Washingtonians

[Stumpfarmer]

Progress, if you want to call it that: day three of hoop house. Next step involves a certain amount of gorilla glue and patience; I decided that when is working with 2X2s, glue is better than fasteners for reason of mystery wood splitting if you look at it cross eyed, even with pilot holes:

Yes, there will be nice mitered-end braces on the door end, but all my help goes wobbly when asked to cut a 45 degree angle. Yes, I know the plywood on the blind end isn't cut to fit: I'd rather not have a round piece of plywood if I decide to remodel that by adding a nice little A-frame coop on blocks, and it's been left whole for that reason. That end is a 5X4 cut of plywood laying on it's long side, for scale.Rehabbing the greenhouse is next in line after getting a nice little tower for the Hamburg cockeral.


Also, I may have mentioned the lack of flatness on my yard; picture of the front of the housoid from the door of the hoop house

I kept trying to get some texture in the sky when I realized it is one of those June days with what Dad called "headache sky:" flat altocirrus clouds turning the sunlight into glare.

Also on the list for this summer is replace the front door (the low-E microcoating has gone bad, and it's essentially opaque) and clean off/repaint the front porch: the latter has been on the list for the last five summers.

Of course that's a miter box there: where else would I put it?

 

[Kenshan1]

Quote:
When I tried to introduce both my broodies to new chicks, neither would take them, and I tried with 2 batches of chicks! (Yes, I really am overrun). I pulled the eggs out from under the hens and replaced them with the chicks. The hens got up and started pecking the chicks and seemed quite agitated. One went on to hatch 4 BCM from cowgirlgrace. They hatched Sunday and the hen is very gentle with them, clucks to them and gently nudges them back to her when they wander too far.

Give them all whatever you feed the chicks. The hen does not need layer food as she is not laying eggs.

Well the broody hen worked for over night & sometime this afternoon. 6:30am all was good, chicks under her but when I got home at 2pm all the chicks were out of the nest & very cold, 1 almost dead. I'm thinking the chicks couldn't get back in the nest but broodie could have kicked them out. I don't know & wasn't going to take the chance. Been wanting this breed for a while now. I didn't give up on the 1 chick & after half hour under the light she was sitting up wobbly. I really thought she was gone, almost stiff. After 1.5hrs I could hardly tell which one it was. Now several hrs later I can't tell. I think I know then someone else looses their balance cleaning themselves lol. They are finally eating, I had to crush the food smaller. One would grab a piece but couldn't get it down. This is my first time with this young of chicks & I thought 4wk old chicks were young back when we bought our first. Quite the learning experience & giving me a little more grey hair lol.

Shannon

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Hey everyone! Been SUPER busy with work!

Having to "train" the gal who will be doing some of my job (just three days a week) while I'm on maternity leave...I forgot just how much stuff I do day-to-day and how many steps there are!

It's 46 degrees and pouring rain right now. I came home to a HUGE box on the back porch--too heavy for my preggy self to lift, so I drug it into the laundry room--I think it's the first of my baby shower gifts!

I haven't opened it yet.

My geese are done hatching and the two Buffs are going out with the three Africans tonight. No movement from any of my solid black Muscovy eggs.

I had one BLRW bantam chick hatch (at day 19)--woke up to that this morning.

I moved it's clutch mates into the hatcher before work but no pips or anything at this point. The lone chick is in the dryer-bator...I'll probably wait until tomorrow night after work to move it out to a brooder because I'll need to shuffle some more chicks around to make sure the 3 week olds are separated from the day olds and to see if any more hatch.

Other than that--still no test results. I called the clinic today and left a message with the nurse....the doctor did say I needed to "slow things down" and kind of scared me with the threat of bed-rest!

So I have to be careful and try to avoid that at all costs!

Oh and Dave--I have not forgotten about you! I've just been super-busy! I will make time tonight to call--if you'll be around? I have to go out & feed/water everything in the monsoon--but I'll call!

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Okay--the clinic just called. I failed my test.

She said the high end of the normal range was up to 140 and mine was 162.

So now I have to go back in on Monday for the three-hour test.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
Ugh. I hate glucose tolerance tests beyond the power of words to describe, especially three hour ones. My sympathies are with you.

 

[RedReiner]

omg I have 3 tiny little serama babies!! they are so tiny! and so cute!

two are black or blue, and one is bright yellow with a black dot on its head. can serama come out sex linked? I put them in a giant cardboard box with their momma so the bigger chickens wouldnt eat them. she hatched 3 out of 7, I checked the 4 eggs left and two were dark with air cells so I put those in the bator just in case, two were clear. so what color will the yellow one be?? I will go get some pics

gotta mash some food they are so tiny

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
Ugh. I hate glucose tolerance tests beyond the power of words to describe, especially three hour ones. My sympathies are with you.

I know...I mean--what's the point?

