~ Retired and Starting My Future In The Foothills ~

[wolftracks]

Mind isn't clear this month linda, but I'm watchin.

So glad the water issue is done.

So what's the next project?

 

[HHandbasket]

I do believe the next major project is getting her internal household moved up here, along with her coops and her flock and the rest of the menagerie! That's going to be a major, major undertaking. She has like 70 chickens and I dunno how many ducks, but some of the younger chickens are already up here, and as you know, Angus and Kate (her Toulouse geese) are here. I love the little hoot-hoot noise the geese make!

And truthfully, she may have more chickens than that because several of her hens have gone broody in the last couple of months, and there are a whoooooooole bunch of new chicks in the yard.

 

[sfw2]

Nearly there . . .

 

[gryeyes]

Some random photos from this past weekend:

Angus in his bin in the back of my RAV4 for the trip to the new house.

And another shot of him looking around for something to bill.

Once we were there and I put him in the coop.

One of the minions settled down - "roosting" on some of the trash from the former garage turned coop. I thought this was such a cute sight, the little RIR cockerel all proud of his perch on an old electrical box.

The pump guy and his wife - Joe and Mary - laying the rest of the flexible water pipe in the trench to the house.

Getting water to the house was "interesting." To save conduit and some connections and whatnot (seemed perfectly reasonable), Joe originally ran the pipe up to the old pump, then tied into the pipe from it to the house. That's when we discovered the pipe running up the property away from the house and off into the woods.... by Mary digging with a trenching shovel to follow it at least 15 feet. By the time that was discovered, after the repair to the broken bit, he was pretty tuckered out. He and Mary apologized for not getting water to the house so I could take a shower Friday night, promising to be back Saturday to accomplish the task. Which they did, thankfully. There's a bit of water hammer and a check valve needs to be replaced, plus the electrical box still needs to be attached over the connection. But I had water in the house and in the coop! NO MORE 5 GALLON BUCKET TRIPS!

This is John, the contractor, working on the new oven range hood he installed.

He was there before Joe and Mary arrived for their work. We walked the water line and I told him the story of the previous day. When I said Mary had come with him, to nag about taking breaks, John remarked, "Well, he's only 75." After a pause, he added, "I'll be there in 15 years. Still working on stuff for you." (We have discussed various plans, grandiose and picayune, for additions and changes to the house and outbuildings.)

The oven hood fit under the usual, short, overhead cabinet. The hole in the ceiling for a wood stove which USED to be in the house was a couple of feet further out from the stove. This required a new hole for the vent duct through the cabinet and up into the attic and then over to the chimney vent on the roof. Therefore, the ancient metal flue base needed to be removed (and the ceiling patched where it had been badly covered) and .... 3 of the bolts were rusted too tightly for John to unscrew. Which he had to accomplish from the other side, from inside the attic.

When he climbed into the attic, he said, "Oh. I know what the former occupants did up here. They were growing marijuana. Pretty stupid, it gets too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter."

Anyway, my job was to hold the 2x4 steady as he cut through the other 3 bolts from the attic side of that metal plate. He had secured it with some heavy-duty wire so it wouldn't fall out of the ceiling. This would have been fine if the metal flue hadn't been covering an incredibly heavy, ceramic flue inside it.

After sawing through the bolts, he clambered out of the attic, I stepped away from the 2x4 which was holding the plate quite nicely in position, and he held the 2x4 while clipping that wire. The metal plate shifted slightly to one side and the heavy, ceramic flue came roaring down out of the attic, smashing to the floor and gouging the kitchen wall. Just about two inches from one of his feet, and close enough for me to get covered in crud coming through the hole in the ceiling with it. John grabbed for the thing and the metal sheath lacerated the back of his left hand over the knuckles.

Outside, where Joe was working to connect the pipe to the house, Mary heard the racket (perhaps there were some words expressing surprise and horror at the same time the flue crashed to the floor) and called out to us, "Are you okay?"

"Well, I almost bought a five hundred dollar stove," John said fairly calmly, as he wiped at the crud on the floor to see if the hardwood floor had been gouged. That's when we both noticed his bloody hand.

That's a good time to have running water, when you need to clean a wound. Alas, the water wasn't running yet. He didn't want me to waste my store-bought drinking water but I won that argument; he'd suffered quite a bit of a slice of skin flap (an avulsion) which did clean up less frightenly than it had looked when covered with blood.

I took a smoke break outside to calm my nerves.

So one just might forgive me for the early, really abbreviated post advising y'all I finally had water to the house.

 

[wolftracks]

Wish I was closer I'd bring you some water.

OK wish I had all the work on my car done, I'd still bring you water.

So you have bunch of gardening supplies it there huh? ROFLMAO

Use them to grow grains for the birds this winter. hehe

I like your new place with the pics so far. I'm so happy for you.

What do they have up there ubber cheap to fix up? I need out of here and to broke to move right now, but keep an eye out for me.

 

[gryeyes]

I got home - at the NEW home - last night with some clothes I'd picked up from the rental house during my lunch break. I've decided I am going to live there right now, even if I don't yet have the furniture moved or the flock or my cats. The dogs are already settled in (despite the fact the dual recliner sofa is not there yet). The more time I spend there, the more I want to get everything moved in. I do not have the energy ANY night after work to pack stuff other than this or that box of knick-knacks or books, but there aren't any book-cases or curio cabinets in place. Moving stuff is weekend work.

