A few hail stones.  

A hail of a night

A long day at work followed by....
I get home and find that the Cornish cross chickens are in distress. They have food and water but both could use freshening. It is also 81 degrees and the barn is somewhat warmer. I opened the rear barn door for ventilation. The chickens are now happily occupied eating and drinking. I can move on. I check the trap, nothing. Did I mention the 2 squirrels and 1 small possum we caught in the last week? Probably not. It's been hectic.

After my usual look around I knew what project I wanted to work on today. Kristi has been hinting around (get this done NOW or else) that I get the watering system for the garden installed. I looked at the sad condition of many of our tomato plants and select this project for immediate attention. I grab my favorite shovel and a pair of gloves and march across the field. I take note that there are still some worms on the apricot tree and that I should do something about them. I continued on to the field. I begin digging about 7 feet from the end of the now worthless trench. My muscles twinge a bit looking over the chasm. But I continue on.

I will get this one thing done today and make Kristi happy. Not that she needs help, I just imagine that this will make her happy. It will save her labor and that is a good thing. She does so much. I start digging where I think the main water line will be and sure enough after a few minutes I find the pipe. Right where it should be. I commenced removing the dirt and rocks from around the pipe to give wide access to it as I needed to add a number of fittings to accomplish the task. I have not yet purchased any fittings.

In retrospect I might have been more thoughtful of the long day I'd had at work. I was tired and my aim could have been better. I might also, with better attention to my common sense, told myself that I shouldn't tackle a project involving our main water line into the house when I am tired. But I didn't do any of those things and instead I hit the water line squarely with the shovel and was so surprised when the pressurized water sprayed out that I left my mouth hanging open. It took 2 hours to remove all the grit.

Meanwhile the hold is filling rapidly with water. Thinking with adrenaline driven clarity I ran for the water shut off at the street. With the water off I could take my time to fix the problem. I had exactly 15 minutes before Kristi was to come home from work. She would notice we had no water, I was sure of that. I was equally sure it would not go well for me when she found out. I began figuring out what pieces we would need for the watering system and what we would need to solve the immediate problem.

At this point I should mention the upcoming storm.
All day the weather forecasters were predicting severe weather in the afternoon. Yeah right, I said as I always do. They're always wrong. Well, they were right the time I had the tornado blow past me about 300 feet away. Tractor trailer rigs blown over, electronic signs exploding in showers of sparks. Trees uprooted and snapped off at the trunk. It took me 4 hours complete my 30 minute commute that night. I'll give them that one.

So we go to Home Depot and get the parts. In the meantime I get to hear the life's story of the plumbing guy who owns 25 acres in Red Rock and how he planted a hedge of red tipped photinias to prevent the dust that is prevalent on his caliche road. Nice guy. I was on a nature inspired deadline. I got the parts I needed and headed home. I drove the truck directly to the site of the leak as I wanted to have the house water back on before the storm hit. At this point the leading edge of the storm had not quite made it to us. You could see the huge front moving our way. You could hear the thunder in the distance but no rain yet. No lightning yet.

Work commenced. I cut out the section of pipe that had burst. Hmmmm, schedule 125 PVC. For a main water line you would think they'd step up to the thicker schedule 40 but they opted to save a very few bucks. Working quickly I fashioned a tee and a bit of 1" pipe and a coupling and check it for fit. It's long enough. I smear on the primer and the glue and....uh oh. With the pipe buried in the ground there's not enough play to bend the pipe so it will slip into the socket. In the process of bending and trying to make it fit I have damaged the thin walled main pipe and need to fashion another piece to fix it. The thunder is getting closer.
Working in close proximity to the ground in Texas is an invitation for a visit by our state's foreign invaders. Fire ants. Pesky little things. They attack anything that moves. They attack anything made of animal or vegetable matter. The active ingredient in fire ants is formic acid. They chew it into your flesh and then it begins to dissolve you. You get a nice welt out of the attack and if you noticed it at the time of the bite, hopefully the fire ant is dead. But you still get the welts. They were in my shirt, on my arms and legs. But I couldn't stop. We HAD to have water. I make version 2 of my pipe patch.

The thunder is closer and I could see the sky brighten with the lightning. I had plenty of time. But before I can use my patch I have to increase the size of my hole so I can bend the pipe enough to get the fittings to fit. Feverishly I dig out the hole. I dig out about another one and a half feet. Plenty I said. Back in the hole now I glue my fittings. I fit them into each other. Oops. Won't fit. I can't bend the pipe up enough to get the two ends to go into each other. As I am pulling up on the pipe, my feet go up in the air. I can hear Kristi laughing in the distance as she's watering her plants. Somehow, this doesn't help.

