mark's meanderings

8-14-08 - The chicken palace is in place and occupied!  I finished the roosting rack and the wire frame floor panel yesterday, hauled it over on a hand truck, and maneuvered it into the existing chicken pen.  Five fence posts and part of a roll of 5' chicken wire and we have a pen within a pen, ladies and gentlemen!  I brought the petrified creatures out this morning, leaving them in their cage in the new pen with the door open, and after the first hour, they started venturing out, returning to the cage quickly.  By the end of the day, they were all over the pen, avoiding the cage, and the palace, as well.  Diane had to catch them one by one and put them inside.  I played Carlton, your doorman.

My mom would be proud.  Not 30 minutes later I was in the upstairs hallway, dismantling the cardboard pads and paper the cage had been on, and had the vacuum running back and forth.  I didn't remember that the hallway was that wide :)

Next project: Clearing out the old woodshed for the two cords of firewood we ordered.  Hopefully there will also be enough room left over to move some of my wood working tools into the front of the old woodshed, freeing up the storage shed I built for Christmas storage boxes, sports equipment, and a lot of other stuff that normally goes into the attic or garage.  Of course, if I stall long enough, I won't have to put the Christmas stuff up...

8-12-8 - I am on my way out to finish the new chicken coup.  We have been raising 5 chicks, who reach nine weeks of age tomorrow, Wednesday August 13th.  They are about 10-11 inches tall, and too big for the cage we have them in.  And that cage is in the hallway, outside of our bedroom door.  They do not seem to sleep for very long.  And did I mention that Diane is allergic to down?  So, off I go.

Okay, well, diverted - Surprise!  Dad wanted the peas picked, so now the peas are picked.  Most went to the chickens, since they had been on the vine too long.  But some came in to be shelled.  I did find the fence posts I will need for tomorrow.  I figure we can fence in one corner of the existing chicken pen for the new guys.  The smaller coup will go in there, and they can get to know the older chickens through the fence, first.  Hopefully this will avoid any territorial killing by the existing hens/rooster.  Although I don't expect much from that rooster - He is lame of one foot, so he pretty much just flops his way back and forth.  Once the chicks are integrated, we may get another rooster (assuming all of the chicks are female and no surprise roosters pop up).

Most of the resources Diane and I have been able to find talk about killing off the previous flock (chicken soup, anyone?) so that the existing pen can be sterilized to keep diseases from being passed on.  But both my father-in-law Tom and Brenda, our "farmer's daughter" neighbor across the street just gradually mix the new flock in with the old one.  So we'll see.

Now that the older hens are getting fresh water regularly, they have started laying again.  3 fresh eggs a day - My dad (Greg) would be in heaven, since I seem to recall he eats 3 or 4 eggs every morning.

I've also buried 3 of the 4 rats that were living in the henhouse.  I had closed off one side of the hen house (the sitting side) and I laid out poison bait up in the rafters where the rats would run across every time I stepped into the coup.  One more to go.  If I do not find the body in the next 3 days, I will pick up the poison anyway.  No sense tempting fate.

I am surprisingly blasé about killing them.  I guess since they were threatening creatures I cared about, I can see them as just larger mosquitoes, fleas, etc.  The spiders, however, I still attempt to carry outside and let them go free :)

But I am still not willing to kill a chicken for food, yet.

6-11-08 - Blogs require a lot of work.  Well, not really - They just require discipline.  Life can keep one busy...  Our CSA had its first delivery yesterday.  We were lucky enough to be accepted as the drop-off site for Fort Dick, so we are getting to meet a bunch of local people - Every one seems so nice!  I mowed the lawn in two sessions with the gasoline mower we bought from a lady in Klamath.  The battery can no longer be resurrected in the Sears mower/tractor.  Nice little unit - 2 cylinders, 16 HP, and my father-in-law has bought many attachments.  He has a lawn sweep with catcher, a trailer for hauling more stuff, a dirt tiller...  I had to confiscate and hide the old 4 Amp battery charger he has.  He kept taking the battery apart because the tractor wouldn't start, and in attempting to charge the battery, I think it actually ruined its storage ability.  I bought a new one from George's Automotive & Diesel Electric, our local car repair/supply, but it still would not turn over without a jumper cable.  Even that activity was sluggish and not fast enough to start.  It is now on our charger, a nice little 2-10-30 Amp Craftsman unit that we have kept in good condition.

I moved dad's Nissan truck back to its original location in self-defense.  I was told several times in a loud forceful voice that I was about to get my ass kicked off the property.  Dad's Alzheimer's disease leaves him with little patience for change.  I would take him to task over his surliness, but it won't help, since he forgets everything in 5 minutes or less.  Instead it would just escalate, possibly ending up with him in jail, as per the Sherriff.

We have a new stove now, too.  Diane had been hearing strange noises, a cross between pops and knocking, coming from the kitchen area.  A couple of days ago I was in the kitchen, and I leaned back against the old stove.  A loud pop and a flash of light led me to believe that all was not well with the electrical connection.  In Diane's words:  Our stove blew up.  When the electrician (Jack of High-Voltage Electric) took the old 220 power receptacle off, we found arcing marks on two of the terminals - scary!  We now have a nice, new receptacle, and a nice, new Frigidaire glass-top stove with convection oven.  It looks nice, but I can already see my OC-ness is going to be challenged keeping that sucker clean and shiny.

Time to call Charter cable and see if they have a replacement cable box. We miss our BBC America, and the old box was determined by Charter tech support as to be "non-programmable."  I also need to get a starter website together for one of our clients, ChimneyKraft.  I also want to clean up the one I threw together for Ocean Air Farms, our CSA.

12-5-07 - My arms are tired!  Hauling tar paper and hauling 4x8 sheets of 3/4 plywood is no easy job for someone who normally types for a living.  Yeah, I know, complain, complain, and I love it! :)

11-25-07 - Worked on the storage shed.  Two walls up!  I also put in a PVC shower head contraption, since I got tired of holding the wand in my hand.  I also added a shut-off valve.  The shower is in an old bathtub that has a separate valve for hot and cold.  As the washers are no longer keeping water at bay, the cold handle is VERY COLD and the hot handle is TOO HOT to touch.  We are on a well, so I have been leery about wasting water, since the well has run dry twice while we have been here.  I also used too much hose when I fashioned the first hookup to the handheld wand, which means temperature adjustments take three minutes to get right.  Add to this the shutting off for each wash, rinse and repeat cycle, and you've got quite a bit of time standing around cold waiting for the water to get to the right setting.  But no more!

11-23-07 - Day after Thanksgiving, and one of our beloved cats died.  Gani is with us only in spirit now.  We cried off and on all day, and for the next couple of them.  She was our sweetest girl.

11-22-07 - Good Thanksgiving.  Almost thought Helen was not going to join us, but she was there at the end.  Tom kept heading back outside, so we postponed the actual sitting down time to later in the day.  Diane made a really good whipped sweet potato pie, lots of eggs and half and half.  She picked th3e turkey, so it was a decent size, 12 pounds.  I picked it last time and we had to wait while the 26 pounder I brought home slowly cooked.  We used Alton Brown's brine recipe - very tasty!

I am a late adopter.  It shows in my dress, too.