waving as I go...

There are times when life seems like a parade route with slow moving floats that never want to go anywhere. And then there are times when it seems like something from a movie where the floats take off in fast motion and the people are waving frantically as they whiz past the crowds.

Spring is always one of those crazy times when things pick up the pace faster than should be allowed, but there's not a lot that can be done about it.  But there are some really good things happening among that craziness.

The two teens who help us out some assisted me in putting up the fencing around the garden area yesterday. It made a world of difference having two extra sets of hands. One rotated the roll of wire, one pulled the wiring taut, while one of us attached the wires to the posts. We rotated positions some throughout the procedure, and hopefully that made it a little easier on everyone. I think it looks so much better than the first section of the garden I did a few years ago.  I've planted most of my pole beans (though not all!), and everything else will be slowly planted over the next 6 weeks, depending on when the seed should be planted. I'm excited, but also a little sunburned and wondering what on earth I've gotten myself into this year. :) And in the midst of cleaning out the garage to get the brooder box outside where it belongs, the rain water barrel we bought almost 10 years ago is finally outside near the shed where I should have put it years ago. :) Finally!!!

I swept all the dust (much of it coming from having the biddies and the brooder box inside the house the last three weeks) last night, then mopped the living room a few minutes ago, and it STILL looks dusty in some spots to me. The rain last night washed a yellow line of polled against the dam, and I can't help but wonder if some of this is pollen we've tracked inside and not actually dust. I've been off my allergy meds since January, and I've noticed an increase in congestion and pressure, but am holding off on taking anything as long as possible. And despite the complaints of many people, I am THANKFUL for the rain coming when it is, both for staving off a summer drought AND for hopefully making some of the next 3 pollen weeks less miserable.

And this weekend is the kids Easter party at church. Due to a lot of changes and transitions in how things are done, this is a last minute planned event, and I've got a LOT of stuff to do between now and tomorrow at 2pm. So starting in a few hours, our schedule from now through Monday week is way busier than I care for it to be. I'm trying to keep my focus on one thing at a time and what IS being accomplished and not what is waiting by the wayside. So far that's resulted in a few mistakes (typing in our address backwards on an order, etc) but so far nothing that is so drastic that life is truly messed up.

And with that, I'm signing off to make my Wal-mart list.

95% done

From the side, everything looks just like the old one. :)

Still need to make and add the front door. There's no decoration in the top like on the old one,
 but we added handles on each side to help with moving the house. :) That's worth way more than any decoration!

My boards on the back don't line up quite right, but we'll be adding the last pieces the end of this week,
and for the top open spaces, I think I'm just going to make a hen house sign to cover it. :)

Managed to get the posts in for the wire fencing for the garden area before the rain started,
 but will have to wait until my helpers are back to unroll and secure the wire. 

On the rooster front, Old Poppa is slowly healing, though we are having to be very careful to make sure his son, who his now the dominant rooster, does not come in contact with him. The hens have almost totally switched their allegiance, so I think the only thing we can do at this point is find a new home for Old Poppa. I never dreamed I would feel sad about losing a rooster.

birds and buildings

The youngest rooster (who was also messed up the most in the last few days of fighting) has been relocated to a new home where he can hopefully rest and recover and enjoy the rest of his life in almost celibacy. We did rehome one of our egg-eating hens to the same farm, but no one has seen a sign of her since we dropped her off. Knowing how good she was at hiding in the hen house here, I think she's found her a spot in one of the many barns and sheds there. Hopefully the young roo and the strange hen will find each other and be at peace with one another.  One down...one more roo to see about.

And here's what else is happening on the bird and building front...

 The last two Saturdays one of the teens from church has helped me assemble the walls to the frame of the small hen house.

 We were able to reuse the old nesting boxes, but with a new board re-inforcing the bottom, a new support beam, tile, and a good coat of fresh paint.

 And we used the old perch, but added a second one lower down for the smaller birds. I think they'll like that a lot better, and I'll feel better that they're not on the ground when it's damp or cool.

 Above is the pen I've built over the last few weeks. It doesn't look pretty, but it's standing upright and doesn't fall over when you bump it (like the one it's replacing!)

 And here's the old, rotting boards from the old little hen house. I used them as a pattern for the new one.

And this afternoon it was finally warm enough to paint!  The side vents and roof is salvaged from the old version, with new (and more) staples over the chicken wiring and paint over the boards. I could see where the carpenter bees had done their drilling, and I'm hoping by painting these boards it might help stop that. Time will tell.

So tomorrow morning we'll add handles to the base for moving the house, attach the top roof and side vents, then hopefully attach trimwork and side roofs, then add a screw/hook near the nesting boxes so I can hang a heat lamp inside. Then all the biddies will move out of their nesting box and have twice as much space to run around, plus experience the world around them while still being protected from the fox and hawks!

I'll be glad when this project is over. :) The big hen house we're jobbing out to someone else.

rooster update

Not sure what is going to happen with our noisy, grumpy old birds, but the dominance has clearly shifted from the Poppa of the flock to the largest rooster. He actually slept in the hen house last night, with the old rooster hiding in the corner, and the new Alpha hung out with the hens all day yesterday and part of this morning. But this morning the hens aren't totally cooperating and are rotating between the two roosters, so I'm not sure what is going to happen. I may wind up having to capture a rooster or two to keep them isolated, a thought that does not thrill me at all.

