Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[CanuckBock]

See? If you leave this world while still young, you never learn to slow down and appreciate the birds and the smell of fresh coffee. As for becoming helpless, well, I think that is the Lord's way of making us not so sorry to go when it's time, and of making it easier on those who love us to let us go. It is all that way for a reason..... My Dad, now 93, was strong, vibrant, and capable when he was younger. Now, his knees won't hold him long, his eyes show him only blurs and shadows, and his hearing is almost gone. He can't enjoy gardening, reading the paper, or playing golf. His only pleasure is in his family. We are the world to him but sometimes, when I visit, he doesn't recognize me. He's ready to go. I'm ready to let him go. I hate to see him like this and I know he hates it more. I will be sad when he's gone, but the longer he stays, the less happy he will be. That is what will take the sting out of losing him when that time comes.

Agreed...but if he could have kept those faculties...ah that is the rub, eh!

I also see people around me going...eventually the people you all knew are gone...family, friends. You are alone in some ways too...alone when you once had colleagues that remember the jokes and you can't tell them those ones again...unless their long term memory gives out...then you can say the same one everyday until you lose your own memory!

Words, I heard that we start to forget words as we get old...it kills me but you are talking along and then pause...because you forgot the word THE...it is going to be that bad, eh.

Another aspect...the ways you learned to deal with disappear. At a 100, there was horseless carriages to replace the horses...the technology, even I don't bother to keep up...if a kid loses something on my bus, I just hold it up and say, "Who's?" and avoid identifying whatever it is and looking dumb.

Technology and the world just bull you over. I remember going to a grocery store I had not been to in 15 years and standing with my coin for the cart thinking...where the heck does this go and how much is it that they want? I durn near turned no my heel and thought "BUGGER IT!" I felt old...really old because it was frustrating because I know I am not dumb...just a tad tired that things I thought I knew aren't now. Grrrr...

The ads kill Rick and I...rude...selfish, feeding their sense of entitlement...feeding what they want...cars with WIFI...oh yes, mandatory to text whilst driving and they can't chew gum and walk at the best of times. We need cars that drive themselves so something can be paying attention because the drivers think they are multi tasking when they are not. That sounds WAY older than my years eh...ranting...like old people do!

Yes, the world beats you up, it takes away your senses and I do agree, gets you ready to go. Wherever that going is to be. We oldsters get left behind as the world spins faster and I tend to agree, we accept we will have to step off it sometime and I suppose it is nice to leap off by your choice....because we do feel like we don't belong here any more...sigh.

 

[perchie.girl]

This last post hit me home big time.... I went up to the house yesterday for the first time in a very long time. It struck me at how tumbled down its becoming.... How infirm I am getting in order to be able to do the little things that need to be done.

My neighbor in what ever sense he was using decided to feed my horse a nasty moldy bale of hay. When I brought him dog and cat food up, the reason for the trip, he said that the hay guy wasnt rotating the bales so there were two bales that got moldy. And Katee wasnt eating it.

I thought he just threw the bale in and realized it was moldy and pulled it out. thats what I would have done... except I would have rotated those last two bales EVERY truck load so none would have gotten moldy. We then crossed the road to my house and the hay was stacked OUTSIDE the shelter W T F . I got out of the truck with my walker and grabbed the hay hooks.

Ten bales are easy to move even for me or so I thought. I looked in Katees feeder and it seemed empty. I looked in and was furious there was moldy hay and hay that had been obvoiusly scooped up out of the mud and put in. And Katee was obviously hungry. Not starved thank goodness. but DANG I brought a fresh hay bale up and tipped it up to her feeder where she could get to it. Then I went in the corral and pitchforked that nasty stuff out.

Then I went out and tipped the fresh bale in her feeder. And I could hear her happy mumbles and munching. Katee talks a little while she eats... funny girl.

By then I was done and shaking. I called my son over from the truck and asked him to move the stack onto the pallets and off the FREAKING GROUND. The one last bale that ws nasty went up against the fence There was one side that was good. she will nibble on the good stuff. I had him put a good bale along the fence too so she could choose ...

Hes got asthma so thats why I didnt ask him at first. But Alfalfa affects him worse. thank goodness it was bermuda. Ten bales layed out two by two on six pallets.

I am going to have to rig a pully system for myself to do this again. and do it myself.

Time to Take up the reins of my life... and live it again

Hay Which was stackd forward and parallel even with the trash can.

Bad bale isnt so bad moved you can see a corner of it by the bluce treat bucket

Nom Nom Nom "tank ou mom" with a mouth full of hay.



tumble down remains of the goat yard sight protector.... Old swimming pool wall. it needs to be hauled out. This is approximately where I will move the coop to.


full horse shelter before we re installed the corral under it. its 24 x 24 Katee gets 16 x 24 of it leaves me 8 x 24 for hay storage.



deb

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:


ANSWER - False

New borns/hatchlings are covered in down and their preen glands don't work too well...need oil on feathers to float and be insulated from cold and hot and not get soaked to the skin.