I have gained 15lbs and I'm 30 weeks along now. I don't eat sugar, sweets, etc and this last test make me queasy/dizzy and feel off....I was not overweight before I got pregnant and the doctor seems to think I'm gaining weight at a good rate (slow & steady). I would HATE to have to be on insulin, if it comes to that...my mom is type 2 and my dad's diabetes is controlled by medicine.

I am hoping mine could be controlled by diet--but as far as exercise--the doctor already said I'm doing a little too much (feeding the horses, dragging hoses, shoveling/raking) and I walk about 2 miles a day just doing my job....and the longer I'm on my feet, the more swollen they become.

 

[herbandteas]

Quote:
Ugh. I hate glucose tolerance tests beyond the power of words to describe, especially three hour ones. My sympathies are with you.

I know...I mean--what's the point?

I have gained 15lbs and I'm 30 weeks along now. I don't eat sugar, sweets, etc and this last test make me queasy/dizzy and feel off....I was not overweight before I got pregnant and the doctor seems to think I'm gaining weight at a good rate (slow & steady). I would HATE to have to be on insulin, if it comes to that...my mom is type 2 and my dad's diabetes is controlled by medicine.

I am hoping mine could be controlled by diet--but as far as exercise--the doctor already said I'm doing a little too much (feeding the horses, dragging hoses, shoveling/raking) and I walk about 2 miles a day just doing my job....and the longer I'm on my feet, the more swollen they become.

if your feet are really swollen its time to slow down a bit. I have had one of the 3 hr tests they found nothing but I was not pg then either. It was because i passed out. I have these issues from time to time where I pass out and they can never figure out why.

I just had one of those pass out things in april but it was a pretty bad one cuz I stopped breathing. Got a fun ride to the hospital too

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Quote:
Ugh. I hate glucose tolerance tests beyond the power of words to describe, especially three hour ones. My sympathies are with you.

I know...I mean--what's the point?

I have gained 15lbs and I'm 30 weeks along now. I don't eat sugar, sweets, etc and this last test make me queasy/dizzy and feel off....I was not overweight before I got pregnant and the doctor seems to think I'm gaining weight at a good rate (slow & steady). I would HATE to have to be on insulin, if it comes to that...my mom is type 2 and my dad's diabetes is controlled by medicine.

I am hoping mine could be controlled by diet--but as far as exercise--the doctor already said I'm doing a little too much (feeding the horses, dragging hoses, shoveling/raking) and I walk about 2 miles a day just doing my job....and the longer I'm on my feet, the more swollen they become.

I'm an insulin dependant Type 2 and was "diagnosed" by gtt in my second pregnancy; I wasn't having any high BG and my doctor didn't send me to have my HgA1c checked before the test, which the ADS doesn't consider best practice. I had multiple 3 hour gtts as a kid because my family was part of a huge clinical study of Type 2 diabetes, so my dislike goes back a ways. Ask your doc if you can get a meter, test regularly, and *act like a healthy diabetic* (which it sounds like you already are) without the second test; if you're having real-life highs then taking insulin is indicated (and not that big a deal with modern needles) but I'd be willing to bet that you only have highs in the face of a glucose challenge, and *staying away from high sugar foods and raggenfraggingelzenfratzen glucola* is going to be the healthiest thing you can do.

I get grouchy about this: my last three hour glucose tolerance test made me go back to having morning sickness for about two weeks after, and probably didn't help with the process that led me to develop Type 2 eight years later, premenopause (I also got caught in the nonsense which was the high-carb reducing diet fad of the late eighties). I'm behind on my medical journal reading, but my last binge included several articles which, shall we say, did not indicate that GTTs have a secure place in scientific evidence based medicine.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
I know...I mean--what's the point?

I have gained 15lbs and I'm 30 weeks along now. I don't eat sugar, sweets, etc and this last test make me queasy/dizzy and feel off....I was not overweight before I got pregnant and the doctor seems to think I'm gaining weight at a good rate (slow & steady). I would HATE to have to be on insulin, if it comes to that...my mom is type 2 and my dad's diabetes is controlled by medicine.

I am hoping mine could be controlled by diet--but as far as exercise--the doctor already said I'm doing a little too much (feeding the horses, dragging hoses, shoveling/raking) and I walk about 2 miles a day just doing my job....and the longer I'm on my feet, the more swollen they become.

if your feet are really swollen its time to slow down a bit. I have had one of the 3 hr tests they found nothing but I was not pg then either. It was because i passed out. I have these issues from time to time where I pass out and they can never figure out why.

I just had one of those pass out things in april but it was a pretty bad one cuz I stopped breathing. Got a fun ride to the hospital too

Yeah...my feeties are swollen every night.

Passing out & stopped breathing??

Whoa....normally, my blood sugar is very low--hypoglycemic....around 64 or so....so 162 is really high for me...I feel fine (not dizzy/light-headed, shaking, sweaty) like I used to (before becoming pregnant). The worst I felt (blood sugar-wise) was about 5-10 minutes after I had to drink that nasty @ss stuff.

Oh and they can never find a vein on the inside of my elbows--so they had to stab my hands this last time.