Washingtonians

[SadieSue]

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Looks nice. It is also very nice of you to add certain amenities such as the radio. May I ask what their favorite station is? Are they into modern or pop, maybe country or classical? I would not let them have a computer though as they would probably poop on the keys.

They prefer "Classic Rock" and I put a special cover on the key board so they don't get it dirty when they are pecking out messages.

I am amazed of all those pics the biggest comment is on the dang radio that I had for got to remove.

CR, I think we all appreciated how you spoiled your chickens by letting them have a radio. And your coop is really cool - I am beyond impressed with what you've put together for $20!

 

[renart]

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Some info on rats.

http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/comm001/comm001.htm[/url

 

[pettec63]

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They prefer "Classic Rock" and I put a special cover on the key board so they don't get it dirty when they are pecking out messages.

I am amazed of all those pics the biggest comment is on the dang radio that I had for got to remove.

CR, I think we all appreciated how you spoiled your chickens by letting them have a radio. And your coop is really cool - I am beyond impressed with what you've put together for $20!

Very nice CR I have a radio for my little guys, (cause it's out near my garden) lol I play classic rock and I found a country legends station that plays stuff from when I was a kid and used to Rodeo!! I love it!! so we go back and forth!!! I do a lot of singing so my birds are probably used to my voice !! or then again they may be sick of it!! LOL

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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I'm still flummoxed that anyone would want to get rid of salal. Not only is it native, low-input, and pretty in its own right, it's a valued landscape plant everywhere: on the east coast and especially in England it's the mainstay ground-cover of large public plantings, along with Holodiscus discolor and Ceonathus cuneatus (prev. californicus), all of which I've seen local ill-educated landscape contractors bulldoze out and replace with that tool of Satan, Helix hedera, English Ivy, pure evil expressed in plant form.

There is a place for salal. It was planted in this landscape mixed with some nice ornamentals and it has run underground and come up lots of places it was not planted therefore is a nightmare. It's a contant battle to keep it trimmed away from the nicer plants as it comes up through them, much like ivy. I like it in it's place but should not have been planted in that landscape.

If there's other low specimen plants, it is a problem; I think at RSF they use bamboo barrier to keep it (and also low Oregon grape, another native stolon-spreader that's often replaced by ivy) out of the Primula displays, for instance. In my great age, I've come to the conclusion that the rarer and more delicate the plant in a large landscape, the more it needs to be planted in a big tall pot or trough.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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Some info on rats.

corrected link to rats at WSU Gardening

I hate rats. I hate 'em soooo much. I'm so glad Zathras takes them down.

 

[VelvettFog]

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It's so bad I saw people locally that normally put in some nice hay. They were makin green chop of it yesterday.

My BIL just keeps mowing hay and puts up what the weather allows: sileage bales are a bother to handle (heavy, and prone to explode until fully cured) but the best nutritionally, square bales are the most salable but also take the most fuel and labor and the best weather, regular round bales are a challenge on some fields: last year one of them started rolling and then bouncing when it left the gate and ended up twenty feet up in a maple tree at the bottom of the hill fifty feet onto the neighbor's property.

I've heard that quite a few farmers refuse to feed their livestock those round bails. The farmers are concerned that their animals wont be getting a square meal.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

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For me it WAS called Michelle but now that she won't be able to for at least most of the summer. I will have to try her step dad. I am sure he will do ok.
Ya need to get ya a good neighbor friend.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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My BIL just keeps mowing hay and puts up what the weather allows: sileage bales are a bother to handle (heavy, and prone to explode until fully cured) but the best nutritionally, square bales are the most salable but also take the most fuel and labor and the best weather, regular round bales are a challenge on some fields: last year one of them started rolling and then bouncing when it left the gate and ended up twenty feet up in a maple tree at the bottom of the hill fifty feet onto the neighbor's property.

I've heard that quite a few farmers refuse to feed their livestock those round bails. The farmers are concerned that their animals wont be getting a square meal.

They're going to end up with hungry cows, I'm afraid: it's either accepting that they need to become well rounded or pay twice the price for fuel consumption and handling.

In truth, the big problem with round bales is that they're... big. Really, really big. You have to have equipment to handle them, or buy them one at a time (which also wastes fuel like whoa). And as last year's little adventure proved, potentially darned dangerous on steep ground. but every thing about them is more fuel and labor efficient, and that's where the modern farm economy points: less fuel, fewer people. Drive I-90 across Lincoln County at night and see where that leads: long stretches of road without a single visible house light horizon to horizon. When I used to (very occassionally) take that route between WSU and the coast back in the mid seventies, there were farmhouses every section or two where now there's, at most, an equipment shed and the remnants of a wind break, without even a broken foundation to mark where the house was.

The first time we drove to Missoula in the fall of 2006 the emptiness of the modern landscape was striking.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

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Just wait until it gets the free paint on it.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

For your rat-identification pleasure: Norway Rat versus Roof Rat Quiz

I'll now go take another shower, or something, ugh.