The bird mother provides oil on the water (oil slick?) for the babies to float upon...sheltering them from the water (oil floats on water). Wood Ducks and Mandarin Ducks...they tree nest and the babies hatch inside the tree nest, dry off and climb up, fall out to the ground and toddle off with Mom to water. So those wild waterfowl are on water within days of hatching (still down covered)...but the Mom is there to oil up the water surface for them.



ANSWER - True

Yuppers...links in to the above question too. Both land and water FOWL have preen glands for oiling feathers because this oil keeps their feathers in good condition and assists in weather proofing (not always just water proofing) the feathers to become very good insulation against temperature extremes.

To mimic and assist a healthful glistening GLOW to your fine feathered birds at a show, have a nice silk cloth there to give the birds a final wipe down. The silk just whisks off the dust that will dull the plumage and conditioning and good health will only assist your birds to be shown in the best condition they can be shown!

ANSWER - False

So please tell me how you can identify a disease (past maybe a wrinkled egg shell) in an egg? You can ID a sick bird...you can see it is not healthy but with eggs, much more difficult to know what lays inside that egg...like a ticking time bomb. So pretty and innocent...so dang dangerous and hidden horrors can await you!

The Chicken Health Handbook by Gail Damerow, page 215 (transcription errors all mine!)
Diseases Transmitted Through Hatching Eggs:
To name a few, all those above are transmitted thru hatching eggs...yeh. Some are rare and some so common it is hard to find those without it.

The worst two in my mind...Salmonella and Chronic Respiratory.

Salmonella because us humans and our dogs can get it, dogs don't really get ill but humans...oh good gosh! And I am told you have to cull birds for Salmonella if you get it...some hatcheries spread that about up here in the Great White North...devastating! You cull yer birds---all of them...I can not fathom that misery!

CRD (Chronic Respiratory Disease) is the WORST one to me because it is that...hides and is chronic, stress the bird (and so many ways to do that, a weather related temperature change can stress a bird) and the result is a drop in egg production or feed versus fleshing...so we got CRD running rampant, hatching eggs distributing it and we got people saying, "My birds aren't laying or putting on meat?" and thinking their genetics are bad when it is a disease that has compromised production. That no meat and no eggs can be all due to a hidden from them disease that they brought in innocently by getting a dozen hatching eggs to hatch and infect ALL their birds with; that sucks to me.

Take a bird to a show...get them coughed on and suddenly your chickens have colds. Hello...chickens that are disease free do not have colds; no sniffles, no coughs, no watery eyes...EVER... Healthful chickens do not get colds...they get things like CRD that make them sick and make them carriers and make other birds sick too. A chicken can cough due to dusty conditions, yes, but CRD is a real potential bad conclusion if you got chickens with colds.

I personally would far sooner have an adult bird to examine, quarantine from my other birds and see if they get sick...better yet, stick in a bird of your own as a sacrifice and if your own bird gets sick in the company of the new ones...you got troubles indeed! Best to deal with losing one bird to the new ones and culling all than to expose all yer birds (duty of care to what you have NOW) to new ones and lose everything.

Those innocent hatching eggs roar at me of the potential trouble I could invite here...besides the number required to get three pairs of adults worth breeding from...top three percent is what I deem breeding prospects...do quick math on how many hatching eggs for that...I get 428 hatching eggs... YIKES!

Need double the shipped hatching eggs to get hatched as day olds...need top 3 percent and 7 percent will die from chick to adult...that math goes as follows...

Three pairs = six birds...top 3% of 100 = six birds x two to get three pairs (3% of 100 = three birds / want six birds so double x 100 = 200 eggs), average death rate of chick to adult is around seven percent so 7 won't live in 100 times 2 (= 14), and then you gotta double it because on average, half the eggs shipped never hatch... (200 + 14) doubled = 428 eggs...so who the heck is gonna have 428 hatching eggs for me to hatch so I can have three pairs of adults worth breeding from? Get real! And all along, jest one of the 428 eggs could harbour a nasty nasty I cannot evaluate as being IN the dang egg...Icrumba!

All our foundation birds here came from ADULT birds I could quarantine, examine and go forward on. That is my reality and why hatching eggs are never an option for us here...no thanks!

ANSWER - True

I apologize as I have no close ups of year old male Goldens eye wise...I do have babes, females and males eyes and one pic of juvenile males that are feathered as girls are.

Day olds, two on right, chant on left


Brown eyed mom and her babes


yellow eyed two year old males


all boys...two older males in adult male feathers and two younger boys
​

The males have yellow irises show up before the adult male plumage does. The females have brown irises (and keep them brown) as do the babies have brown. Very helpful because it takes two years to determine form feather gender differences in the Golden Pheasants. Pheasants can kill each other over genders...so an all boy pen is safer than mixed genders as they get more mature. We have had as many as seven males all happy batching in...add one girl, and well the dynamics go from drinking beers together to knocking off heads...agh!

