Annmarie is not feeling well, her leg is swollen and hurting, foot is very swollen from kicking raccoon.  She went to bed early and then called down to say she heard chittering outside our bedroom window (Sarah and I are watching the Dirty Harry anthology, #2 tonight).  So I weaponed up and did a patrol.  Lots of cats, I mean almost all our outside cats were together on the back porch.  Very unusual behavior for the cats.  The live trap is just outside our side fence baited with cat food.  I have smelt skunk both nights from that side so we are hoping to catch the skunk.  It was still set, no predator.  I swung by the chicken coop and the Damn Chicken Butler was wide open again!!  It is not working correctly.  There were new white feathers on the ground and one chicken outside the coop in the chicken yard resting on an outside roost.  I went into the coop but no predator.  So I locked up the whole chicken yard again.  I am not happy with the Chicken Butler people.  Not happy at all.  I was unable to count the chickens but am betting I lost another one.  I will count them in the morning.  This sucks.

Bridge day 2.  Still no concrete.

Well the bridge had a solid eight hours of labor today by two individuals.  No concrete was poured today.  Pouring concrete today was my goal, even though I still had to pull four posts out of the ground, install the concrete forms, bend and install the rebar, assemble the concrete mixer, and finally mix and pour the concrete.  Sounds ambitious for one day doesn’t it?  It was and as such did not happen.  Now there was one major snafu.  When we were pulling the railroad ties out of the ground with the redneck tractor (pickup) the two nearest the house broke off at the ground level.  They were that rotten.  I figured they would just come out with a little effort.  Three and a half hours later the 16 yr old still did not have it out.  I had helped a couple of times.  He was getting water out the center of the post but there was still a lot of solid post below ground.  It just would not come out.  So I went and bought two bags of charcoal.  Dumped one in each hole (we hadn’t even started on the second post so we just dug down and exposed it) lit them on fire, added a bunch of scrap wood and thirty minutes later dumped in a 50# bag of wood pellets in each hole and covered the holes with dirt!  Now as long as no one steps on those holes all will be good.  Tomorrow we will dig them out.  We did get two tubes placed and one footing form completed.  So the plan for day three is to finish the forms, install the rebar and assemble the concrete mixer.  If we get that done then Monday we can pour concrete and call it a weekend!

Bridge day 2 from road perspective.

Bridge starting point

I drove home late last night to protect the wife from the big bad raccoon only to find out she had already shot it! This allowed me to get an early start on the bridge.  First trip to Home Depot to get the dreaded rebar.  Sorry Doom I didn’t know what “size 3” correlated to in the English measuring system (and of course the help at Home Depot didn’t know either) and since it is only a foot bridge I bought 3/8inch rebar.  I wasn’t sure I could form hoops by hand if I used 1/2inch.  While there I almost bought a laser level but talked myself out of it.  I did remember to pick up the glue for the beams we are going to make.  I managed to do all my errands and show up to the house just as my help arrived.

 I may have found a responsible hard working 16 year old male.  This is a rare specimen of mankind and very elusive.  He knew we were going to do some kind of bridge work.  So I gathered up some tools and told him to start ripping up the bridge.  He wanted more direction.  I told him to put the nails, screws and especially the lag bolts in a box I had set out.  When he started ripping up the floor first I did mention that he should start on the hand rails first.  He was a little dismayed at first, but he tore in and got the job done.

Bridge almost tore down.

New pathway to the house, from the outhouse down to the tree and across the bottom of the picture to the gate.

 I had to fire up the new weed eater and clear a pathway from the driveway to our yard.  So I chopped down weeds, moved downed tree branches, fixed the propane bridge, made a couple of steps out of rocks and removed two old bird feeder holder and raked the whole path.  Once I had that done I helped finish tearing up the bridge and we loaded all the rotten wood (all of it) into the pickup and took it up on the hill to the one remaining burn pile I have not burned yet (will save this pile until the snow flies now).  We still have four railroad ties to rip out of the ground and demolition will be completed.

Four railroad ties left to remove.

Unfortunately, I learned that I am going to have to pour footings at each end of the bridge.  I was hoping to use what was there but there is no upright keeping the dirt from falling down and rotting out the pressure treated beams.  I have been working on a way to angle the footings so that I don’t have to cut a weird angle in to the bottom of my beam (this is what was done previously).  I have spent the last four hours coming up with a solution in my head, Annmarie pointed out an obvious water problem that I would have overlooked.  I have a cure for that now.
We went and had dinner then another trip to Home Depot was in order to pick up that laser level and more rebar for the footings.
Annmarie was getting ready for bed when we both smelled skunk.  I did a perimeter search armed with pistol and flashlight.  Saw four cats, two horses and a bunch of sheep but no skunk.  Sarah’s new job is going to be to weed eat all the weeds within fifty feet of our yard fence.  I need a clear lane of fire!  So she will be on starting tomorrow (tonight the ogre let her go to a friends house to stay the night).

Well, I am losing ground quickly this year.  I lost another chicken last night, one of the leghorns.  We were getting ready for bed around 2230.  I was opening the bedroom windows wider (more cool air) and thought I smelled a skunk.  This necessitated a night time patrol before I could go to sleep (Annmarie just tells me to go so I don’t keep her awake).  I had worked on the chicken butler last evening and got it working again.  I had to re-position a micro switch so the door could operate.  So I knew the chicken butler was functional, but we had the clouds come in and cause it to get dark suddenly.  As I approached the coop the chicken door ramp was festooned with live birds camping out at the door.  I tried to toss them inside the coop through the door (after I opened it) but the hole is kinda small to toss a flapping bird through and the other hens kept trying to peck me.  After the third time getting pecked I gave up.  I did a search of the coop yard and found lots of loose white feathers.  On the way out I shut up the coop yard door.  

We caught a raccoon in the live trap down at my inlaw’s house.  So I went down this morning and dispatched it and took it up to the bone yard.  The weeds are over growing the road up to the bone yard.  I need more traffic headed that way.  None of the live traps outside the coop were tripped.  My super large clip was still in place so no chickens vanished last night.

Annmarie tried to set up the camera to watch the coop but there is too much interference for the camera to transmit into the house.  So we are looking at a wireless receiver that ties in to our internet page directly and it would be housed in the old house and then the signal would be clear for us in the house.  Still considering this option even though it will cost more cash.  The first batch of baby chickens are three months old so they have at least another three months before they start laying.   Next year I may have to ask around in January to find out which feed store is ordering chicks first and put in an order for 25 chicks right away.  I think the one store starts in February, that way my new chicks could start laying by August.

Hopefully, this was the critter killing my chickens and it stops.  I got the new part for the chicken butler in the mail over the weekend so I will go out and work on it today.  Once it is back up and running perfect the chickens will be safe.