many demands on me but just in general, if someone asks me for help, I find myself saying "yes" before I've even thought through how it will impact my immediate family, and then later find myself feeling aggravated or resentful that I was talked into something yet again. But after reading the conversation on this topic I'm starting to realize the resentment has no place because its me agreeing to it in the first place that is the problem - not the person doing the asking. I think the problem for us "yes" people is finding a way to graciously say "no".

I keep a price book for things I routinely buy. I only update it if the price changes. I have found that Wal-Mart most often has the cheapest prices around here. Dillons is the most expensive for almost everything, even when an item is on sale. Usually the only things I buy at Sam's are toilet paper, kleenex, cheese, almonds and coffee. And baking soda and vinegar because I use them to clean everything and for laundry. Those things are cheaper at Sam's than anywhere else I've checked. Most produce is cheaper at Wal-Mart and with just two of us, we don't need the great-big-giant-economy-size. I don't buy too much in the way of canned goods and no pre-fab food, so I don't know how they compare. As you said, they don't carry the kinds of flour I use. You can't even get unbleached white flour, never mind whole wheat. The few canned goods I buy are cheapest at Aldi's. I bring my own bags because I have no use for more plastic bags and I think I already have a lifetime supply! Gas is kind of random. Sometimes it's cheaper in McPherson, but it's usually cheaper in Salina (where the nearest Sam's is) by 3-5 cents, and then Sam's is usually 3-5 cents cheaper than the rest of Salina.

Thanks for the tips on vinegar and baking soda. I go through a boatload of those things too, so I'll have to check out the pricing at Sam's next time I'm there. Around here Walmart isn't always the cheapest, but our Walmart and Dillons are in the same parking lot (park once, visit both), so I think Dillons is super aware of the need to be competitive and prices accordingly. There are a few things I will get at Walmart but for most stuff Dillons is cheaper. The produce at Dillons is generally fresher, and their wholewheat pasta is 100% wholewheat, whereas the Walmart wholewheat pasta is only 51%. Plus, at Dillons I get the points towards fuel that I don't get at Walmart AND I have a credit card that gives me 3x points at grocery stores, and it doesn't recognize Walmart as a grocery store even when I buy only groceries there, so if I use the same card I only get 1 point per dollar spent. So all in all it works out better for me to go to Dillons.

I also try to remember to take my own bags - isn't it amazing how those things build up? Years ago I bought a little trash can holder that is designed to fit a grocery sized bag. So we do have a regular use for the plastic grocery bags that saves us having to buy any other kind of kitchen trash bags, but even with that, we have plenty of grocery bags. There are enough times I forget to take the reuseable bags or I don't have enough.

It was a monster post anyway, wasn't it???

 

[HEChicken]

Aldi's has had avocados for 29 cents off and on all summer. What a deal.

I wish I had an Aldi's near me....we love avocados and go through tons of them but usually pay about $1 apiece.