Cut toe nail short...drops of blood or pluck feather -both work swell ​

Now one can do a DNA gender test with blood or feather...but that runs about $12 a test and not sure the labs offer ones for pheasants...we have had our Australian Black Swans DNA gender typed by feather and blood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

So on the home front...Rick and I celebrate 29 years married and 34 years in total unofficially. Heck, don't think I was gonna marry a man I did not know did yah so we lived in sin for five! Rick figured we would not last seven years together...I keep rubbing that in his face...how many times the seven years have we tormented each other NOW!?? Never wonder why he keeps offering to give me a copy of that note for the judge, eh.

Love my squeeze...more than yesterday, and less than tomorrow...every single day here together...better and better here in Pear-A-Dice...and we better stick together like glue because after that long together encouraging each other to be as bad as we can be (enablers?)...we are not fit to be with anyone else...!! I am sure we are both so ruined it is a riotious thought anyone would even entertain having us even for just dinner. Yikes...too bad what two persons can do for each other after than many years. Monsters I say, literal social monstrosities...and lovin' it!

I got dogs, he's got trucks...I got way too many dependents, and he's got too many guitars to play them all in one session...yeh, just ripe old buggers doing whatever we want together despite how very wrong it may seem...to normal people if such things exist any mores. Ruined indeed and one would get the duo response of "HUH?" if you called us out on the rug for bad behaviours...since either one of us allows & even endorses that behaviour!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

I agree with you Deb...nobody, I mean nobody cares for our dependents like we do.

It keeps Rick and I doing day trips because simply nobody would be able to do the chores here, for even one night.

Not sure how that happens...I even reflect on to looking after my own son when he was little...how easy?

Keep them fed, hydrated, entertained, happy...yeh, how hard and yeh, incredible what screw ups abound eh!

I won't feed moldy anything to anything here...really?

I make sure and lift any questionable stuff and get it composted and ready to be dug in and eliminated.

I am so happy Katee is a smart equine and she waited fer her Momma to come see her. Good gack, eh!

Love that she makes nummy noises when she eats...love the smell of a horse but to hear she also plays into the soundy sounds too when she snorkels her feed....wonderful.

Yeh...nobody dang well cares like we do.

Tara

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Still clicking pics but behind (ha ha ha) on posting the clickits.

Here is from the fifteenth...

Thing about dawgs...they play in the snow like kids in snowsuits-
but the luxury of not having to undress any because now one of them hasta "GO!" ​

Really Em? REALLY and you weren't expecting the Lace to step up and retaliate?

Ripping around, playing keep away!​

Jest goofin' - lookit Lace's ears!



Even Em is making rude comments about Lacy's EARS



I think we all hurt Lacy's feelings...​

There's a nice luv bite from Emmy to make up ​

Playin' chase me round the tractor bucket

​

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Powder snows...Jan 16, 2016

​

Just roaring thru powder​

​

Emmest is a hoot..."Come get me Lace...jest layin here waiting like a carcass!"

Lacy takes the bait...can you see Emmy laughing!​

Lovin' the dog play ​

This one kills me...how DEEP is that snow? ​

And as always with ACDs, all's good until someone gets over zealous...

And loses their head!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[perchie.girl]

I agree with you Deb...nobody, I mean nobody cares for our dependents like we do.

It keeps Rick and I doing day trips because simply nobody would be able to do the chores here, for even one night.

Not sure how that happens...I even reflect on to looking after my own son when he was little...how easy?

Keep them fed, hydrated, entertained, happy...yeh, how hard and yeh, incredible what screw ups abound eh!

I won't feed moldy anything to anything here...really?

I make sure and lift any questionable stuff and get it composted and ready to be dug in and eliminated.

I am so happy Katee is a smart equine and she waited fer her Momma to come see her. Good gack, eh!

Love that she makes nummy noises when she eats...love the smell of a horse but to hear she also plays into the soundy sounds too when she snorkels her feed....wonderful.

Yeh...nobody dang well cares like we do.

Tara

Yep. One time Katee got loose from Tom about three years ago. I told Tom there was a reason for a safety chain on the big gate. It allows a hooman to go through and Keeps 2000 pounds of horse from going walkabout. Anything I tell tom as far as instructions goes in one ear and out another.

He couldnt get her back and the faster he walked the faster she walked. Been there done that....

. He had to walk home get some carrots and walk back. found her finishing off an Alfalfa bale that had been for the goats. IT WAS freaking BLACK and slated for destruction. He didnt tell me till a few days later...

I told him we were lucky that she didnt colic or founder. Then I told him the Grain barreals outside the hay had Alfalfa cubes in them. She goes nutso for some alfalfa. Put em in a bucket and rattle that next time she gets out. But I think hes been keeping the big gate closed.

When I go back up I will be free feeding her Bermuda the same with the addition of a small flake of alfalfa twice a day. Her diet will be more balanced for a horse. In line with the calcium phosphorous levels for equines.

deb

deb

 

[bamadude]

It loaded

 

[drumstick diva]

what loaded? and that's a good thing ?

 

[drumstick diva]

Tara, you do have some serious snow. IN that one photo it looked like it swallowed up most of Lacey. Emmest did look like a carcass, that photo have me pause! She is really good at it.