So, apparently our sheep are dissatisfied with their pasture. Before Steve went to work, he chased a ewe and one of her lambs back inside the fence. This morning, I looked out the kitchen window and noticed two of the adult sheep laying out on the hillside next to the fence. It was already pretty warm, and the rest of the sheep were huddled against the woodshed or under the bridge. It was kind of odd to see these two out in the sun. Then it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard the coffee girls in a while. They are quite vocal usually. So, I went out and checked, and sure enough, Long Tail and coffee girls were outside the fence. Speckle-butt was still inside the fence, but was apparently keeping Long Tail company while they all cooked their brains. I opened the gate and walked the wayward children back in. They rushed right over to the shade of the tree by the chicken coop and rested for a while. They appear to have recovered quite well, and the coffee girls are once again talking.

But find it we did. Actually, our contractor friend, Lee, found it. He found a first-generation immigrant working at McDonald’s who was looking for extra work and was not afraid of hard work. Lee’s been using them for laborers, and we hired one of them to dig out the barn, since Steve keeps getting distracted by other more pressing projects. There just don’t seem to be enough days off for him to get it all done (that’s an observation, not a complaint). Anyway, Lee brought his laborer out this morning, and introduced me to a very small young man from Honduras. Now, I have known other small men who can outwork a larger man, so I wasn’t too concerned by his size. I was, however, a bit dismayed to see that he had no water and no food with him. It was HOT here today. That’s OK – I can supply a water jug, and a sandwich for lunch is not going to put me in the poorhouse. So, I took him out a couple of hot dogs (don,t look at me like that. It’s what I had, and they were all meat quality dogs) and a handful of grapes at noon, and refilled his water jug. I was impressed with his progress at that point. He’d dug almost as much in 3 hours as Steve had in 6. At the end of the day, I went out to pay him (yes, we pay the laborer by the day), and was very very impressed. In 6 hours, Steve had cleared just a little over one shovel length. We now have a full 3 1/2 shovel lengths completely cleared of buildup. In 8 hours, this little fellow had dug twice as much as Steve was able to remove in 6. I was concerned that he wouldn’t want to come back tomorrow, because it was hot, dirty, stinky, back-breaking work, but instead of complaining, he thanked me repeatedly for the work and promised to return in the morning, with his own food tomorrow. We are very spoiled in this country.

I just got back from a predator sweep of the yard and my chicken yard.  No predators and all chickens were accounted for.  I have 28 hens, one rooster and 11 new babies.  of course, 11 of those hens are not laying eggs yet.  The sheep were trying to get me to let me into our yard.  Now this does slow down my need to mow the lawn (a very good thing) but they are killing my bushes and roses and make an awful mess on my back porch.  So no sheep in the yard.  I locked the chickens back up.

Well, we survived the weekend just barely.  Trying to dig out the house now.  Looks like a tornado hit the inside of our house.  It was pointed out to me that my predator post may have implied that our new baby that died was killed by a predator.  It wasn’t it just did the chicken thing and died.  I had to go out the next morning and hold another one up to the water dispenser and make it drink.  Took me about 15 minutes to perk up that chick.  It is doing just fine now and we have only lost the one.  The new babies are doing fine and running around and eating without any difficulties.  Annmarie and I were talking about switching to a nipple waterer. That way the inside water will not make any messes and during the winter I can stick an immersion heater inside.  No mess.  Now if I only had power to the coop…

Need to build fence before I wire the chicken coop.  It will be the next thing though. Our chocolate lab, Bailey thinks that any baby, no matter what kind is hers and needs to be protected.  This is her watching out for our new babies.

Well I just spent the last 15 hours locked in a new cook shack getting ready for my daughter’s swim team meet and then cooking for it.  We have a brand new shack (very nice, donated, expensive trailer with fire suppression system and the works) that needed its maiden voyage charted by a not so gentle soul.  So I just got home.  I was bemoaning the fact that one of my new babies died last night and I had to find it this morning.  Of course it was not one of the two free ones we got.  I just don’t have time to mess with the live trap and I could see more of my chickens dying.  By the way I was in my Toyota Prius, and it is a very low car, when I crested the last hill to our turn off and there were two sets of eyes in the road.  I swerved, and a raccoon ended up under the front right tire.  No more raccoon.  The second set of eyes was a cat.  I am not sure how it happened it was very quick.  But there is one less chicken predator within 1/4 mile of our house.  Gotta go as I have to get up in 4.5 hours and do it again for 15 hours.