Surviving Minnesota!

[duluthralphie]

In other news, I will get to live another day. The WW missed the little scars on her deck. The chickens are on it now. This is good.

I have two plans to deal with said scar, One is to say the chickens must have done something, or take the boards out and flip them over. Telling her the stain must have failed to take on those two for some reason. Both sound feasible to me....


The house smells of maple syrup. I am finishing it in the crock pots. It is slow but they should not go turn too fast for me to catch it.


@ketojenn is going to be in St Cloud overnight on April 26th. She is a super star and performing a concert at the convention hall with her band "Pistol Annies". *

I think we should all have a gathering of chicken brains that evening. Anyone interested.


Next on the list spring is here! The sandhills have been back in small numbers for about a week. Today they are back by the thousands. Even a deaf old man like me might need ear plugs to step outside.

There are two eagles sitting in the pines by the edge of the drive. Pearl is upset, she is an outdoor dog on chicken guarding duty until they leave. She does not really care for anything outside related.


I think I have found the problem with my maple syrup refining. The camp stove I bought at Cabellas is too small. The burners were only 16,000 BTU each. Which forced me to use the weed burning torch to speed the boiling up. The weed burning torch is 500,000 BTU. It is hard to control that flame and that is how the whole burnt deck came about, burning pieces of the stove fell to the deck catching the deck on fire...It wasn't all that bad and the pieces that burnt off the camp stove were not essential. The push button igniter was just a luxury item and the stove seems to run just fine without the thermocoupler. (now).

I found two 50,000 btu burners at Menards and replaced the old way too small burners. I had to also replace the gas hose going to the burners as one of them kind of melted too..... BUT instead of one line I now have two with two regulators and two tanks so I do not have to worry about over loading the one regulator....

All in all the little mishap was a blessing as lone as Judy never finds out about it....
































* there is a remote chance I could be wrong on this factoid, the name of her band not her being in St Cloud....

 

[ketojenn]

In other news, I will get to live another day. The WW missed the little scars on her deck. The chickens are on it now. This is good.

I have two plans to deal with said scar, One is to say the chickens must have done something, or take the boards out and flip them over. Telling her the stain must have failed to take on those two for some reason. Both sound feasible to me....


The house smells of maple syrup. I am finishing it in the crock pots. It is slow but they should not go turn too fast for me to catch it.


@ketojenn is going to be in St Cloud overnight on April 26th. She is a super star and performing a concert at the convention hall with her band "Pistol Annies". *

I think we should all have a gathering of chicken brains that evening. Anyone interested.


Next on the list spring is here! The sandhills have been back in small numbers for about a week. Today they are back by the thousands. Even a deaf old man like me might need ear plugs to step outside.

There are two eagles sitting in the pines by the edge of the drive. Pearl is upset, she is an outdoor dog on chicken guarding duty until they leave. She does not really care for anything outside related.


I think I have found the problem with my maple syrup refining. The camp stove I bought at Cabellas is too small. The burners were only 16,000 BTU each. Which forced me to use the weed burning torch to speed the boiling up. The weed burning torch is 500,000 BTU. It is hard to control that flame and that is how the whole burnt deck came about, burning pieces of the stove fell to the deck catching the deck on fire...It wasn't all that bad and the pieces that burnt off the camp stove were not essential. The push button igniter was just a luxury item and the stove seems to run just fine without the thermocoupler. (now).

I found two 50,000 btu burners at Menards and replaced the old way too small burners. I had to also replace the gas hose going to the burners as one of them kind of melted too..... BUT instead of one line I now have two with two regulators and two tanks so I do not have to worry about over loading the one regulator....

All in all the little mishap was a blessing as lone as Judy never finds out about it....
































* there is a remote chance I could be wrong on this factoid, the name of her band not her being in St Cloud....

So many gems in this post. I just can't.

 

[Molpet]

Appears to be sometime of user error on the weather bug,,,,

yep fat old fingers

 

[CindyinSD]

I think I have found the problem with my maple syrup refining. The camp stove I bought at Cabellas is too small. The burners were only 16,000 BTU each. Which forced me to use the weed burning torch to speed the boiling up. The weed burning torch is 500,000 BTU. It is hard to control that flame and that is how the whole burnt deck came about, burning pieces of the stove fell to the deck catching the deck on fire...It wasn't all that bad and the pieces that burnt off the camp stove were not essential. The push button igniter was just a luxury item and the stove seems to run just fine without the thermocoupler. (now).

I found two 50,000 btu burners at Menards and replaced the old way too small burners. I had to also replace the gas hose going to the burners as one of them kind of melted too..... BUT instead of one line I now have two with two regulators and two tanks so I do not have to worry about over loading the one regulator....

All in all the little mishap was a blessing as lone as Judy never finds out about it....

Ohmygoodness... my insurance adjuster (retired) DH would just... Well, I’m not gonna find out how he’d react to that ‘cause he’d have to tell me (again) the story about the guy who burned up his deck (all of it) by hooking up the natural gas to his bbq grill with a garden hose... Very inventive, that man...