Finally I get the two ends to fit perfectly. I being loading the truck with the tools and leftover parts. I sent Kristi up to the street in her golf cart to turn the water on. It works! No leaks.Then the wind starts and in about 10 minutes the storm is upon us. I shower the ants off but it still feels like they're biting me for 2 more hours. This turns out to be a heck of a storm with up to 3/4 inch hail. Poor Barbecue is running around in it barking at it. The barking doesn't help and I give her a bone to help calm her down. It works. Kristi and I share a hamburger for dinner commiserating about the likely state of the vegetable garden after the hail. A picture of the hail will follow.

We've added some livestock recently. 8 goldfish from Wal-Mart (trademark R) we had been talking about adding some fish to our lovely pond for some time. The fish might help keep the algae from growing rampant and provide some visual interest. While the pond is not large, it is big enough that it's rare to ever see a fish. Kristi saw one yestereday so we know there is at least one left alive. Since this is one of Barbecue's favorite watering holes, there is a little doubt about the long term survival of the fish. Barbecue's method of getting a drink is to first get into the pond and then commence drinking. You don't want Barbecue in your lap after she's had a drink.
Our Cornish hens are getting near to slaughtering size. I have to remember to take a scale out to the barn soon. We've lost 2 in the last couple of days. To what we don't know. They all seemed healthy, but these 2 just keeled over on their backs dead. They have been buried between the boxwoods. We expect the boxwoods are going to grow like crazy or get feathers.
This morning I went out to feed and water the Cornish chickens, Barred rock chickens and the Motley Crew bunch of chickens and it finally happened. The Motley Crew and the peahen all sleep in the rafters of the barn. I've mentioned this before. When I go into the barn I look up to see where everybody is sleeping. That way I can avoid walking directly underneath any bird. I had a bucket of feed for the Cornish Crosses, checked overhead and the peahen was directly above the gate. I had opened the gate and stepped over the chickens that are always along the fence when it happend. The peahen unloaded, hitting the gate and my fingers. I just know she did that intentionally. She's probably been laughing about that all morning.
Last weekend my task was to bring water to Kristi's vegetable garden. We have a water spigot about 2/3 of the way out in the front yard. So my plan was to dig a trench from the spigot to the garden and extend the pipe. I dug a great trench. It was 14 inches deep, 12 inches wide and 80 feet long. This was HARD work. I started with my mighty Mantis rototiller and softened things up and scooped the dirt out with shovels. 6 feet before the planned end of the trench, I found the main water supply line for the house. So 2 days of hard labor was for naught. Now I have to fill in my trench and then build the water system for the garden. It's supposed to rain today.

