The Old Folks Home

[Cynthia12]

These are not the droids you are looking for...

Happy Friday to you too. We got about six inches of new snow yesterday. Made for some interesting driving coming home from work. Of course getting to work was just as fun since the road to get out of our housing development was a sheet of ice. There were nine cars that slid off the road in one short span. No major damage, no one hurt but no one could get out until the salt trucks came through. I do wish they would hit that road just a little more often when we are having bad weather. We are about the last area to get plowed in our town.

We only got about a half an inch. You are higher. Yes, they should be hitting those roads sooner. Had a cousin that slid off the road up north yesterday. Did quite a number on her car..needed a tow truck.

At least she was fine, but..she was in her work out .. outfit..a bit chilly while waiting for the truck. Had a coat, but not much on under there.

 

[Cynthia12]

SCG probably a good idea if you lose power a lot during storms. I have thought of getting one for us too. The funny thing is we usually don't lose power during storms but at the weirdest times for seemingly no reason.

We have a good one, and when lose power, it's usually when the wind kicks up real hard. ?? Weird. There was one time, the power was out for hrs! Found out, it was a poor little squirrel that did it. Poor little squirrel didn't feel much..I don't think.

 

[IttyBiddyRedHen]

Quote: Darn. I forgot to come in here yesterday!
Nope. My "moxie" moniker is from being a red head with chuztpah ..... I think I only had a taste of the actual drink once. Not being a southerner, I learned about it later.

Not a goat person here. The only goats I have ever been close enough to were at the petting zoos.

I thought goats ate....everything.

 

[IttyBiddyRedHen]

ooops....the glitch got me...double post alert!!!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Get one big enough to handle your water pump with out overloading it!

Scott (who has one and it needs to be bigger)

Good to know, I didn't think about that. I know it needs to be strong enough to run my pellet stove, fridge and freezer, too. I also want to get one that kicks on when the power goes out and doesn't require me to manually start it, because to start it I'd actually have to be here... and I'm usually gone working for a good portion of the day. I know that's going to be a lot more expensive, but I think it's the way to go. Let's say we lose power at 0800 - my pipes could be long frozen by the time I got home and the generator would be worthless.

We're almost ready for the storm - got the chicken roof shoveled, gas in the car that has AWD and studded tires, wood stoves are started, couple bags of chicken food placed in the car for extra weight, waterers all changed and food topped off in the pens, got my employees who are working this weekend reserved cots and prepaid warm meals from the kitchen to stay the weekend at work so they don't have to drive in it (but just in case I'm gassed up and ready to go in plus I've got virtual people on call in case we can't make it in and my employees decide to not stay overnight), and we're about to go out and get some more buckets of salt/sand before hunkering down. They're predicting up to an inch of ice, now.

Darn. I forgot to come in here yesterday!
Nope. My "moxie" moniker is from being a red head with chuztpah ..... I think I only had a taste of the actual drink once. Not being a southerner, I learned about it later.

Not a goat person here. The only goats I have ever been close enough to were at the petting zoos.

I thought goats ate....everything.

Where are you at on the East Coast? I always thought Moxie was a northern drink. Pretty sure it was invented in Maine - we have a Moxie festival each year.
And goats are surprisingly picky eaters about some things. I have one goat that will sample anything and everything, but most goats won't eat anything if it has touched the ground. They do this to "prevent" worms. If a chicken flies into their hay feeder and scratches around it is no longer edible. But throw a metal wire and old pine tree wreath on the ground and it is scrumptious. I don't pretend to understand their logic.

 

[chickisoup]

Although it is snowing here right now, it is the big, fluffy kind that doesn't take much to move. Our potential for a big snow event isn't till Sunday night. Major storm to our south, minor storm to our north tonight into tomorrow night but we should be good. Temps in the teens which is turning into our norm, sigh. Boy, if we hadn't modified the chooks setup my girls would have had major claustrophobia by now! :cd

BTW- I have pics of the finished work but am still figuring out how to get them on here with the new desktop. I REALLY do not like Windows 8.1!

We have two generators. One larger that sits under its own box on the porch and a smaller one on wheels. We have had our power off for as long as 3 days twice but the norm for us is usually 8 to 12 hours or so. We can't really plug in everything at once but we're old pros at this and know how to do things like pack blankets in the freezers so they will hold for a really long time without power and since we usually lose our power in winter, our back porch and an ice chest becomes our fridge. AND now that I have my French press, coffee is no problem!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I hope you can figure out how to upload the photos. Tell me more about your generator method. Why do you have 2?

 

[chickisoup]

THIS IS THE GREENHOUSE, BREEZEWAY, COOP SETUP. THERE IS A POPHOLE IN THE SIDE OF THE GREENHOUSE WHICH LETS THE GIRLS GO FROM THE COOP TO THERE WITHOUT EVER TOUCHING THE SNOW.

THIS IS THE FRONT OF THE COOP, OF COURSE. IF YOU EXPAND THE PIC YOU CAN SEE A COUPLE OF THE GIRLS IN THE BREEZEWAY. (THERE IS PLASTIC ON ALL SIDES, INCLUDING THE GATE, TO BLOCK AND WIND OR BLOWING SNOW.)

HERE IS MAX AND ONE OF THE LADIES HANGING OUT IN THE GREENHOUSE.
THIS IS THE VIEW OUT MY KITCHEN WINDOW. OUR FIELD IS TO THE EAST AND NORTH AND DROPS DOWN IN OUR WOODS WHICH BORDERS THOUSANDS OF ACRES OF STATE AND FEDERAL LAND. THAT IS WHY "'FREE RANGING' IS OUT OF THE QUESTION FOR MY GIRLS EXCEPT OUT INTO THE MAIN GARDEN AREA (IN FRONT) AND ANOTHER GATED AND FENCED AREA TO THE SOUTH THAT LETS THEM GET UNDER THE APPLE TREES.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I love that setup! It is really nice (and really clean). Your chickens look much happier than mine.

 

[chickisoup]

I hope you can figure out how to upload the photos. Tell me more about your generator method. Why do you have 2?

We have two mostly because the first one was getting a few hours on it and didn't want to wait till it failed, which it never did. The bigger one sitting on the back porch runs the stuff in the house and the little one can be hooked up to the freezer in the garage if needed or hooked up to the well. We've only needed to do that once or twice tho because we have a large water heater which has lots of fresh water in it, we have rain barrels everywhere which are always full except in the dead of winter, and we keep several jugs of water stored in the house at all times just in case we get caught off guard. We also have a propane cooking stove and a fireplace so we have never had to hook up the furnace to the generators. that isn't an issue in warm weather and as Alaskan can attest to, in winter we usually have more than enough snow to insulate at least the bottom of the house keeping the pipes from freezing. We do throw all the cupboards open and expose as many pipes as we can inside tho if the power is off too long and plug in the pump so we can run water thru.