It is final, I have made a profit on the chickens!  After five years I will have made a whopping $47.15 this year.  Now, I am not keeping track over the last five years because that would make me be negative still.  My chicken door is still broke and I held off on getting it fixed because I wanted to be in the black for one year.  So now I will message the maker of my door and tell him it is broken again.  I love automatic doors when they work, but I sure have a lot of problems with them. 

So here is the 2012 annual chicken production summary:  I made a profit of $47.15 for the year.  My annual income was $645,  My annual expenses $525.10.   I purchased 1140# of chicken feed for the year.  My average laying hens for the year were 21.8 hens (currently only have 17 hens).  I collected on average 8.8 eggs/day for a hen productivity of 40% for the year.  The hens consumed 0.39 lbs of feed/egg produced.  It cost me $0.11/egg in feed only(or $1.31/doz).  I charged $3/doz for eggs all year long.  I had to purchase another 27 pullets in November to catch back up from the predator kill.  I lost 10 hens to predators this year.   If I could just keep the automatic chicken door working all year I could virtually stem all the chicken killing by predators.  They almost always come at night. 

So my goal this year will be to keep the automatic chicken door working or buy another one.  This time I will be researching guarantees.  I cannot seem to keep one working for more than about four months. 

It really has not snowed yet this year.

Well the new year is here and as always things are a happening on the farm.  We ran out of propane!  This doesn’t sound like a big deal but the hot water tank is propane, the stove is propane and all the heating in the house is propane.  We of course ran out on a Friday evening.  Annmarie had to call for an emergency fill Saturday morning.  I was of course at work.  We plugged in all six electric space heaters and attempted to keep everything thawed out.  It was a frosty 57 degrees F in the morning inside the house.   We went out for a warm breakfast at the cafe Saturday.  By the time we got back they had refilled the tank.  When it gets very cold outside we need to go on a every two week fill schedule for the propane tank.  Despite my track record of running out of propane every year, Annmarie insists I call and make the arrangements.  She reminds me frequently.  I had not done it yet… so we ran out again, five years running.  So she arranged for us to go to every 2 week fill and they are coming out and replacing our propane tank.  They are going to double its size! 

Old covering just before tearing down.

I had built an enclosure around our old tank to keep the tree limbs from falling down and breaking the connection piping.  Today I had to rip the whole thing down so they can swap out propane tanks.  It is all ready to be changed out.  This should happen in the next two weeks.  It will be nice to not have to worry about this problem in the future.

We have a couple of bald eagles living in the area.  We have seen them several times now and I have some pictures.  The pictures are not real close ups.  I have not been that lucky yet.  Our sheep still have not had any babies yet.  They are huge and should have babies any time now. 

Bald eagle scared by the vehicle.

Annmarie updated my chicken tracker for 2013 and added my predator tracker so I can tell how many chickens I lose every year to predators. 

I went out last night to feed the animals and stumbled across the barn floor over near the sheep entrance.  I figured it was just me catching my toe in the straw but for some reason I dug down into the straw with my toe and discovered a large inverted V in the floor.  Two of the tongue and groove boards pushed up about seven inches.  The odd part is it only near the center of the barn.  On the outer wall the boards are all flat against the floor.  There might have been some shifting of the supports under the barn with the leveling, new floor and new roof all over that section.  In the spring after everything dries out I will have to crawl back under the barn and see what is up.  I am not going to worry about it right now.  It is toss up on whether to work on the stairs in the barn or the attic floor in the house.  I am thinking I am going to spend a couple of months on the attic floor then move out to the barn.  The first thing to finish is painting the breezeporch.  One half is totally done and now we need to move all the furniture and dog kennels so we can clean, prime and paint (2 coats) the other side.  Plus, I still need to clean up the old house and put away my tools.  Right now I cannot find anything I need or want. 

Upper road and downhill side of back fence.

Upper road, leveling in progress.

Back upper rock wall connected.

My trusty tractor and I (and the dog) went out today to work on the back rock wall.  I could not work on the outside of the barn as the wind is still blowing.  I connected the upper wall sections and started leveling the road on the outside of the fence with the tractor.  All the extra dirt and rocks from the road leveling I am using to build up the wall and the dirt to raise the berm.  Truly it looks like I spent 30 minutes playing outside.  This project is going to take a few years.  I am in it for the long haul.  I cannot say enough good things about the tractor.  It is a huge force multiplier.  I figure I can do the work of about 2.5 people when I use my tractor.  I am not even sure that many people could have torn up and leveled the road as fast as the tractor. 

I think it will take me another eight hours to get the upper road dug out and smoothed out.  It was pretty treachorous driving the pickup on a sidehill next to the fence.  I have decided to widen the rock wall so it will be a couple of feet deep.  This will make it massive and hopefully keep it in place better than a single stacked layer of rocks. 

Back hillside, eventual lower rock wall.

 I have started my workout plan again.  I am building a rock wall on the back hillside.  I have a hard time exercising when I don’t get any thing out of it.  This way I workout and get a rock wall!  A twofer! The only real problem is I had a partial wall left over from ages ago and I want to move the rocks down the hillside.  Some of the rocks weigh 200-300 pounds and when they start to roll there is no stopping them.  I already have one down in the creek that I need to chain up and pull out with the tractor.  It took off and I could not stop it. 

Back hillside, eventual upper rock wall.

I dig a flat spot in the hillside and roll the rocks down to the flat spot.  I want to get the wall started so I can start leveling the road on the other side of the fence and use that dirt to fill in my terraces.  Plus, there will be lots of rocks when I start working on the road.  I want a double terrace at a minimum.  There is a far section of the hillside where I might add a third terrace.  On the positive side I will not run out of rocks.  The back hillside is covered with them and these puny little rock walls will not use them all up.  I want the walls to be about four feet high.  This is a long term project that I just whittle away at whenever I get a chance.  I usually only spend 30-60 minutes on it at a time.  You can see our weather station mounted on the back fence.  It has recorded wind speeds of up to 60 mph.  Unfortunately, the back hillside doesn’t get as much wind as the front porch.  We are thinking about installing a second weather station down near the front creek over in the ram pasture.

Upper hay doors now latched, take that wind!

One of the consequences of cleaning out my tools from the barn so that Annmarie can have her tack room is the tools have to go somewhere.  That somewhere is the empty floor space in the old house.  You can walk in the front door and stare at the mess now.  So next week the girls and I will go out and organize and clean up the old house.  I have two new spaces, drawers and a huge new toolbox (used) to fill so I just need to sort everything and find it a home.

Old house, tools from the barn.

The old house is quickly moving up on the priority list.  It keeps settling or the concrete blocks keep crumbling.  My vote is on the concrete blocks.  I need to jack it up and relevel the whole house.  Probably, take me about five days to get it all done.  Once that is completed then I can rip out the center wall and start wiring the house with 220v and 110v for the wood shop.