Work work work. After that there's more work to do. This is good for us, right? Friday afternoon arriving home from work I fed the orphan goat as usual. Checked on the other animals. Everything seemed okay. I decided to use the remaining sunlight to mow the "lawn".
Our lawn has little or no grass in it at least as far as I can see, but I've only lived here for 6 months. We have a large area roughly 3/4 of an acre with green thriving broadleaf weeds. It's not only broadleaf weeds, but that's what most of it is. There are also very healthy sticker burr plants and other weeds. From even a short distance it looks nice and green year round. Those in Central Texas that have fancy thick, weed free lawns that cost and arm and a thigh to maintain don't ususally get green year round. In the summer grasses fry under way too much sun and in the winter the frost kills frail plants. One day we'll do something about this, but not this year.
Mowing the lawn means running my 25 horsepower Scott's Garden Tractor over the green areas. The mower is very powerful. It can mulch tree branches. It can cleave rocks. with a 54 inch cutting swath the mower would make short work of any reasonable lawn. 25 horsepower at full scream sounds like a lot of power and it is. That is until I get to the thickest weeds.
After cutting the front yard, being careful not to mow down Kristi's recently planted blackberry bushes, I dodged all the fruit trees, pine trees and oaks out front. Then I went to the field that will be our vegetable garden this year. It's about a half acre directly in front of our front yard. It's where the livestock-shed-converted-into-a-greenhouse sits. I cut around our little test winter garden that we planted to see if our soil would grow anything (it did) and improved the walking path. Then I tackled the back yard. More blackberry bushes. I think I missed them this time.
At our previous house in the far back of the property Kristi had laboriously dug holes in the solid limestone that was our dirt. She planted Texas native Mountain Laurels as a hedge against the new neighbors with the unruly children who built behind us. The plants never grew more than a couple of inches in 3 and a half years. They ARE slow growing plants, but that's pathetic. Anyway she had put in about 4 and I'm pretty sure one succumbed to my mighty lawnmower. It was hard to tell the plants from the weeds.
The back yard has more obsticles. Bird feeders hanging at forehead height - I made our bird feeders out of terra cotta planter bottoms and barbed wire so you can scar yourself if you aren't paying attention. Dodging around the many trees, patio, wheelbarrow full of rocks, garden tools, stepping stones, the pond and various animals makes for a frequently interrupted mow.
It was done. I hosed off the mower and let it dry.
Saturday the weather forcasters were promising rain. Lots of rain. So we had to get an early start to make any progress against our list of chores. Kristi began working on our kitchen herb garden. This will be about a 12 x 12 area at the south west corner of the house. There are 4 steps down into the space from the deck and the guestroom window overlooks it. There's a small gate to the main yard and a water faucet. What more could one ask? She built a raised bed about 1.5 feet high for the rosemary and filled in around it with dirt and rocks. Then she planted a couple of small oregono plants. These will fill in around the rosemary to look and smell nice. She make a short footpath from the concrete slab to the faucet by culling different sized rocks from the barnyard. These she layed flat and smoothed out. It looks great. Next to the little path is another small raised bed for mints. Mint is invasive. it will spread everywhere if not contained. So the raised bed will hopefully keep it in check.
I was cleaning up the area behind the shed. We had been throwing fallen branches and twigs and other tree debris back there to cut up for firewood or to turn into mulch with the chipper shredder. There was a lot of it. As I was cutting it all up for firewood I realized I was going to need somewhere to put it. I whacked together a box about 6 ft x 2ft x 2ft out of some old cedar fence boards than an employee had thrown out. I use these for all kinds of projects and they have a great number of good uses. Now there's enough room for all the kindling I can cut up. I also pruned a big yaupon holly that was in the same area. It was in the way and was always in my face when I was getting hardware cloth or lumber. Now it's out of the way and it looks better too.
Kristi made a very handy contraption on Saturday too. It's a bottle holder for the orphan. Four times a day every day the little one has to be bottle fed. I usually do it but lately I've been working late and Kristi has been getting stuck with the task. She got fed up with it on Saturday and made a handy little holder out of some lumber and velcro. She fastened this to a post in the barn at about goat-udder height. Now all we do to feed the little darling is to strap a fresh bottle of milk onto the holder and the little goat can suck to it's hearts content. In the mean time we can go about feeding all the other creatures without the little one being underfoot all the time. This is the kind of thing that can revolutionize your life. Of course no revolution happens without some milk being spilled and so it was in this case. Any new item introduced to the barn becomes the play thing of all the various creatures that live there. In this case the young goats would jump up on the bottle holder and butt it until it fell off the post. Kristi nailed it back on pretty firmly and now it is holding.

The Cornish Cross chicks at about 3 days old. 

Cornish Cross chick brooder. The chicks can regulate their own heat by moving closer to or farther away from the lamps. 

