Well the first night is over.  Had a few problems with the new cook shack.  Kept tripping the GFI outlets that were powering the drink shack via extension cord.  Couldn’t get that fixed.  Kept tripping the 15amp breaker when we plugged in the second warmer.  Tried all the outlets on the back wall.  Seems like they are all fed by the same breaker.  So we had to string an extension cord across the shack to another outlet.  Couldn’t make coffee and use the two warmers.  So no coffee.  The grill table is movable to make it easier to clean behind, it has a quick disconnect for the propane and two for the table.  It worked great… until we went to move the table back in place, the holes were off by 1/8 of an inch.  Too low so we would have to lift the back of the table.  Ran low on ice.  I started with 360#, had extra.  Half way through needed to go get more but no one wanted to let us out, luckily I had talked with the one policeman that had a key.  Sarah and I got out walked to our ice machine, about four hundred yards, grabbed 100# of ice and hoofed it back.  We had to wait 10 minutes for that same policeman to let us back in, but he did and I thanked him profusely.  (will take in two more coolers for ice)   Didn’t have all the right scraper pads to clean the grill.  Didn’t have cheap water for the workers to drink.  Didn’t have two donation cans (only had one).  To top it all off, I left my bucket of food scraps for the chickens at the shack!!
So tomorrow when I go in early to work on these issues I will pick up the chicken food and fix these problems.  Now the very nice thing tonight was we had lots of help and it was good help.  Every one chipped in and did their part.  That always makes things nice.  Obviously, some things need to be addressed but with the cook shack being brand new I expected some issues.  We didn’t get inspected by the health department.  I was hoping to get it out of the way tonight. 

So I only have 6 more evenings/days of this before it is over.  I took two weeks vacation so I could coordinate it all.  We only went through 400 burgers and around 60 hot dogs.  Oh, and we have company coming on Friday.   I need to setup a bed and clean the walls before then.  It is going to be a long week.  
good night.

It seems like I am always behind. Always 10 more things to do that needed to be done last month. This happens to be one of the things I did not count on when we moved out to the farm. I should have realized it, but I didn’t really understand it. Annmarie and I walked up the bottom pasture to go pick blackberries. The field has dried up so you are no longer fighting the marshy ground. We had a hard time picking berries as there are several wild critters that like blackberries also. (I think it is the deer.) So all the berries on the outside of the bushes were gone and we had to wade into the bushes to pick. It was very brutal and poky. Annmarie almost got trapped in the bushes several times. I had brought one leather glove to move the vines out of the way. We talked about bringing some shears with us to just trim the vines back to make them easier to pick. We may do that next year, but if we do that then it will be a pick one time kind of thing because whatever is eating the berries will have easier access also. The blackberries are doing great of course. I burned them down to nothing over the winter and now they are growing gangbusters. By next year, you won’t even be able to tell I had them cleaned out.

I tried to lock the sheep in our yard to use as live lawn mowers. No such luck. Someone decided to pound their head into my gate until they took the top hinge off the post and this then allowed all of them to squeeze through the new opening. So I am going to have to put in a middle hinge so this cannot happen again. Just one more thing to add to the list. The sheep get out every day now and cruise the hillside. I still have not fixed the two creek crossings they are crawling under.

Instead, I am cleaning up the downstairs room we are calling the Library. We have company coming next week and they need a place to stay. I still need to move the piano, rip up the old carpet and wash the walls, then set up a bed. All before next week. Instead, I am blogging!! I needed a break any way.

We were driving home Saturday night from visiting friends and I was starting to dread the rest of my weekend. I want the chickens to come and go! I really don’t like going out every night and locking them up and then every morning letting them out. They should be able to just come and go as they please. So as I am driving down the road, I am contemplating ways to get rid of the skunk in the trap without getting sprayed or contaminating my pickup. I don’t come up with anything. But, I did manage to run over a dead skunk and make my new car smell just like the pickup. So now instead of just one vehicle stinking like skunk, we have two. I haven’t caught anything in the live trap all weekend, but my dog food keeps disappearing at night!!

I do have a few hens laying over in the wood shed again. I collected three eggs last night out in the wood shed. One hen is still trying to sit on eggs. Her first lone egg did not hatch, so she stole two more and is now sitting on them.  I’m going to let her try to hatch these, then she has to take a break.

I did manage to get the room free of carpet and staples.   Ann Marie & I will move the piano Wednesday morning, and we’ll be almost ready for company.  I want to try and get some of the wall paper border off, and then I’ll wash the walls, and we’ll call it good for now.  I’ll do more before our November company comes.  Ann Marie thinks they need to have lights and power.  I guess I can’t argue too much, since it gets dark by 7:00 then, and they may not want to get ready for bed at 6:30.

Sarah & I went to the other blackberry patch lat night and picked. Well, I picked. Sarah’s side didn’t have many berries because someone else had eaten them. Most likely a 4-legged someone else. She wasn’t up for wading in the creek for blackberries, so I sent her on home. I can’t really blame her, since she can pick at Grandma’s house while standing on dry land. We got enough for a very yummy blackberry clobbler. There’s nothing like fresh from the oven cobbler made with fresh-picked berries. It was a great end to the day.

 In the black again!!  Gotta love that, now if only I was positive for the whole year.    I made $10.84 for the month on an average 21.3 hens laying (some of my teenagers started laying so I have been adding them in).  (for the year my net income is –$8.45/month.  I had $39.66 in expenses all feed.    For the year, my monthly expenses are $53.04.  We collected a total of 317 usable eggs (31 less than last month) averaging 11.5 eggs/day collected (for the year the average is 11.7).  The chickens ate 0.56#food/egg (for the year are averaging 0.67#/egg)    In August it cost $0.11/egg or $1.32/doz for feed (my yearly average is $0.15/egg or $1.80/dozen.  This is a penny an egg better this month.) 


