South Carolina

[ChickyChickyBaby]

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I have an auto payment now so maybe nothing for anyone here........

does not bother me too much - I did have an expensive surprise in mind for DD but, looks like that won't happen. Only people that we buy for is DH's Dad, DD, and DH.
I get myself something too usually LOL

I cook and feed my family....if I can I give a little money to my nieces and nephew. Otherwise, food is enough...we are all together and getting along and that is what counts

ETA: no one on my side of the family is under 14 yrs old. We are getting to old to do anything besides eat LOL

Wow, that sounds so simple. Christmas has always been a BIG thing with my family. My Dad spends weeks putting out lights and decorations. He started 2 weeks ago and he will have them on for Thanksgiving. He puts out 200,000+ lights. DH has a big family and my cousins, aunts, uncles etc. still all get together for my Grandma. I've actually cut my Christmas list in half this year and I still shop for 20+ people. My son also has a birthday dec 12 so I shop for that too of course. I usually start shopping in June but this year there just wasn't much money to shop with so I'm running late. And my 7 year old would be most disappointed if Santa forgot him. It's stressful but fun.

I kinda am sooo glad. I am even cutting back on decorating this year. My parents are in their 60s and with Moms arthritis really can't do much now.

There was one Christmas when the family was upset with me..... Nicole & I took off to the beach and stayed for Christmas Eve & Day.

My dad's family is big, and gets together...but I stopped going to that before my grandmother died...I would just go see her on Christmas day. That was always when she would come see my dad & us...then she did that when my daughter was born too

Even after the big family thing on Christmas eve.

DH's family is big...we just kind of stopped going to the dinner there a couple of years after his mom died. We did go last year and I think the year before....but it is mostly food & family - he has an aunt that never married but took care of his grandma and helped with everyone's kids - and everyone gets her something- that is usually the only presents.

I miss the big dinners & get togethers, but even ours with DH's family (brother, dad, neice, nephew, etc) has slacked off. Pop told me I have gotten lazy cause I have not been cooking in a LONG time lol.

 

[ChickyChickyBaby]

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DH put a really big piece of pipe in the middle and worked some other conduit pipe over it. It is enough of a bow to shed water though one corner get rain and I have to push it out -- which I am sure I will have to do today. I bet your could do it with PVC pipe which would be lighter--DH just used what we had on hand. We have roofing tin on a couple of the kennels that works good and one tarp I have a 2 x 4 holding it up in the center so it sheds water--works very well and there is enough pressure on the board that it will not fall. I use pretty much what ever I can that works to get a pitch in the tarps after the dogs kennel collapsed.

My kennels just have plastic netting to keep out hawks. I don't really worry about weather. But they do have small coops in them for protection. I mostly use the kennels for the run part. They can go in the coop if it's raining.

My smaller one has a tarp.... mostly to keep the guineas and turkeys out because that is where they prefer to roost. Middle of the back yard on my silkie lot.

 

[gavinandallison]

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My kennels just have plastic netting to keep out hawks. I don't really worry about weather. But they do have small coops in them for protection. I mostly use the kennels for the run part. They can go in the coop if it's raining.

My smaller one has a tarp.... mostly to keep the guineas and turkeys out because that is where they prefer to roost. Middle of the back yard on my silkie lot.

Hope you all survived the storms last night........


The Carolina Waterfowl Rescue uses 6" piping buried in to the ground and the runs angle pieces across the top with piping connecting, then it is covered with bird netting. I have pipes in the ground holding up my netting and plan to connect them with pipe to hold the net higher up and make it strong enough to place a tarp over the top for winter.

 

[RedBugPoultry]

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The one in the middle/right has white dots, the other 2, front and back, have what I call chevrons instead of dots. If you were here looking at them you would see the difference as the Lavender does not have the shine the Coral Blues have.

So they really are basically the same color? At least it looks the same to me except for the polka dots. I think mine have polka dots......I'll have to check to be sure. Those dots don't show up early on the keets though so how do you tell them apart when they're small? Thanks for the picture!

I tell them early by the lines on their heads. Corals have thin lines--I believe 4 and lavenders have a big fat line down the middle with a small line on each side. All dotted guineas will have that thick line down the middle, such as pearls and buff dundottes.

 

[RedBugPoultry]

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4 months old? lol hope it is a pullet.....it may be a roo

Hard to tell with silkies!!

Don't even try... she is too sweet to be a roo!!! You are tooooo funny!!!

(please God?

)

Wouldn't you be able to see streamers by now if it were a roo? Looks pretty pullet and a very pretty one at that!

 

[WestKnollAmy]

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I always love hearing this stuff.

Now I figure we aren't going to have as bad a winter because I haven't seen as many black bird flocks. However, just yesterday morning there were a few thousand that came on our place. It was so noisy with them caring on that you could not hear the roos or Guineas! I take that to mean a late spring snow.

My dad told me the old wives tale of the amount of fogs you have in August equals the amount of snows you have in the winter but it did not hold true.

I haven't seen any wooly worms this year so I could not see red or black colors to see what they predict.

 

[ChickyChickyBaby]

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I always love hearing this stuff.

Now I figure we aren't going to have as bad a winter because I haven't seen as many black bird flocks. However, just yesterday morning there were a few thousand that came on our place. It was so noisy with them caring on that you could not hear the roos or Guineas! I take that to mean a late spring snow.

My dad told me the old wives tale of the amount of fogs you have in August equals the amount of snows you have in the winter but it did not hold true.

I haven't seen any wooly worms this year so I could not see red or black colors to see what they predict.

Nicole was walking through the yard and a wooly hijacked a ride on her pants leg. he was solid red.

 

[ChickyChickyBaby]

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Don't even try... she is too sweet to be a roo!!! You are tooooo funny!!!

(please God?

)

Wouldn't you be able to see streamers by now if it were a roo? Looks pretty pullet and a very pretty one at that!

Not always. I had one that I thought was streamers but was just her crest got bigger.

Some of mine don't start getting streamers until 6-8 months -

 

[RedBugPoultry]

As far as the kennels and tarps go--all of ours survived the big storm last night that went through here. I do hope everyone made it through fine! One thing to remember, and I thought of this as I was taking care of birds this morning, if you prop up your tarp with a pipe or a board put some thing large on the end so it does not push through the tarp. I have a cut off bottom of a bleach bottle on the 2 x 4 I have holding up one tarp. It worked great last night keeping the rain from puddling. Now I did have some puddles in the guineas tarp I had to push out but the guineas were very dry.

Now I am going to go search for some persimmons and see what the weather has in store here....

 

[RedBugPoultry]

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Wouldn't you be able to see streamers by now if it were a roo? Looks pretty pullet and a very pretty one at that!

Not always. I had one that I thought was streamers but was just her crest got bigger.

Some of mine don't start getting streamers until 6-8 months -

Yes, I know what you mean by the pullets getting their crest in and it throw me too, but the streamers look a little different as they come in a little higher up. Thank goodness mine seem to get them early so I can stop guessing what I have. So far I have not rehomed any pullets but that could happen it sounds. Right now my biggest problem with the silkies is getting all the roos I want to keep in one pen--a few of them just will not stop fighting with each other. I think they have game blood in their background some where. I want to put them all together for the winter to stay warmer but so far I have the hens all together with one roo and all the other roos seperated--but I have a plan....