We have a perfectly good chicken coop in the barn. It has its own stall right next to the tack room for convenient access. That insures that it's very easy to feed the chickens that reside in the coop. Only our chickens don't stay in the coop. Every evening, when dusk comes, the call goes out. Roosters begin crowing from the barn calling all chickens to bed. Watching, you don't see any movement directly to the barn. A peck in this direction, a scratch there. Imperceptibly the chickens SLOWLY move towards the barn. Looking for any last bit of grain, or better, a bug as a last snack before sleep. They enter the barn and the fun begins. It should be general knowledge with this country's long history of farming that chickens can fly. They don't fly well, their aim isn't all that great. Sometimes they miss their goal and end up back on the ground. But they can in fact, fly. Our barn is separated into different sections. The first section as you enter the barn is a concrete slab about 10 feet long by 15 feet wide. The slab is the floor for the tack room and the chicken coop . There's a common area for getting animals in and moving them around and putting them into the various stalls. Stalls are various sizes and are framed with pipe fences and gates. The gates vary in height from about 5 feet tall to 7 feet tall. The rafters are another 7 or 8 feet above the highest gates. One at a time, one after the other, our chickens fly up to a lower gate. From there they make the short hop to the 7 foot level. Now there is a choice. The older hens and the peahen leap from the 7 foot gate to the top of the chicken coop. Then there's the jump up to the top of the tack room. Now comes the big jump to the rafters. The younger roosters and hens show off by flapping from the top of the gates directly into the rafters. Flapping wings and squawking chickens make for a noisy barn in the afternoons. You also have to be aware of where the chickens are perched in the rafters. You don't want to be loitering in the wrong spot in the barn. There are frequent loud splatting sounds coming from the concrete.
The chicken coop does have some temporary residents. That's where our barred rock pullets are staying. There's a heat-lamp in there to keep them warm although they're old enough now that they probably don't need the lamp anymore. They are fully feathered and during the days you have to be careful where you step to avoid squishing one.
This weekend we lost our second Cornish Cross chick. We were kind of expecting this one. It was the "poopy butt" chick from a previous post. There was something wrong with this one and it was scarcely eating. It was about a quarter the size of the other chicks. In the morning it was fine and when Kristi checked them in the afternoon this one was stretched out dead and the other chicks were running back and forth over it. The chick was buried in the rain under a crepe myrtle plant.

Chicks, birdhouses and the greenhouse

We lost our first Cornish Cross chick on Saturday. There was no reason we could find for it. There are a few birds out of the 47 (now 46) that we got that don't look to be in perfect condition. The one that died was one that did look good. We have a few that are afflicted with "poopy butt syndrome". At least that's what we're calling it. They get so much poop built up back there that new poop can't get out. The get blocked and can't eat. We may have to give these unfortunates a warm lingering bath to try and soften it up and remove it. The bird was buried without ceremony under a crepe myrtle tree. It will give all it has left towards the health of the tree and the beauty of the yard. On our weekly trip to Tractor Supply we bought a 25 lb bag of 20% chick starter. This feed will keep our fast growing flock eating for a short while. We also got more goat feed, chicken feed and sunflower seeds for feeding the wild birds.
On Saturday I put up 7 birdhouses. 6 in the back yard and 1 on the power pole next to the barn yard. On Sunday we saw an Eastern Bluebird and it's mate checking the house out. Neither of us had ever seen on of these before so it would be a thrill to have a pair nesting. They stayed for at least an hour checking out the neighborhood. We also had a flyby by a few purple martins. One had landed on the house for a while and chirped shrilly.
Kristi had an extremely busy weekend. She transplanted some boxwoods that surrounded a couple of oak trees in the back patio. She hates boxwoods. I could take them or leave them myself. They definitely have some good uses. I suggested she replant them rather than feeding them to the goats (I suspect that's what she wanted to do) so she dug 8 holes and put them in a semi circle around where I installed the sump for the laundry drain. They will eventually screen off the yard along the side of the storage shed. Since this is where I keep wheelbarrows, barrels, firewood, lumber and fencing materials it doesn't look too pretty most of the time. the boxwoods will be a big improvement.
The Barred Rock hens are getting bolder. If anything a chicken does can be considered bold. They began venturing out of the barn on Saturday. Just a few steps and they'd run back at the slighted sound. But they're starting to explore the world around them. They hope to find any worms that the early birds missed.
I was working on the greenhouse again. I'm trying to create some vents at the top, just under the roof on the sides that can be opened during hot weather and closed to keep the heat in during the colder months. So far what I have isn't very sturdy or functional. I'll keep plugging along until I get it right. Kristi's greenhouse plants are growing fast too. I'd better hurry.
Kristi also cleaned out the square garden under the purple martin house. She tore out some scrub oaks and weeds. Turned the soil over and began planting flowers. She has several different colors of tulips and other stuff. All bulbs. She also turned over the dirt in what will be the kitchen herb garden again. She's outlined where the slab ends and is preparing to put down stones for a path. Luckily stones are a natural resource we have in a abundance. We could build a path around our 15 acres if we wished too.