 

[CindyinSD]

Thanks for the advice and the giggles! I would totally put a unicorn egg in there if it would fit. Alas, while I have many chicken eggs I have no rooster. When I ordered chicks last year I underestimated the skill of the chick sexers. I felt sure I’d get an accidental roo or two so I didn’t order any on purpose. So yeah, like @memphis , I’m running a convent here. I could have my pick of roosters for free, as many as I want but I just can’t bring myself to on-purpose and knowingly introduce mycoplasma whatever to my flock even if they’re gonna get exposed at some point anyway. Somehow buying eggs seems less, I dunno, flagrant?

Anyway, I’m not set up to take care of quail yet and I do want to try out the incubator. I’ve heard waterfowl are kind of tricky... advanced project maybe. So I guess that pretty much leaves chickens even though I don’t actually need more chickens and I have around 35 coming in cheeping little boxes over the next month and a half... and 15 turkeys...

 

[duluthralphie]

Ohmygoodness... my insurance adjuster (retired) DH would just... Well, I’m not gonna find out how he’d react to that ‘cause he’d have to tell me (again) the story about the guy who burned up his deck (all of it) by hooking up the natural gas to his bbq grill with a garden hose... Very inventive, that man...

He should be thankful for people like me, otherwise he would have been without a job!


I just had a CL "customer" here. Same difficult one I had yesterday.....

He bought a TOM yesterday, looked at a hen (turkey) and decided it was not good enough.

When he left yesterday he wanted to come back today to get 2-3 hens. I told him I only have 2, I will part with, the one he looked at and one just like her. He left again today with no hen. I guess he thought the hen would gain 10 pounds over night.

Yesterday, he lead me to believe he wanted to raise turkeys, (I guess he thought I cared if he ate them).

Today I ascertained from him he wanted to eat them. (Surprise, Surprise, Surprise).......

Then he wanted to buy my chickens. He did not take "no" for an answer very well. He could not get it through his head the birds I have now I want to keep, or I have places for them to go.

I know I am suppose to be more patient with "refugees" here. But I think they could try to be a little less demanding and try to meet us halfway...


And @CindyinSD Your DH ex-insurance adjuster would go nuts over this....He has a backward facing child seat in the front passenger seat and his wife/woman/whatever was in the center of the back seat.... The ex-trooper in me could barely contain myself........ I have a would for him...it rhymes with "it" and and is 5 letters long.....

 

[duluthralphie]

Thanks for the advice and the giggles! I would totally put a unicorn egg in there if it would fit. Alas, while I have many chicken eggs I have no rooster. When I ordered chicks last year I underestimated the skill of the chick sexers. I felt sure I’d get an accidental roo or two so I didn’t order any on purpose. So yeah, like @memphis , I’m running a convent here. I could have my pick of roosters for free, as many as I want but I just can’t bring myself to on-purpose and knowingly introduce mycoplasma whatever to my flock even if they’re gonna get exposed at some point anyway. Somehow buying eggs seems less, I dunno, flagrant?

Anyway, I’m not set up to take care of quail yet and I do want to try out the incubator. I’ve heard waterfowl are kind of tricky... advanced project maybe. So I guess that pretty much leaves chickens even though I don’t actually need more chickens and I have around 35 coming in cheeping little boxes over the next month and a half... and 15 turkeys...

Some diseases are airborne, some require contact or close proximity to an infected bird.

However, some diseases are carried within the egg and even a hatching egg can bring you a bug....

Horizontal transmission and Vertical transmission....

No need to thank me, I was happy to tear down your protective wall of safe feelings!

 

[CindyinSD]

No, I know it can be passed down through eggs... I don’t think it’s even regulated by NPIP (for whatever that’s worth.) I’m guessing it’s also just as likely to come in a box of cute chicks. I don’t know... maybe my girls already have it but they’re resistant. I’m kind of making fun of my own lack of logic. It’s an emotional thing, I realize, and silly. It’s no doubt better to select for resistance than to try to keep all the baddies out. Still I’d feel guilty knowingly bringing in a bird I’ve been actually warned about.

 

[jerryse]

No, I know it can be passed down through eggs... I don’t think it’s even regulated by NPIP (for whatever that’s worth.) I’m guessing it’s also just as likely to come in a box of cute chicks. I don’t know... maybe my girls already have it but they’re resistant. I’m kind of making fun of my own lack of logic. It’s an emotional thing, I realize, and silly. It’s no doubt better to select for resistance than to try to keep all the baddies out. Still I’d feel guilty knowingly bringing in a bird I’ve been actually warned about.

I will offer what I learned over my lifetime on chicken disease . Short but effective . Here a sick bird is a dead bird . I do not vaccinate or medicate . First sign of illness and I kill it . Viruses are forever . A recovered bird will have a relapse when under stress like winter . They will infect other birds and keep the cycle going . Since adopting this policy I seldom see any disease .

 

[lilmynx13]

Omg ralphie I have had choice people around me alot. Whack job from church told me its cruel to put chickens in a coop or have a fenced yard for safer adventures when I'm not home to be out side. This couple are in their 60s btw. Whack job duo also said we are all cruel for forcing our chickens to lay eggs. We are mean horrible people!!