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Oh, that baby is brand new. I love the first photo...that is so sweet....little eye ball poking out looking.
Mine are in lockdown. We will see what we get.
Imagine a year ago you had no idea how to do any of this..and here you are, a year later, another eggspert!!!!! :alu
We wil be at Skamania Saturday, be good to see ya, but I do not want your cold
!!!
yes thanks to my enabler friends...not mentioning any names...Hmmmm wonder who that would be.
I have learned tons from all of you...but I know I am no Illia or CL..thems is eggsperts.
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We're trying to hold out turning the heat on until November .... I'm sooo chilly! I can't use the FP without setting off the fire alarms.
I got a letter from Germany that I am getting a small inheritance. I hope it is enough for a woodstove!
A woodstove/gas fireplace is another one of those things I'd love to have but there's no good place to put one (well, minus the west end of the kitchen, which is irrelevantly far from the rest of the house PLUS is where my orchids live).
What I would spend money on if I had it is a major rewire (I have insufficient 110 outlets and an absolutely unused 220 slot that would power an electric forced air heater), all new doors and windows, active skylights (I have three passive ones which are no help venting the house in summer), and enough solar electric and solar water heating to get us off the grid for half the year. And a roofed outside kitchen where I could install my sister's cast-off gas grill and have a source of hot water/ heated cast iron objects for the times of no electricity.
I am wanting a wood stove. I feel better when I am warmer than the forced air heat pump can affordably produce. I also have access to wood through my son. He always seems to know where to find trees that have been removed from roadways. I would also love to double the insulation in the roof.
I am also thinking that replacing the refrigerator may be something to think on. The 2000.00 plus price tag for the kind I would like to have in the house may not really be worth the savings. I may be better off replacing the frig in the garage with a new basic model and make the savings go further. Solar panels and a clay outdoor bread oven would be the icing on the cake.
I need to replace the kitchen cabinets, but replacing the windows maybe a better use of money. If we do windows I want at least 3 of the windows bayed out so that I can grow more plants inside. My garden window is over full.
DH and his dad can do most of the work, it's just funding the supplies. Oh I almost forgot that the house will need repainted next year. We have a number of pieces of siding that should be replace this time. At least I don't have the same problems as a number of the neighboring houses. They have type of siding that has been failing for a long time. Both of the neighbors behind us need whole sides of their houses replaced. Some of the list will get done next year for sure, but it seems that the list is always growing.
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The eggs are from my EEs. The silkie boys are the dads. They are only hatchery quality but they do take care of all the girls and find them treats. And they watch for the hawks very well. They should be cute chicks when they dry.
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A woodstove/gas fireplace is another one of those things I'd love to have but there's no good place to put one (well, minus the west end of the kitchen, which is irrelevantly far from the rest of the house PLUS is where my orchids live).
What I would spend money on if I had it is a major rewire (I have insufficient 110 outlets and an absolutely unused 220 slot that would power an electric forced air heater), all new doors and windows, active skylights (I have three passive ones which are no help venting the house in summer), and enough solar electric and solar water heating to get us off the grid for half the year. And a roofed outside kitchen where I could install my sister's cast-off gas grill and have a source of hot water/ heated cast iron objects for the times of no electricity.
I am wanting a wood stove. I feel better when I am warmer than the forced air heat pump can affordably produce. I also have access to wood through my son. He always seems to know where to find trees that have been removed from roadways. I would also love to double the insulation in the roof.
I am also thinking that replacing the refrigerator may be something to think on. The 2000.00 plus price tag for the kind I would like to have in the house may not really be worth the savings. I may be better off replacing the frig in the garage with a new basic model and make the savings go further. Solar panels and a clay outdoor bread oven would be the icing on the cake.
I need to replace the kitchen cabinets, but replacing the windows maybe a better use of money. If we do windows I want at least 3 of the windows bayed out so that I can grow more plants inside. My garden window is over full.
DH and his dad can do most of the work, it's just funding the supplies. Oh I almost forgot that the house will need repainted next year. We have a number of pieces of siding that should be replace this time. At least I don't have the same problems as a number of the neighboring houses. They have type of siding that has been failing for a long time. Both of the neighbors behind us need whole sides of their houses replaced. Some of the list will get done next year for sure, but it seems that the list is always growing.
I got interrupted in the middle of replacing the stove-wall of my cabinets with sheet metal and restaurant style shelving; I long ago replaced the cheap cabinets on one wall with open shelving. And I *will* some day replace the stupid pantry cabinet with one of those pull-out vertical shelf things, because so much food gets wasted by being shoved to the back and forgotten.
Well, I haven't been getting anything in my email so who knows what all I've missed on here. Thought I'd make a quick post maybe start getting them again and to say that I just saw the weirdest egg I've ever seen.
You should have seen the egg that the wife cracked open on Sunday night. It was one of those nights where we decided to have breakfast for supper. After cooking up the biscuits, sausage & gravy and frying up some bacon she went to cook me some over-easy eggs. Well, one of them was a duck egg and out came a normal looking egg along with a much smaller but perfectly formed egg - shell and all - on the inside as well. Here's a little bitty blue egg sitting in the white of the other right next to the yolk. Now how about that?!