The billy-goat was feeling amorous this morning. He was making a nuisance of himself with the younger female. They were crashing around the barn when I went to feed them. He was making his guttural sounds. Very human sounding from a distance. She was trying to escape by running in and out of stalls in the barn. I was concerned about being run down. Those horns are pointy and hard. I fed the orphan just enough to keep it happy for a couple of minutes and grabbed the goats food. Now they all follow me. The 2 females, the male and all the little ones. When I get to the goat shed it gets cramped. I go to the farthest bowl and fill it. Step around several goats and fill the next bowl. Push a couple of babies out of the last bowl and fill it. By this time the orphan has figured out where I am and it's wondering why my nipple is missing. I have to go back to the barn to retrieve it. Then I can finish pumping a quart of milk into the baby goat. It takes a lot to fill four stomachs.
Once baby goat was satisfied I could check the new chicks. It would be good to know if they survived the night. I had 3 heat lamps set up in the new brooder but you always wonder if it will be warm enough. The back door of the barn (I built a proper back door when we moved in. Before that there was just a cattle gate) was shut to keep things less drafty. The chicks are being kept in a horse stall with plywood sides which helps to cut drafts too. They were happy. All squished up next to each other with many at the feeders and some getting water too. I refilled their food containers. I had borrowed the feeders from the Barred Rock hens in the coop next door. I gave them the feeder that I fixed after the billy goat bent it all up when he stuck his head into it last week. There's a previous post about THAT little episode. That feeder holds about a weeks worth of food so I don't have to bother with it as often. I suspect the other chickens are eating out of it when I'm not looking however.

Must be about birds

2 eggs
Arriving home yesterday I saw a road runner perched on the fence near the gate. This is the second time I've seen this particular bird. I hope it is nesting nearby. They are fun to watch. It jumped down and ran 30 or 40 feet from the fence while I opened the gate. I drove very slowly down the driveway watching it. Like the first time I saw the bird, it jumped through the fence on one side of the drive, ran across and through the fence on the other side. From there it would run a dozen feet, stop and look around twitching its tail and then run on. The goat families were in the same field on the other side near the hill. When Kristi got home a half hour later the road runner was still in the same field.
Yesterday we saw a flock of birds of an unfamiliar type. From the ground we thought they could be purple martins - though they weren't dark enough, or Tufted Tit Mouses (mice?) but they usually don't move in flocks. Kristi went in to get the binoculars and after looking closely at them we were able to find them in our birding books. They were Cedar Waxwings. They were very similar to many other bird types, we were finally able to ID the birds because of a distinctive red spot at the end of the wings.
Thursday we have been told that our order of 45 Cornish cross chicks will be in. Cornish cross is the breed you get at the grocery store. Meat birds. Our experience so far has been with laying birds. Barred Rocks, a Rhode Island Red or two and several birds of indeterminate heritage. The Barred Rocks are supposed to be a dual purpose bird. Suitable for both egg laying and meat. The Barred Rocks we've had are really skinny. Not much meat on them. They are great for stock though, and that's where our butchered birds have ended up so far. I think they have been 3.5 to 4 lbs when butchered. The Cornish Crosses will grow very quickly- in 7 weeks they'll be ready for the freezer. We're used to watching the rapid growth of chicks - every day you go to feed them and you can see that they're bigger. The Cornish Crosses will grow much, much faster. Last night I threw together a brooder box for them. I took a horses stall in the barn, put up some chicken wire to prevent the little darlings from waddling out. A few pieces of wood for a box of 5feet by 6 feet, some pine shavings and it's done. This afternoon I'll put up a few heat lamps, put in the waterer and feeders and we're done. We should pick the birds up before 6pm today. My morning routine will be extended even further. Oh joy. I'll start getting up at 4:45am to take care of the extra animals.
Now is the time to start planning for "processing" the chickens when they're done. A little thought now will help speed the process. If we can do 10 birds a day for 4 days we'll be doing well. Doing them that close together there shouldn't be too much weight difference between the first day and fourth day of processing. In case you noticed, we bought 45 birds and are counting on 40 birds processed. Just in case we have some losses. This will be our chicken supply for the year.

A mailbox recovered

Saturday afternoon, when we were returning from the local big box store with our mailbox materials we drove up and down the street again looking for the old box. It was just unbelievable to us that someone would have made off with it. Kristi suggested looking in the creek that borders our property so we stopped to look around. How about that? There was our mailbox in the creek. There were also two old batteries, a sign and a bunch of junk and litter. Another bit of work makes the todo list. Cleaning up the creek. I had best get some waders and I'll drag Kristi's canoe behind me to use as my waterborne wheelbarrow. Oddly there is only one gate from our property into the creek even though we own halfway through it. Since it's a steep bank at that point it may be easier just to access the creek from the road. One of these days I'll put in a gate to make the creek more accessible. There's not really anything that we'd do with the creek but it does need to have the litter picked up periodically.

