The Front Porch Swing

[Beekissed]

Aliza's first hot tub while on our fishing trip.....she's a hoot! She loved it...after this pic we put her down in it just a little more...just butt and legs. She about went to sleep....

 

[love2grinchicke]

They are chicks, I don't know how old. They haven't been on medicated feed, since we get big bags at the feed store.

 

[Blooie]

As long as it is a fairly fresh kill, it works really easy and there ends up being a lot less hair on the carcass as an extra bonus..

The toughest animal I've ever helped skin was a buffalo. That hide isn't like the hide on deer or elk or whatever - it's much more firmly attached and we had to cut a little, pull a little, and repeat inch by painful inch! With a deer you can cut a little, then pull it down quite a ways until you need to cut again. It was cold, miserable work. So Joe (friend of ours) and Ken finally did something similar using Joe's jeep. The jeep was groaning! I have a lot more respect for the women who used to do that with stone tools, I'll tell ya!

Thank you!!! there are a couple videos on Youtube, but the cow was great! Keep that camera on you - never know when people what people want photos of!

In other news, my renos are nothing near Bruce's... But I need to make some prep for our new addition:



We pick him up next week! We are picking out names this week! He's going to be our Chicken Dog! He's a Maremma and about 8 weeks old now. I'm pretty excited but nervous at the same time. I've never had a dog of any particular breed before!

Lastly, how does one entice the chickens to lay in the nest box rather than somewhere in their elatively large run that they fancy (under numerous 5' tall ferns). 2 days ago we got 5 eggs, yesterday 4, and today 2... from 6 chooks (Plymouth Barred Rock). Today the two eggs we found were in the nest box, but we searched the run for any others to no avail. Not putting it past them to only have laid 2 eggs, but it seems like a big drop. We have only had them since Sunday (Saturday? Friday?), and they have been through a bunch of work (hammering, fence building, no roosts, beautiful roosts... Nothing new for them today, but tomorrow I need to finish the door that separates the hen house into a 6x6 foot coop, and the feed/dog house. I didn't take any before photos, but there were two old camper windows that the previous owner's 3 sons had spent many a day throwing marbles at... and broken glass all over inside. Lots of cleaning and now she looks like this:



A good 18' of roosts (easily removed), room for another 6' of roosts, and 4 nest boxes (easily doubled), and about 4-5" of sawdust. I would be a happy chicken there! It smells so nice! And boy do they love their fermented feed!!! They follow me and flock all over me whenever I get near the coop! They don't seem worried by the dog (our ancient deaf, partly blind, pet heeler cross). If anything they flock to her too!

Now, won't DH be surprised when he gets home in 1.5 weeks? The kids are all excited and want to go check for eggs every 5 minutes...

What's the cheapest way to redo a roof? Currently there is a 25yo cedar shake roof that rains potato bugs on me when I swing a hammer! I can see through it in various places! It's mostly water proof because of the moss holding it together though!

Oh, he's so CUTE! I don't suppose "Fluffy" would fit him for long tho....might because of the coat but um, well, he's supposed to be a tough guy and he'd have "chicks" beating up on him with a sissy name. I keep thinking of some friends we had who had a GP male - big, imposing critter with a bark so deep it made the ground vibrate! His name was "Sally". I agree with the tin roof - either that or that corrugated stuff that comes in big sheets. No advice on the eggs - so far our track record ain't so hot in that department.

Its morning and I have a contact for tickets I need to contact. Im sadden over my kids leaving but as I said, we look at 18+ as adults in the west. I know what lies out there. Here they would never leave home without marriage and boys stay close to parents. My sil has 5 sons and 6 daughters only two have married of her sons. One moved to another city because he still supported the prior regime. It broke her heart.
God only gave me two sons which here not having sons is hard. I guess im thankful I was more of a tomboy and have many skills. I know many women lost husbands and sons and life became hard for them. But I have to have faith in God. Prayers to all, had a lot to do today but being friday it will be delayed to afternoon hours if they are open even.

As hard as this is, be proud that you've raised strong kid who can take on this challenge! Too many of today's kids would be whining in a corner waiting for you to make it all go away. Your family is in my prayers.

Wow!!! Now, that's a woman!

Get a digit cut off and back to work, using it, in a couple of weeks...... You'll have to tell us more of your custom butchering tricks as we go along towards fall...I'm betting you know some cool tricks we could steal....er...um...borrow.

I think we need to come up with a traveling trophy for tough. In honor of Mimi it could be a cast iron fingertip! Then when one of us does something brave or tough we could give them the finger, and they'd keep it until it time to give it to someone else. We'd be flipping the finger without offending anyone!

I think my five adorable silkies have cocci. So I'm not very happy right now.

I dread the first time I'll have to deal with that. I know I probably will eventually....most of us do from what I understand. Good luck! Keep us posted.

Motel 5 1/2 is up, but we didn't get around to opening it up so we'll do that this morning. Ken had a Planning and Zoning meeting last night and since I'm the P&Z rep from town council I had to be there too. Actually I'm the one who called the meeting. We have a porch at the back door of this place - been there for over 30 years at least. It's beginning to pull away from the house, so we had to apply for a variance to replace it. The development code says nothing can be attached to a mobile home that depends on the home for support. It must be free standing. The old porch is only 5'6 by 5 foot, so we figured if we're gonna replace it then we're gonna put on a bigger one. Can't build it bigger to the North because the power pole is just inches from it. So the logical choice is to add 4 feet to the west and 6 1/2 feet to the east, giving us a total of 16 feet.