Meanwhile the rebuilding of the small house for the biddies is making slow but sure progress. Hope to paint boards tomorrow afternoon and finish assembling and moving everything Saturday morning. And at some point there will be pictures!!

focus

Isn't it funny (in an ironic way) how when we should feel on top of the world, we don't?
And when we should be in the depths of despair and our emotional heart physically hurts, we have that inner peace?

Last week I had a biopsy - one of those "we don't think it's anything but since we have no other explanation and things are clearly out of whack we need to double check" kind of things. The dr didn't think it was serious; I didn't think it was serious, and yet, when he didn't call with the test results Fri morning like he said he was going to...I was ticked. When I got home from Quilts of Valor it was too late to get through to anyone at the office, and of course my charts online had not been updated. So I called Monday morning and played phone tag with the nurse, only to find out a few hours later we were all correct in our assumption that everything was fine. So I should have been elated, (and I am truly relieved it's nothing), but I was mostly aggravated. What was supposed to have been a 24 hr wait was a 5 day wait.

I've taught two classes now and have had very positive feedback, and yet, I feel as if this is the most unprepared I've ever been teaching for these classes. This year the staffing team did a 10 minute video during our dry run so we could watch it and critique ourselves. After seeing it there were a few mannerisms I have that I've made a conscious effort not to do while teaching, but overall I was mostly appalled at how fat I looked. I'm not even sure I watched the whole video.

Since Christmas we've been following the 9" plate method suggested by the American Diabetes Association. Simply by following their suggestions for healthy eating guidelines, I've now lost 19 pounds, without any exercise. January was probably the hardest, though there's been some days here and there that have been a struggle. My doctor was hoping for a weight loss of 1.5 lbs a week, so I'm already 3 lbs ahead of schedule. I should be elated, but I'm not. My brain keeps reminding me that it's been 20 years of bad eating habits that have resulted in where I am today, but I still would like for all of it to change overnight. And yes, I know that is totally unreasonable and insane.

Yesterday when I got home, I found two of the roosters fighting. They've skirmished a time or two, but this was a full out fight. We now have three injured roosters; one I'm not sure will make it. I was really hoping that all the biddies were adding to the flock this summer would alleviate the rivalry, but I fear it's going to be too little too late. If I can capture the one that is injured the most, we might relocate it so maybe it can recover. I'm not sure what we'll do about the other two. We've never had hens successfully hatch and raise eggs before (meaning we get both young roosters and hens) until this past year. The fox (which has been back twice in the last two weeks that I KNOW of) and the hawk eliminated all the females and one of the mother hens, but all the young roosters survived. So out of three sets of biddies our hens hatched out last year - we only have two roosters left. That's part of why I've always loved getting biddies from the hardware store - girls guaranteed. I feel sick, and I'm not sure how I'm going to capture the injured rooster without it attacking me. Today when I fed it, a goose bit it and it thought I had poked it. For the first time ever I had a moment of fear with one of our chickens. Thankfully I had the bucket of corn to distract it.

And yesterday I was determined to get my sugar snap peas out (planting time for them here is Feb 15-March 15, so I'm a tad late). After blocking off the area in my garden because the chickens kept coming in to scratch up the dirt I was moving, I finally got half a row planted. At that point I turned and saw a relatively fresh pile of scat. My first thought was rabbits, and it very well may be. Rabbit and deer feces are often similar, though I don't think rabbits would leave quite that big a pile. I know we've had both here in the yard, so there's no telling which was in my garden area. We joked that the rabbits know the shoots should be coming up so they were simply scouting for them, but I hope it was deer and that the fence with the enclosure will now keep them out. If it warms up Friday I hope to finish fencing off what Bobby dubbed "the garden annex" last year so I can plant a few of my early spring crops.

There's a lot more rambling through my head right now and a lot more happening, but that's all I have time to write for today. My goal for the rest of this week is to discipline myself to do what is essential first, and not to worry about the rest. We'll see if I make it!

suppertime

Barred rock (blackwith yellow rump), leghorn (yellow, white), Ameraucana ( chipmunk stripe), two Rhode Island Reds, Ameraucana, Leghorn...now at 10! The leghorns are one week older than the new chicks. Amazed at the difference in size already!

chicks

The picture above is not the best, but the two hawks above are some of the reasons why I'm rebuilding our small chicken house and pen. I need something sturdy and not half rotten to keep these guys safe:

I haven't made pics yet, but I am a significant step closer to having this project completed. While I'd love to say within the week, the reality is it might be two-three weeks (three weeks is when the birds above will need to be moved out of the brooder box and into the small house/pen). A young man from church helped me out Saturday, and we were able to get 3 of the 4 sides up, as well as the first part of the inner frame for the T that supports the nesting boxes and perches. Once those are done, then it'll be time to repair the roof and attach it to the frame. I'll paint it last, after we have it outside and the weather is a little warmer. Meanwhile, we'll pick up more little girls tomorrow. :)