The mailbox killers

2 eggs yesterday.
Thursday night someone hit our mail box. The box was a plastic box with an integral stand kind of a beige-ish brown color with a cutesy green roof. It had fake windows. It wasn't us. Still, on the current list of priorities replacing the mailbox was number 1783 out of 21,468. So it was some ways down the list. The choice was taken out of our hands. I got up Friday morning, did my usual animal related tasks (I don't want to call them chores) and drove off. I opened the first gate, the one with the electric wire at the bottom that has bitten both Kristi and Barbecue. I opened the second gate at the road, picked up the paper and left. I noticed the mailbox diagonally across the road was barely hanging on its pole. I left for work. Kristi followed me out and immediately noticed that our mailbox was gone. Not just knocked down but completely gone! Who would want to steal a tacky plastic mailbox? Well gone is gone so we got a new task put on our list. When we returned we found that the four by four post that held the box up was snapped off at the ground level. Somebody hit it a ton. We drove up and down the street looking for it. No luck so we went off to the hardware store to buy mailbox building stuff. We looked at the standard mailbox kits and didn't like them. So we designed our own. We bought one 8ft fencepost - this is an eight inch diameter log that has had the bark trimmed off. They are used for an anchor to stretch barbed wire fences to keep them tight. We wanted something sturdy. Bought two cement bags, a few 9 inch lag bolts and a large mailbox. Next stop was Tractor Supply for some horseshoes, reflectors and tried to find some large numbers for the address. We went to McCoys too looking for numbers. All we could find were teensy four inch numbers. That's great if people actually drove the thirty mile per hour speed limit, but since the average speed is closer to 50 mph we needed big visible numbers. That meant we go the DIY route. I had an old 1x6 in the lumber pile and a scroll saw. Kristi found a suitable font and blew it up to about 1000 points. That gave us a 7.5 inch number. That would be big enough. Kristi printed out her number and meticulously cut it out. I cut up the 1x6 into the right length and then figured out how to use the scroll saw. It took a while to cut the numbers and sand them so they looked somewhat the same. Then they got several coats of paint. I also had two half round pieces from a table top that I used as a protective decoration to help prevent baseball bat damage. The whole thing was cut and bolted together. Late Sunday we threw it all on the truck and cemented it in the ground. It was a long day and we were both exhausted. Then we went grocery shopping at 7pm. Whew.
Yesterday Kristi worked on refurbishing the chicken coop I built. We're expecting 45 broiler chickens (Cornish cross) later this week. We will likely move the Barred Rocks into that coop when the broilers come in. So it needs to be in good condtion. Maybe I'll even finish installing the last two pieces of trim. She also cleaned out the livestock water tank. This is a five foot by two foot by 18 inch galvanized metal tank with an automatic filling valve. It gets nasty after a few months. She made it look new. I took the opportunity of the tank being emptied to put it up on concrete blocks and level it so water won't slop out.

Silly chickens roosting on the gate. Peahen and a cat are visble too. 

Crazy chickens, an orphaned goat and poop

2 eggs today (but I broke one on the way into the house so I flung it to the cannibal chickens before it leaked all over the place)