Fortunately we didn't need a variance because our plan to build it free standing already complies, but it doesn't hurt (especially with one family member on each governing body) to leave a paper trail that says we followed all of the rules. So we'll get our building permit and then figure out the best way to get this little project accomplished. I'm excited about having some real storage space - the entire thing will be used for storing canned goods, big cookware that I currently just have stacked in there, and the freezer, plus some desperately needed shelving. Long and skinny beats small and virtually useless any day. Currently stuff is just sorta wedged in as best we can and our small upright freezer lives there. I'm having trouble visualizing how a free standing structure can be part of the house without being attached to the house. Guess we build a deck like platform, then close it in, seal the sides and use flashing and Black Jack for the top. We'll see. We managed to get a fairly decent chicken coop built, so maybe the practice has improved our carpentry skills!

This is what we're up against:

This is on the inside....we had to stuff insulation and plastic bags in the gap between the house and the porch.



And this power pole is why we are going with a long and skinny replacement. Means I have to move my bleeding heart, hostas and astillbe,, but if I get storage space out of the deal I'll make that sacrifice! You can see the separation here.

 

[TexasLisa]

Blooie, what is the latest on your sister?

Lisa

 

[mimischicksnat]

Speaking of "THE finger", the first time hubs made me mad after the accident, I whipped that finger out and said "I can still do this ya know!" We're loving like that...
He did make up for it by buying me a heated muff from Cabela's so I could help in the shop longer because the cold really makes it painful. He's sweet like that too...

Good luck on your addition! Sounds like it will be awesome!

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
Preventative measures work the best and I'm not talking of medicated feeds or medication of any kind. I've had one bird severely affected with coccidia in the past 38 yrs, and it was dispatched quickly and no other birds contracted it. It was a meat chick I had recently and I'm thinking it came here with coccidiosis already started as the blood in the stool was present from arrival for that chick.

It's not inevitable that a flock be stricken with coccidiosis if a person is rigorous with preventative measures, though not many on this forum are willing to do what it takes to build strong flock immunities, it really and truly works and then you don't have to dread or worry about illness taking over your flock.

 

[Blooie]

Blooie, what is the latest on your sister?

Lisa

Aww, thank you for asking. I just talked to her last night as a matter of fact! She called during our meeting so I had to wait until we got home to call her back. She's doing well. She has a lot of pain from the bypass - says she can feel the sternum shift and grind when she moves and it's painful. But her meds are keeping that tolerable. Dialysis is going well...she's not having the rapid blood pressure swings that she would get during dialysis before the surgery. She's registered for her cardiac rehab program and starts that next week. Energy levels are still up and down, but the up times are outnumbering the down ones. She should be cleared for transplant one month from the bypass surgery, so we are hoping that a kidney doesn't become available until after that month - she'd have to pass on it and that stinks because for her there are so many restrictions on the kidney she can receive. She was her usual upbeat self - cracking very bad jokes (is there any other kind?) and making me feel better. She has a way of doing that. I try to comfort her and end up comforted instead.

I think the Good Lord must favor her the way we do!

 

[Beekissed]

I think we caught the blacksnake that ate two of my RIR chicks the other day.....and, once again, he/she was all tangled up in some deer netting we had over the mulch in the landscaping. This time I didn't have mercy and let it go....usually I don't take a hard line on black snakes and we love having them around, but I'll be having chicks on the ground again in a matter of days and I don't want them all go missing in the middle of the night.

Game over.

ETA...took pics of the sparkly hen protectors and will try to post some of them later. I didn't get it placed real well on the WR hen and had to try a redo of some kind..time will tell if I did it right. The BAs seem to be really proud of their sparkly, black back bling....say THAT five times real fast.

 

[Beekissed]

Aww, thank you for asking. I just talked to her last night as a matter of fact! She called during our meeting so I had to wait until we got home to call her back. She's doing well. She has a lot of pain from the bypass - says she can feel the sternum shift and grind when she moves and it's painful. But her meds are keeping that tolerable. Dialysis is going well...she's not having the rapid blood pressure swings that she would get during dialysis before the surgery. She's registered for her cardiac rehab program and starts that next week. Energy levels are still up and down, but the up times are outnumbering the down ones. She should be cleared for transplant one month from the bypass surgery, so we are hoping that a kidney doesn't become available until after that month - she'd have to pass on it and that stinks because for her there are so many restrictions on the kidney she can receive. She was her usual upbeat self - cracking very bad jokes (is there any other kind?) and making me feel better. She has a way of doing that. I try to comfort her and end up comforted instead.

I think the Good Lord must favor her the way we do!

I think you are right....I think He holds a special place in His heart for cheerful, joyful folks...as do I. Give her a hug from us all and it's so good to get an update on her progress.

 

[Blooie]

Preventative measures work the best and I'm not talking of medicated feeds or medication of any kind. I've had one bird severely affected with coccidia in the past 38 yrs, and it was dispatched quickly and no other birds contracted it. It was a meat chick I had recently and I'm thinking it came here with coccidiosis already started as the blood in the stool was present from arrival for that chick.

It's not inevitable that a flock be stricken with coccidiosis if a person is rigorous with preventative measures, though not many on this forum are willing to do what it takes to build strong flock immunities, it really and truly works and then you don't have to dread or worry about illness taking over your flock.

You're right, as usual. I didn't use medicated feed because I'd ordered the Marek's vaccine for the chicks and they told me not to. Is the immunity thing why it's so important to get those chicks out of the brooder and into a real environment as soon as possible? I'm using your heating pad method next time I get chicks. Now Ken's been trying to talk me into trying to hatch a few eggs if one of my hens goes broody. I don't know if I'm ready for that. I still have so doggone much to learn!