Getting the flock out of here - a diary of a crazy chicken man

[ozexpat]

Looks good, Oz. You should make a huge mortar for grinding the oyster shells. A curved bottomed pot set in concrete would be good.

I have a huge mortar floor. lol

He normally used a medium sledge hammer - 4kg to crush them with,

Its a fun activitiy when its raining heavily. A seive is used to sperate the powerded shell I put in feed from the larger pieces I give as free choice to chickens. I go through about 15-20kg of oyster shells a month.

There is a restaurant on the beach between kabankalan and our place that sells oysters by the bushel. The shells are 2 bucks a sack or a dollar per month

 

[Bens-Hens]

Looks great, place is coming along nice!

 

[ozexpat]

Thanks Ben.

These several weeks here have made a huge difference.

Bernie's settling in nicely. Jun is hard to read. While he is doing everything asked of him and showing initiative on things he sees wrong, I am not sure if he will make it. I

Rona is a good cook and is active in the garden but there is something I can't really put my finger on that says she won't make the distance. We will have to wait and see his they core without direct supervision.

 

[Phage]

Why would they want to leave??

They have well paid full employment with a home and their kid in school?

 

[Phage]

Did Piglet's wife have her baby yet?

 

[ozexpat]

Excuse my typos above. I can't get enough bandwidth to edit.

It should have read, we shall see how they cope without direct supervision.

There are a few red flags.

There salary is double what we were paying Bernie and Analou. They came with very little so aprt from school uniforms, lines and other clotting, we stocked them with things like shampoo, toothbrushes, soap and a supply of emergency food rations.

The deal is that when we are here we make sure we cook enough for both families. When we Are not here, there salary has to cover food as well.

Bernie did not ever ask for an advance or a loan from us. This is a practice that is common here but we don't like.

We pay bimonthly but five days before the end of the first month they asked for an advance. They should have plenty of money left as we even covered antibiotics they requested.

If they can't survive with extra food, how are they going to budget without it.

Their kids are always eating junk food from the corner store. That stuff adds up.

We have them the farm cell phone with 2 Sim card slots. She migrated her phone onto the second slot. After a few days she could no longer send what's app messages. I had to reset the phone and when I looked at the balance she had burnt through the 110 "free" messages on our sim card.

She was not giving change back when she went to the market.

She left the gas valve on (we turn off the regulator every night as I don't trust the hose) on several occasions.

All little stuff. All addressed. But when listed side by side we either have somebody who needs to learn etiquette, boundaries and systems, or someone we can't trust.

I believe in giving people a chance to learn the above. Especially as we are not the average employer, but I will only give it another month.

 

[ozexpat]

We had a really hectic weekend and the whole family is crabby and sleep deprived.

On Saturday we went to Bacolod. They had their xmassive festival called Maskarra climax on Saturday night. The main streets are blocked off and there were at least six stages with bands, dancing and loads of drinking.

We managed to get to a restaurant on the fringe of the party area and had dinner on the way to the in laws.

We got to their place just in time for the electric parade. At midnight the fireworks started. Bed after 1am.

On Sunday morning we were out of the house fit Lorenzo's preschool family day. It was at a resort in town. We had to zumba in our teams then races. After lunch it was pool time.

I managed to get to the hardware store for some one inch PVC water pipe to run to chicken coops for gravity water nipples - The half inch was not giving enough flow - before closing.

We were planning to head back to the farm last night but we were too tired so we got up early today to make the trek.

This afternoon the kids slept four hours. I can't wait to get my turn.

 

[ramirezframing]

Hope it all works out for the best.

 

[Phage]

Excuse my typos above. I can't get enough bandwidth to edit.

It should have read, we shall see how they cope without direct supervision.

There are a few red flags.

There salary is double what we were paying Bernie and Analou. They came with very little so aprt from school uniforms, lines and other clotting, we stocked them with things like shampoo, toothbrushes, soap and a supply of emergency food rations.

The deal is that when we are here we make sure we cook enough for both families. When we Are not here, there salary has to cover food as well.

Bernie did not ever ask for an advance or a loan from us. This is a practice that is common here but we don't like.

We pay bimonthly but five days before the end of the first month they asked for an advance. They should have plenty of money left as we even covered antibiotics they requested.

If they can't survive with extra food, how are they going to budget without it.

Their kids are always eating junk food from the corner store. That stuff adds up.

We have them the farm cell phone with 2 Sim card slots. She migrated her phone onto the second slot. After a few days she could no longer send what's app messages. I had to reset the phone and when I looked at the balance she had burnt through the 110 "free" messages on our sim card.

She was not giving change back when she went to the market.

She left the gas valve on (we turn off the regulator every night as I don't trust the hose) on several occasions.

All little stuff. All addressed. But when listed side by side we either have somebody who needs to learn etiquette, boundaries and systems, or someone we can't trust.

I believe in giving people a chance to learn the above. Especially as we are not the average employer, but I will only give it another month.

Wow
This is not good
You need people you can trust and this is a very bad start.
Is she aware that they may loose everything?

 

[ozexpat]

School is out for two weeks.

Analou and Dave are here to spend five days at the beach with their husband/dad.

We have a full load of kids. It will be fun tomorrow.