I went out to feed the goats this morning. Five fifteen am is early for me. At this time of day I haven't had any coffee or tea. Nothing to perk (!) me up. I NEED perking up at five fifteen in the morning. What I'm getting at is that I don't have the same level of consciousness early in the morning that I might have at say, noon. My wits are still in the same dark quiet place where they are of no danger to anyone. So I'm feeding the orphan with its mother standing next to me trying not to notice. The little one is amazing how much it can eat. It will take the entire 24 oz bottle of formula without so much as a burp. The goatling weighs about 13 lbs now. I can't drink that much at nearly 20 times its weight. Not too nearly. I noticed, as any good mother would that there was a dark crusty stain on the little baby's neck. I was alarmed. My first thought-which took only a few seconds to percolate up- was that it was blood. I couldn't imagine what else it might be. I felt it. Crusty. Very dry. The incident happened hours ago. I moved the bottle into the light with little goat still attached. Still looked bad. I picked him up and held him more towards the light to see the wound. No luck. At that point I thought I was getting late so I fed the big goats, fed the barred rock chicks and forgot to feed the big chickens. One thing about free range birds is that they are perfectly capable of finding their own food. The big advantage of the feed I give them is that it is balanced just right to promote egg laying. Barred rock hens, fed properly, are capable of laying 280 eggs a year.
In the afternoon I warmed up a new bottle of goat formula and went to check on my little charge. He was hungry and began to suck down the entire bottle. While he was distracted I explored the wound a little better. It's amazing how much 8 cups of early morning coffee and adequate sunlight can help. The "wound" was no more than poop! Our chickens have long since abandoned the proper chicken behaviour of hiding out in the chicken coop at night. Mind you we have 2 coops and one of them cost nearly $ 400.00. By any measure an extravagant chicken coop. It can house as many as 6 birds. Anyway, the chickens won't use the coops. They perfer to roost in the rafters of the barn at night. it's a real effort for them, the older ones especially to fly up to the rafters 15 feet above ground level. They use the bleeding edge of chicken technology to accomplish the feat. From the ground they will flap up to the cattle gate that closes off the chicken coop from the large animals. From there they can manage the short distance to the fence that bounds one side of the stall next door. With a short hop they can then get to the top of the chicken coop. That's about eight feet up. From there it's only a step really to the top of the tack room. Here's where it gets dicey. From the top of the tack room to the rafters is about 5 feet. They really have to screw up their courage (why do you think they are called chickens?) to actually FLY the distance. At that point they have truly flown the coop (har) and are in the safety of the rafters. Since they have gone to all that trouble, which they do every night. They seem to take great pleasure in carefully aiming and bombing any creature down below.


I found that the mid-group of chicks had learned a new trick. As far as groups go, we got 12 chickens when we bought the farm, we hatched about 10 more from the first groups eggs and the third group would be the recently purchased Barred Rock chicks. That we are down to 9 chickens total from the first two groups is a testament to the greed of raccoons. Since we got Barbecue the loss of chickens has almost stopped. Back to the trick. There is a gate that separates the backyard of the house from the yard between the barn and shed and house. The 5 remaining chickens of group 2 were all roosting and preening on top of that gate. We were so overcome with how cute it was that we avoided going out that way for the rest of the afternoon. I also got to take some pictures with my Treo 650. See photo posted above. If you look closely you can also see the peahen on the ground and one of the cats up on the deck railing in the background.

"Board" Kid and Ignorant Goats

2 eggs.

Goats, as you know, may be smart, but even Darwin would have a problem evolving them into something less... clumsy. For example, I came home today and, of course, heated up the formula for our orphan, then took it out to it. At this point, I can't find the kid and think that the bleating I'm hearing is coming from it, so I call it. "Come here, dingbat!" ...and call... I didn't see anything in sight... Where was it? Why was it so loud and not seen? The two nannies were in the far field with the billygoat, but the kids weren't there. I looked behind the barn and finally discovered the cause of the noise which, in fact, was NOT the orphan, but one of Nanny Goat's kids -- stuck under the pallet I had propped up for them to play on! It was flat on its side, between the middle board of the pallet and the outside board... Of course, it had been raining all day, so who knows how long the kid was under the pallet. I can imagine that the other goats would have also stepped on the pallet to assess the situation, thus squishing the poor kid. If the kid had been even a week older, it would have gotten out by itself due the matter of growth. In this case, it fit PERFECTLY under the pallet. When I removed the pallet, it stood up on shaky legs and didn't stop shaking until Nanny Goat, far in the field, came running back with the other goats. The kid was a filthy mess, with dirt on every inch of it. Nanny Goat only came running back because I was holding the orphan, not hers -- that was bleating loudly... maybe they'd heard the particular bleat of the kid that was under the pallet all day and decided just to ignore it from that kid... but when the orphan started screaming, here come the goats as if there was a house on fahr (that's 'fire' in Texas-ease)!

Anyway, the kid was fine and sucking with enthusiasm when Nanny Goat came around to the barn.

Mike said that I locked the orphan into the tack room after feeding it. I tried to kick it out a few times while I was getting feed for the chickens, but it was insistent on trying to get past me. Apparently, it did without me knowing it.

All the animals, including the peahen, but excluding Barbecue (contained in the backyard) were inside the barn when Mike came home. Every day's an adventure. We live on a farm!

I didn't get a chance to check the plants in the greenhouse today. :(

Barbecue is helping the cat feel at home. 