The inside of the smaller egg was just egg white except for some small whitish stuff that was probably either the chalaza or the germinal disc.
On a side note, for those thinking about next year already, it looks like I will have a real surplus of WBS Ameraucanas. I hatched out over 150 this year and still have 25 in the brooder with several more in the two chickhouses and in the lower coop below. I plan to raise all these up before making my final cuts for the breeding pens. Thus far my only disappointment has been that the male/female ratio is about 50/50. So I'll have lots of excess cockerels for anyone wanting to get started with the WBS variety or wishing to make their own EE's. I'm pretty happy with the boys I've got now so I'm not putting too much focus on males this year as I plan to keep them unless I get a significant improvement in the their progeny. And I hate to spend the $$ to keep feeding them on the hopes that I'll get something phenomenal that I just can't pass up. In fact, I've already picked out several that I want to get rid of ASAP in case anyone wants them. Otherwise I'm probably going to just put them down now because they won't be worth the $10 which is what I get if I keep feeding them. And I've still got plenty in the freezer. But I'll keep all the females for now though and make the final big cut next year - unless I see something really pop out like I did with the two I sold today.
The Barnies and Wellies are doing well too. As of now, I'm keeping all of them. I did make some significant improvement in leg and skin color. Moreso with the Wellies than the Barnies. From what I can see, I haven't lost anything from last year but it's still a little to early to see what the final result wll be.
The Barnies have kept their lacing and the sheen is as good as it was on the pullet that did so well at the show last March. The males are looking pretty good too but all of them need improvement in leg and skin color. Given that I whacked everything but my best trio last year, I'm pretty happy to have just what I've got. And I'm pretty happy with most of what I'm seeing in most of the males and females. Still, I've got several years ahead of me to correct a few things.
I've got 3 really nice Welsummer cockerels but I'm starting to see some fluff peaking out at the bottom of two of their tails. My best male I will keep for breeding but I can't show him as somebody (probably Goliath) took a bite out of his comb and one whole point is missing from the middle. As for the females, some of you know that I decided to move the hackle color on my birds more to the "copper" side vice the "yellow gold" side of the spectrum. Both are acceptable according to the SOP but I like the darker hackles more than the yellowish and I also felt this will be a way for me to distinguish my line from many others who seem to prefer the more golden mantle on the females.
That's pretty much it. I've still got a few birds for sale, mostly EE's, Black & Blue Orps, maybe some BJGs and Buff Brahmas but for the most part I'm stuck with feeding a bunch of birds for quite a few more months before I decide what to do. Oh, btw, I do have a lone Lavender Ameraucana. I had planned on working with the Lavenders to help get them accepted but now with just the lone male I may decide not to. I've either got to get a couple of Lavender pullets or get rid of him. So if anyone can help with either of those, email me please.
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I am wanting a wood stove. I feel better when I am warmer than the forced air heat pump can affordably produce. I also have access to wood through my son. He always seems to know where to find trees that have been removed from roadways. I would also love to double the insulation in the roof.
I am also thinking that replacing the refrigerator may be something to think on. The 2000.00 plus price tag for the kind I would like to have in the house may not really be worth the savings. I may be better off replacing the frig in the garage with a new basic model and make the savings go further. Solar panels and a clay outdoor bread oven would be the icing on the cake.
I need to replace the kitchen cabinets, but replacing the windows maybe a better use of money. If we do windows I want at least 3 of the windows bayed out so that I can grow more plants inside. My garden window is over full.
DH and his dad can do most of the work, it's just funding the supplies. Oh I almost forgot that the house will need repainted next year. We have a number of pieces of siding that should be replace this time. At least I don't have the same problems as a number of the neighboring houses. They have type of siding that has been failing for a long time. Both of the neighbors behind us need whole sides of their houses replaced. Some of the list will get done next year for sure, but it seems that the list is always growing.
I got interrupted in the middle of replacing the stove-wall of my cabinets with sheet metal and restaurant style shelving; I long ago replaced the cheap cabinets on one wall with open shelving. And I *will* some day replace the stupid pantry cabinet with one of those pull-out vertical shelf things, because so much food gets wasted by being shoved to the back and forgotten.
I can so relate to stuff getting shoved into the back of cabinets.This year I have had to throw out more cans of food than ever before. I think I finally know where a lot of money has gone. I have cleaned out the medicine area. I keep both supplements and over the counter meds together. I found that I must have stopped buying as many different vitamins and such, back in 2006 or 2007, because I had a lot of bottles with pull dates of 2008. I got tough with myself and threw out anything with a past pull date. Then I located another stash of the same kind of things. DH had is stash in a living room cabinet. That stash got the toss also.
DH and his dad have built me pull out draws in the cheap cabinets that came with the house. I do know that I prefer the drawers that have the pulls attached to the bottom of the drawers better than the drawer that have the hardware on the sides of the drawers. The slides that are on the sides damage the inside of door to the cabinets. I have some open shelving in the kitchen, but I am always concerned with dust and grease collecting on the dishes. My favorite thing that DH built me were the pull out spice racks that hang from the cabinets.
Here is a picture of Homer. I hope that I can catch up with Cheryl sooner than later. Homer is definitely working on his crow. He has an almost musical tone to his crow, but he is getting louder each day.