I went out to the wood shed today and found another stash of eggs!!  There were 10 eggs in one nest and a small loner egg off by itself.  So I had to reattach the chicken wire over the door.  This should stop the 10 egg hen.  Of course those 10 eggs were all huge!  I had to throw them against the tree stump for the chickens to eat tomorrow.  I had to let one hen out of the live trap.  She had gotten stuck after tripping the trap.  Guess she should have left the dog food alone.  I bought 100# of food today at the feed store, so as I was unloading it, I got a whiff of my water job.  Not such a good idea.  Yes, the dust was down drastically inside the coop, but the ammonia smell was awful.  So I had to open up the door and clean the cob webs off of one window to get more air circulating.  It was much better after I got all the feed unloaded.  


The sheep are not cooperating with my mowing plans.  They keep sneaking out of the yard.  It rained for 18 hours straight yesterday and today.  We have plenty of rain for the next week.  


Annmarie has a display at the local fabric/craft store now.  She is selling baby booties.  She is very excited and works on them every night.  Here is a picture of the first batch she hung up for sale.

It just seems like nothing ever wants to work out.  I locked the sheep in the yard yesterday (the lawn needs mowed).  It is just easier to turn the sheep loose than use our push reel mower.  I broke two gas mowers last year.  The sheep are now happily outside the yard again.  They pushed (broke) my small wooden gate in the cat area and then crawled under the fence to get outside the yard.  Of course, when I got home I saw four of them crawl under the main fence in the dry creek bed so they could get outside of our Ram pasture.  They just want to be somewhere I don’t want them to be.  Starting to get annoying.  Eventually, I will get some time to fix those creek crossings, just not yet.

Our chocolate lab, Bailey, has decided that odour de skunk is the best thing since sliced bread!  Every time she gets out of the yard, since I killed the skunk, she runs over and rolls around on the ground.  Fresh skunk smell.  This morning I saw the trap had been sprung, I started to dread the skunk smell before I even knew what was in the trap.  I trudged outside begrudgingly.  Luckily, it was one of the kittens.  A not very impressed kitten.  I shook the cage a little and then let it out.  I reset the trap and it still had some dog food in the bottom.

Of course it rained today and is raining now, so who knows if I will catch anything again.  I am hoping the demand for eggs starts to go back up as the chickens are producing more now.

I have decided to remove one of the sheep from the slaughter list.  We have one female who has had two miscarriages.  She is very pregnant again, so I am going to give her one more shot at it.  If it doesn’t work this time then she is done.  Three strikes rule.

I came home from working a stretch.  Annmarie and I cleaned out boxes and threw a bunch of stuff out.  All in an attempt to get things clean before our company comes in 2 weeks.  Now, we all know that it needs to be done anyway, but this lights a fire under me and things get done.  I am very much a deadline kinda guy.  As in, I like to wait until the deadline is near before I do anything!  I work better under pressure.  Kinda explains my career choice.  But I digress.  

I was readying the car for the five boxes from the house and I noticed the 50# bag of chicken food.  Sarah had just gotten home so I asked her if the chickens needed feeding.  She said yes, so being the naive parent, I asked why the chicken food was in the car if the chickens needed it?  So I lugged it to the coop and ranted to the child about the state of the chicken’s water and food when I smelled it, skunk.  Annmarie had told me that the dog had found a skunk over the weekend.  I had set the live trap last week, but had not put any food in it.  I checked it every day, telling myself I should throw some bait (dog food) in it all week long.  I looked up and sure enough there was a black and white stinky kitty in the trap (skunk).  I also had to catch my little tiny showgirl hen baby.  She had gotten out of her enclosure.

So I went back inside and grabbed the P-22 pistol.  Now when shooting skunks I stand about 20 feet away from the trap.  I had to shoot the skunk three times before I smelt the tell tail waft of dead skunk.  I went back into the chicken run to work on some holes in the fence I made last year with the metal weed whacker blades.  Sarah had pointed them out to me.  So I was down on the ground trying to sew metal mesh together with metal wire, when Sarah points out that the skunk was still alive!  It was standing up and had turned around in the cage. So I went back over and shot it three more times using my laser, then turned said laser off, and put three more rounds in its head with the sights only.  I did not want to move a live skunk.  Not to mention it is like shooting a small ping pong ball at 20 feet.  Skunks have small brains.  It was overkill.  Even I realize that, but I did not want a third resurrection.

I scooped the top four inches off of my deep litter in the coop under the roosts.  I also turned it all and then wet it down with the hose, I am hoping that keeps some of the dust down.  I need to get the shop vac out there and clean up the coop and spider webs.  Sarah threw away 10 empty bags of feed.  I turned the sprinklers on as I was leaving.

I got to drive up to the bone yard and dispose of the skunk.  Some predator likes the taste of skunk!  The last skunk carcass had been moved about ten feet and picked over.  I dumped that one out onto the ground and drove back to the house.  I counted over 20 deer on the 1/2 mile drive to the house.  Of course, the back of the pickup reeks like skunk again.  Not sure what to do about this.  If the mule (small four wheel drive utility vehicle) was still working I would use it, but it is broken.  I sure hope the predators stop coming around soon.  I did set the trap and bait it again tonight.

Here is a picture of our house at night.