***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[Cjarvis]

Murphy is always at work when you least expect him. We're going to move some chicks around today into different brooders and do some cleaning up our selves. Looked at the weather and it's supposed to rainy around here after today for the next few days...so going to attempt to get a lot of outside stuff done. Our neighbors were going to throw away 3 rabbit hutches, which we rescued, they need some TLC, hoping to get that done today too and take them to Blanchard this weekend.

Was actually in your neck of the woods yesterday, met a guy from down south there in Shawnee and he got a bunch of my quail.

You should have stopped by, would have been nice to see you again.
I need to clean and sterilize my brooders again myself, thats on my to-do list for today, as well as preventative spraying of birds, and Ivermectin for them too. I am trying not to stress them with the constant weather and temp flips I think they have enough to deal with.
need to replace light bulbs in the brooder building and shuffle some stuff around as well. had a 2 pullets un-expectedly start laying so I need to move her in with the right males.

 

[Cjarvis]

Wayne thanks for asking. You may have wished you didn't.

Overall it was pretty good. DH is doing well after surgery but gave me more fits than normal in the recovery room. Mostly house cleaning on Sat so I could be close to help him. Yesterday I got alot done considering. Got Grandma taken care of, made laundry soap, got the laundry caught up, assembled the hive body frames & started painting the hive. Drove my oldest to Tulsa to get a hood for his car & ate dinner there.

Sounds like you had your hands full, Hope your DH makes a quick recovery, glad to hear he is doing well.

 

[Poco Pollo]

Wayne thanks for asking. You may have wished you didn't.

Overall it was pretty good. DH is doing well after surgery but gave me more fits than normal in the recovery room. Mostly house cleaning on Sat so I could be close to help him. Yesterday I got alot done considering. Got Grandma taken care of, made laundry soap, got the laundry caught up, assembled the hive body frames & started painting the hive. Drove my oldest to Tulsa to get a hood for his car & ate dinner there.

How are you painting your hive? I have seen so many variations, so many neat ways to make hives fit into a garden or under trees, making them unobtrusive, but I can't decide. White wash was the original beehive coating. I could do white. It' seems ordinary. Post a photo if you have time.

 

[Sooner]

Thank you Carl, I think this will be a quicker healing than the last shoulder. If he behaves himself. LOL.

Coral, I went with a very light blue, everything I have read said lighter colors for the summer time heat. When I got home with it DD said I should of got yellow & we could of painted black lines. That would of been alot more fun! Once it is all painted I will post a picture. Right now I am only working on painting the bottom board & the hive body because that is all I will need to start out.

When I bought my kit I got it large enough that I would have everything to grow with. I have two hive bodies, two super shallows & frames for all.

 

[NanaKat]

Good Morning.
Now that I've got the boys out of the house, I'm going to try to get to the garden.

A friend brought us 10 bales of straw hay that he picked up in Edmond. They were rained on back before Christmas and are beginning to sprout. The store couldn't sell them so they gave them to him. His cows won't eat them.

I'm going to use it to mulch the beds. I have to clear a space in the shed for some of them on a pallet and then set bales on the beds to finish "ripening" for compost/mulch. I set a few of the dryer ones in the barn for the hen house. Good thing I know how to drive the Kubota.

I still need to pull pepper and tomato plants out of the small beds and clear out the melon residue and corn stalks from the big beds. There are a few fruit trees that I need to prune now that I can really see the structure.

Without the wind maybe ...between breaks, I can get some of this done....always have more on my to-do list than I can accomplish in one day....

The chickens will enjoy the day out today also.

Hey Elwood: Looks like you are making brood pens in some of the upper cabinets in the trailer and breeding pens or baby chick pens underneath them. Is that right? Good use of space!

Sooner glad to hear you hubby is doing okay. You take care of you too.
I use two hive bodies for each hive and then a bee separator sheet and then stack the supers above. That gives the hive time to fill enough honey reserves for their own use and then we would harvest the honey in the supers. During certain years we were still having to feed our bees. Always used white on all our hives.

 

[Sooner]

Nana you will be busy today & I envy you being outside with the nice temp!!

My to-do list is never ending & I feel like I will never get caught up!

Have fun & enjoy it.

 

[Cjarvis]

Well,
The hatcher is warming up and getting ready to do it's job over the next three days. Yeah, more little fuzzy things that will grow feathers and make folks happy.
NanaKat, your eggs go in there this evening too. I plan to seperate the Cochin and Wyandottes from the others in different hatching trays. Would you like me to toe punch them when I remove them from the hatcher so they can tracked as they grow?

 

[Cjarvis]

Nana you will be busy today & I envy you being outside with the nice temp!!

My to-do list is never ending & I feel like I will never get caught up!

Have fun & enjoy it.

I feel the same way sooner, I think at times retirement is teh answer, that way I can tired all over again.
My grandfather always told me that was what re-tirement ment, "Having the time to get tired all over again", he often said he worked less when he was actually working for a paycheck.

 

[Sooner]

I am sure he was right too because if I were at home all the time I would just find more to do so I would always have a list.

sounds like you will have alot hatching over the three days. I am still resisting the temptation!

 

[Cjarvis]

I am sure he was right too because if I were at home all the time I would just find more to do so I would always have a list.

sounds like you will have alot hatching over the three days. I am still resisting the temptation!

I don't bother to resist teh temptation. I have goals set and to get there I just run the numbers. Already have a few hundred out, last weeks hatch alone was over 75 I currently have 5 brooders full and birds ranging from 1 week to 10 weeks, and a few from last fall that are making teh cut so far just waiting to see them finished.
My grandfather taught me a lot, they raised me for the first 7 years of my life and I stayed all my summers working Kansas wheat fields and weekends with them. He was a very inteligent man, likely one of the most intelegent individuals many ever met and had a good heart. There were few things he told me that I did take to heart. I definetly would not be who I am without his influence when I was young.
he was medically retired when he was 45 with his 5th heart attack and worked circles around everyone else up till he was nearly 70. I really looked up to him, nothing got in his way once his mind was set what ever he wanted to accomplish got done.