The Old Folks Home

[CapricornFarm]

Cap did Sunny tree the bear, or did she have help?

Luckily Sunny was in the puppy pen while I was working! Mini treed it by herself.

 

[CapricornFarm]

@CapricornFarm. A papillon treed a bear?

I was looking at the inside of your coop. Do you have problems with varmints tunneling under and habitating the crawl space under the floor? I am fighting that now with my old coop. Yes, I have metal sheeting 9 inches out from the coop but they are finding the outer edge and then burrowing under the whole flange. I told DH that my only option is to tear out the bottom half of the coop so it is no longer prime real estate. I have enough problems with the shed which is double walled.

@ronott1, I hope so also with the meds but at the moment I'm at a loss. The only thing that really helps me without causing a lot of side effects is steroids and I do not want to skip down that path. Not with already having osteoarthritis damage in my left hip.

@superchemicalgirl. I feel your pain. I've the same problem with my cell phone. I'll be standing on the backporch making an important call and their will be roosters crowing in the background. The person I'm talking to will pause and say...oh, you have chickens...My response is....no, I have too many roosters. Want a few?....That usually causes the conversation to proceed.

It is amazing the look people give you when you tell them not to be offended if they try to call and nobody answers. Sometimes it takes a week for our calls and voicemails to catch up with us where we live. Folks just don't understand that not everyone has a cell phone glued to their ear 24/7

I am planning to do a foot wide skirt around the base of the coop. Same thing I did around the original coop. It has worked so far. Sometimes I pile logs around the outside.

 

[microchick]

I have a rat I'm dealing with right now under my small coop. I don't have wire down but I have sheet metal down and it's 8 inches at least. This critter is smart. It found the outside edge and is tunneling ther. The metal is a good 8 inches underground now so it is one determined tunneler.

I plan to win this battle. I took the skirting off the bottom of the coop and tossed a huge chunk of 'one bite' under there. Free breakfast buffet...all you can eat!

If the Fayoumis would quit throwing feed every direction in their quest to find jus the right tidbit, I wouldn't have this problem. I guess I'm going to have to go back to my PVC feeders with them.

 

[perchie.girl]

Happy Friday morning to all!
Still have a lot of garden chores to contend with, but the near-future focus has to be on housework as we've got the kids coming in for July 2-7. One of the guest rooms at present has been used for storage and that needs to be remedied and made tidy. Just moving all the stuff out will be an endeavor. Then there's the cleaning. I will admit that housework is not my forte.

Join the club...

deb

 

[getaclue]

I too am needing to focus on the house keeping once again. It's so hot here, that by the time I get done with outdoor chores, I'm drained of energy, so I've been letting the house slide some. I'll get it back in shape.

 

[bruceha2000]

This critter is smart. It found the outside edge and is tunneling ther. The metal is a good 8 inches underground now so it is one determined tunneler.

Yep that is the problem with rodents, tunneling under and around things is their nature. How big is the space? Could you put some hardware cloth on the ground? They can't tunnel through that.

 

[getaclue]

Sometimes I hate that Dh still has to go to work, but this is not one of those times. He works tonight...YAY!!!!

 

[getaclue]

The kids are home from church camp. Yesterday the little girls learned how to apply makeup, and not use too much. It's 5 year girls, so they were thrilled. Today they learned more grooming, brushing their hair, washing their hands and using a nail brush to clean under their nails, and how to apply perfume. They also learned to tie dye, and did T shirts. The little girls were given hair brushes, loofahs, toothpaste, toothbrushes, hand lotion, nail brushes, and ChapSticks.

Yesterday the boys (8 year olds) learned to bait a hook, and fish. They also learned that in an emergency, lake water can be used for drinking, but it has to be boiled first. Today, they learned good sportsmanship. There were various competitive activities with winners, and losers both as teams, and individually. They also learned to tie dye, and brought home T shirts.

 

[microchick]

It's somewhere between 7 and 12 inches depending on what angle you look at it. 8X4 feet in all. It started out as a coop on 'stilts' with the underneath being used for shade. Later I added the 'ground floor' and used it as a grow out pen or rooster pen whichever need arose first. I've had nothing but trouble with it from the get go when it comes to rodents. The floor is two inch oak planks and being oak planks, rough hewn, they have gaps that the mice love. The mice and rats both love the crawl space.

In my quest to lighten my work load I've decided that it will go back to being a 'loft' coop. I was going to start ripping things apart this afternoon but we had a severe storm pop up out of nowhere. This storm came in from the north instead of the usual west or south west so it ruffled a few feathers and had all sorts of warnings out. We got rain which we didn't need, thunder and lightning, always fun, gusty winds, not so bad, had worse and lots of scary swirly clouds that sometimes drop down funnel clouds. Naturally everything is soggy now. The Amish crew had just finished raking the hay in the field. They must have fired those percherons up to a fast trot to get the job done and get home before the storm hit. I don't think I've even seen one of those big draft horses in a trot come to think of it. Amish horses have two speeds, walk and trot. Three if it's a teenage boy showing off his first buggy and engaging in a buggy race with one of his buds. Always fun to watch.

So @getaclue, how does it feel to officially reside in the land of 6 Saturdays followed by a Sunday?

 

[ronott1]

Good morning. Happy Friday! Anyone have fun weekend plans? I was supposed to do cemetery work but looks like thunderstorms both days this weekend, which means sewing days.

I will be doing some yard work and baking!