Michigan

[chicken grandma]

RaZ - you are the first person I ever met who loves to hay! I am in awe and a bit of shock!

 

[teeville5]

Interesting day. While doing my chicken chores, I went into the pole barn and as I was walking out noticed something in the corner of the barn. Turned out to be a big pile of eggs. I counted 16 total. Looks like both bantie hens, my ee and at least one leghorn decided they liked that spot better than their boxes. I was wondering where the banties were laying since I haven't seen an egg from them in a bit. I was surprised on the ee eggs and never noticed that I wasn't getting as many leghorn eggs as I should've. Silly chickens.

DH and I also took a ride out to Coopersville and while we were driving down an unknown road came across a farm that had 2 hoop barns and further out in their field we saw 2 chicken tractors with attached hoop houses. Surrounding the tractors were so many chickens it really boggled my mind looking at them. There had to be hundreds of them.

I really love driving through the country because you just never know what you'll see.

Fuzzy- sorry about your Rose

 

[RaZ]

Raz...I need to shade one wall of my barn and thought about using hops to grow on a lattice (sp?) wall. I need something super fast and thick growing. Do you think it would work? Needs to get about 8-10 ft tall asap.

Yes, hops would be a good choice for fast growth and dense coverage up a lattice. In Oregon and Germany, they use telephone poles and guy wires for the vines to climb. They can get to over 30 feet tall in a season.

Having said that, hops can be very aggressive to the point of being invasive. Not only will they root where the vine falls, they send out rhizomes in all directions. I have a new hop plant that is in my front porch some 20 feet from where I planted the original. Once established, hops are hard to get rid of. I had to use a back-hoe to get rid of some that were planted in the wrong spot.

On a positive note, hops are a host plant for Eastern Comma and Question Mark butterflies.

 

[RaZ]

RaZ - you are the first person I ever met who loves to hay! I am in awe and a bit of shock!

You are not the first person to notice that there is something wrong with me.

 

[NovaAman]

here here...

 

[NovaAman]

or is it hear hear?

 

[Juise]

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I'll have to take a picture tomorrow. A few of mine are over 10 feet tall now. The hops that the chickens ate last year have come back but they are only about 6 inches tall. So don't give up. If, for some reason, yours don't come back send me a PM and I dig up a few rhizomes for you.

That would be awesome! These would have been 6 years old this season, I am pretty bummed.

 

[sarah92480]

So i held her a lot and gave her a bath so she was clean, she kept trying to clean herself but she was too weak. She wouldn't eat, but she would nibble at bread pieces, and she seemed to perk up a little, so i had high hopes that she would pass it. Sadly, she was not able. I also brought her to the others yesterday, when i did my cleaning, and put her on the perch with them for a bit. I also brought her body for the others to see today, before i buried her. My roo and my lap hen (round girl) understood. They were her closest friends, and i wanted them to understand that she wasn't coming back. This was when she laid her first egg.

Aww what a sad but cute story....sorry again for your loss

My husband won't eat rice. He says it reminds him too much of maggots.

haha! ew. I LOVE rice.

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Olive..your kitchen is too far away from me.
I would really enjoy seeing your farm, and learning how to can. My grandmother used to make grape jelly from the grapes off her vines.
I never paid any attention.

THen, when I lived with my Gram and Gramps in Tennessee, I was too busy being a teenager to pay attention when they canned EVERYTHING..back then, I was trying to find a reason NOT to be in the kitchen with them...now I wish...

x10!!!! I feel the same way about a lot of things like that.


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WOOHOO! PARTY AT OLIVE'S!
HH, I have been having posting problems on my regular computer, phone still works ok
In a moment of weakness I ordered silkie eggs. Then, conveniently forgetting it, I ordered more silkie eggs. Then in a moment of rebellion (Don't you have enough chicks already?) I ordered more cochin bantam eggs.

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On the other hand, if anyone has the insatiable urge to learn how to build a barn, you should feel free to stop by and absolutely bring your own materials. I'll be happy to supervise.

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It is true, they don't burn your eyes as much when refrigerated, though I forget why. If you are having trouble whilst cutting them, you can hold a match stick between your teeth, phosphorus end out, and it helps neutralize the fumes before they reach your eyes.

That is a great idea, I never knew that about the matchstick trick!! I will have to try that some time. I've also heard that putting them in the freezer for 5 min before you cut helps lessen the burning also. Something in the cold must close up the stink particles...lol. Raz knows everything about plants, maybe he knows??

 

[Olive Hill]

You can all take a deep breath. We're small scale, but not stupid. We feed large rounds. LOL! We used to feed small squares and would stack a year's worth of hay in the barn in a day. It wasn't H-E-double-hockeysticks, but I don't miss it.

 

[RaZ]

That is a great idea, I never knew that about the matchstick trick!! I will have to try that some time. I've also heard that putting them in the freezer for 5 min before you cut helps lessen the burning also. Something in the cold must close up the stink particles...lol. Raz knows everything about plants, maybe he knows??

Oh Sarah, my dear, you flatter me. But don't stop.

When I cut onions, I do it under running cold water. I read somewhere that cold water prevents your eyes from watering. Maybe the freezer trick works as well, I'm going to try it next time I cut onions.

BTW, the last I checked there were over 350,000 named species of plants in the world. Of those plants, only one is considered a "weed". The lilac.