Every week day during my lunch hour, I dash over there from the office and fill feeders and waterers. Yesterday, my dominant rooster Carl let me know he is very peeved with me. He started pecking at my shoes, then flogged my arm when I reached down to push him away from my feet. VERY uncharacteristic of Carl, lemme tell ya. I had to walk him backwards for about 5 minutes. He is TICKED off.

So we're gonna try to move as much of the flock as we can this coming weekend, which will be Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. The plan is to wait until after dusk and "package up" roosting chickens, instead of chasing them.

This will be possible only because of what I found last night in the coop: two, brand new roost ladders! The contractor built them during the day and didn't even tell me he'd done so. We'd just discussed what sort of roosts I wanted, on Saturday. "Like ladders, only really wide, with 2x4 'rungs' laid flat side up, at an angle so chickens on one rung above others don't poop on the chickens below them, and on hinges, so I can raise them to clean underneath them."

First one visible as I opened the Dutch door:

Second one to the left:

In other news, Angus and Kate are a couple now. They must have decided that they are the only ones in the coop that look like each other.... they walk side by side, drink out of the newly installed poultry fountain side by side, and nestle into the pine shavings side by side. Awwwww! Exactly what I wanted to have happen!

 

[Buugette]

Can I just say I luv this thread! I have been lurking for a while now... and am so impressed by your enthusiasm and the fact that you have made this happen. I am so envious and hope someday to do something similiar. How far is your new home from your work? Just wondering about the commute.

Congrats on your new digs... and how you are making them very much your own. Looking forward to more pics.

Diana

 

[gryeyes]

Well, here's the latest update.... About a third of my flock is at their new home. I've been sleeping there all this past week, rushing to the old house to feed and water the flock during my lunch hour (and after work, occasionally), so I've REALLY wanted to get everybody up home during this three day weekend I've got. ("Home Now" Pictures will be posted in a later message, but I didn't take the time to photograph any gathering or traveling shots.)

Earlier in the week, I moved Smudge, one of my two cats, up to the new property. I wanted to bring both cats, but Licorice wasn't around when I snatched up Smudge. He got out of the box in the back of the RAV4 within five minutes or less and came up front to settle down in the front passenger seat. Here I'd brought him up to West Sacramento nearly four years ago, over a 300 mile trek, with him wailing in the cat carrier the whole distance. Had I known he would be so mellow OUT of the carrier back then.....

Last night (Saturday), Farmer Lew and HHandbasket and I drove in a two-vehicle convoy down the hill, carrying a variety of empty cardboard boxes. We chose to arrive just after everybody would have gone to roost, to "gather" rather than catch chickens. HH was surprised how many more chickens there were than she remembered from April. Well, yeah, DUH.

First rule of order was to ensure Carl, my dominant rooster, was in this first batch. Mission accomplished. We also gathered up the hens in the same coop, so all his most favored ladies came with him. Greta, the BSL who had left the flock and has been living in the empty field next door during the daytime - she comes home to roost - was still in my front yard in the dusk, not having made it to the back yard and any coops yet. We got her first. Uhh, twice. She got out of the box and we had to capture her again. Farmer Lew was very proud of himself for doing so.

Carl went into a tall box and we added Rebecca into it with him. Bartholomew (black JG) got his own box because he is BIG. Bigger than Carl. But oh, so mellow a fellow. We gathered up Charlie (bantam buff cochin) and both Alex and George, the silver Sebright roos. Several other boxes eventually contained three to four hens, until we ran out of empty boxes. Lots more chickens left, but I have a 3 day weekend and plan to make a trip every day on my own, anyway, so we all departed with our filled boxes of chickens.

52 miles of fairly quiet travel, except that George crowed a couple times from within his box, and the girls made some little clucking sounds every now and then. They REALLY did not like the acceleration from complete stops at signal lights. (I could hear them sliding in their boxes and they'd complain about it.) I wondered how they would take the altitude - my ears "pop" about 3 times going from the valley floor to the new house at 2100 feet elevation. The last 18 miles are the most curvy so there was quite a bit of complaining from the back of our vehicles.

Kate and Angus, the Toulouse geese pair, have "owned" the coop for over a week now, with just chicks as company. They were not happy with the sudden, late night addition of a whole bunch of other poultry into their domain. When I opened the door and turned on the light, I saw about 8 little chicks roosting on the very top bar of one of the ladder roosts. So cute! Three other young pullets - Buckeyes - were roosting together on the top rung of the other ladder roost.

So there was some uproar for a while inside the coop. George had to crow a bit, because that's just his way. Vocal little bugger.

Today, Sunday, at the old house, the rest of the flock is acting slightly confused. (We may have broken up a couple of friend groups.)

I'll be at the rental all day, doing laundry, gathering stuff to throw away, packing a few things, waiting for dusk. Then I'll see how much of the flock I can gather before I either fill up the boxes a second time OR get too ..... agitated or tired. I'm kind of a tightly wound person so your guess is as good as mine which will halt the flock-gathering process. The flock of 7 ducks will be saved for Monday; they will need a special bin for the ride up the hill.

Oh! At my new home, the contractor has completed the pergola within four days - the first was to make the concrete footings, the second was to let the concrete cure, and the rest of it was built in the last two days!

Here's a photo of the first part up:

More to follow.

 

[goobhen]

You have a slice of heaven there! I have enjoyed your postings. Many blessings to your new home!
God bless,
theresa

 

[mississippifarmboy]

I am so happy for you Linda, it truly does seem to be a slice of heaven!