I crossed a black cat's path

When I got home yesterday I fed the orphan as usual. He's up to a full 24 oz bottle of formula every feeding now. As soon as he eats he has to go lay down, he's so stuffed. No eggs at all today. Kristi thinks the chickens have a secret place that they lay from time to time. I think it's just an off day. We'll see. After yesterday's bonanza we thought we'd get something. It rained quite a lot over the last couple of days. I sink into the "soil" of the barnyard about an inch. I emphasize "soil" because what it really is, is sand, poop of various kinds and dirt. In that order. This is why we have shoes stashed in various places. It wouldn't do to wear shoes in the barnyard and then, say, go to dinner wearing the same shoes. People would take notice that their steaks smells a bit off today. You sure wouldn't want to wear outside shoes in the house. Of course that happens sometimes. Anyway, I went into the woods behind the barn to see how the creek looked after all the rain. Our rear property line is in the middle of a branch of Cedar Creek. The same Cedar Creek that the town of Cedar Creek is named after. If you Google "Cedar Creek" you'll get about 869,000 hits. Not a very unique name. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22cedar+creek%22
I found a wet weather pond of about 30 feet in diameter. Our soil percolates so well that I expect the pond will be gone in a day or two. Continuing on I came across a live animal trap that I had re-baited with hot dog pieces a few days ago. We have been having chickens disappear with the most obvious culprit being raccoons. We had captured one in the past and were hoping to vanquish more. Today it was not a raccoon however but a cat that was trapped. We have had a marauding black cat hanging around for months. It was a kitten when we first noticed it. It would always run when it saw us, of course if we saw it we would go get the pellet gun and start firing. Kitty was taking its life in its paws by hanging around. Please don't take this to mean we don't like cats. We certainly do. But you have to draw the line somewhere and our line is drawn on the far side of 3 cats. All precious but destined to remain a group of three. We would see the cat from time to time sneaking into the cat's shed to eat our cat food. It would eat as much as the other 3 put together. This increases our feed costs which are considerable and growing every day. The decision was made to blast it if possible. Of course we didn't have any kind of gun until recently. Now that we have one we REALLY need to practise a bit before we load it for real. So we satisfy ourselves yelling and throwing rocks. But today we caught it in the trap. It had greedily eated all the hot dogs. It's last meal. At least, at our place. I brought the trap out just as Kristi was arriving home. We were pleased to be rid of a pest. After doing a few pressing chores we took the critter about 12 miles from home and turned it loose near a creek. Then we treated ourselves to dinner at the Yacht Club.
I guess because of all the rain we saw a lot of critters in the morning. I very nearly hit a white tail deer just past our property. It was a large multi point buck that had jumped the fence on the right side of the road, ran in front of me, and because I was able to slow down in time, it then jumped the fence on the other side of the road. It was a very near miss. Kristi reported having seen frogs and a coyote that ran in front of her car and then into the brush.

All's well, that smells well.

The greenhouse project, despite Mike's logical board placing (uh huh), IS going well. I planted chaste trees, transplanted more voluntary oregano cuttings to their own pots. I have about a hundred things planted in pots, now. Of course, there's no room to move. But since the sides are now filled in from Mike's work this weekend, it's a LOT warmer and I expect a lot of germination to happen this week. A short list of plantings and what's in the greenhouse:

tabasco peppers, bell peppers, dill, thyme, flowers (about eight different kinds, some that work well in shade), basil, artichokes, squash (two or three kinds), poblano peppers, oak trees (from the acorns we seem to have an abundance of), gourds (dipper and snake), oregano, echinacea (purple cone flower), peppermint, penny royal, french tarragon (trans-plants), bay trees (two), an almond tree, castor bean plant, meyers lemon tree, wormwood... lots more, but that's all I can think of right now...

Anyway, this weekend, I made jalapeno cheese bread, made some raisins (the juicier, better-tasting the grapes, the longer it takes) and pulled down the french tarragon that I had harvested to let dry and put that into a container. Mike roasted a chicken, but it wasn't as good as usual because he didn't brine it. Funny how we spoil ourselves by creating something delicious from a common item, but then when we don't prepare it the same way, it just isn't right.

Watched Rain Man and then several silly Pink Panther movies. It rained a lot this weekend, but there were some gorgeous moments.

We have a Mexican Eagle -- a Caracara that I think is nesting on the property. Mike swears he saw a painted bunting -- two or three times this weekend.

Our little barred rock chicks are getting bigger. Much bigger.

Signing off,

Kristi

Eye meets 2x4