chickens

Greenhouse build

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I have plans to get Annmarie’s greenhouse in place and put together so she can use it. We would like to grow vegetables through the winter so we are going to give it a go. We will probably put a remote thermometer in the greenhouse so we can track the high and low temps throughout the year. This will not be possible if I do not assemble the thing. Rainman and I had already built the base earlier in the year we just needed to assemble the actual greenhouse, or so I thought. The Quiet One and I worked on changing out panels down by the spring first. I had purchased some old metal panels and we swapped out the newer horse exercise ring panels for some old ones that can stay forever. I of course found a deep spot with my rubber boots and ended up getting water inside my left boot first thing in the morning. My foot stayed wet for the rest of the day.

Before we could even assemble the first part of the base I had to bring over almost two yards of gravel to spread around the outside of the base. The chickens had spread out the gravel and were eroding the base. Once we got that corrected we assembled the base and the instructions said to bury the base. We brought in another three yards of gravel to fill the base but kept it away from the metal. I wanted to get the entire thing assembled then use some metal to wood screws to attach the greenhouse base to the wooden base we installed. We also bolted the wooden frame to three foot ground anchors screwed into the ground in the spring. I do not believe it will be able to fly away. It might fly apart due to the wind but the base frame will stay attached to the ground if it does! All the videos said it would take two days but we were making stellar progress despite reading the instruction booklet. That is until the instructions started to tell us to disassemble one piece for every two we attempted to add. We will have to change out some longer bolts for shorter ones as we used up all the long ones and we need them for the roof.

I ended up on my back after attempting to jump off of a ladder at what I thought was a foot or so. It was more than that and I did not stick the landing, my feet slid out from under me and my back stopped my fall when it pounded into the ground. Surprisingly, I did not knock the air out of my lungs. I did end up bruising the bottom of my left foot. It hurts to walk now and I have a slight limp until I get used to the pain. I also wore a short sleeve shirt, it was hot, and I don’t usually do that so I got an impressive sunburn on my arms and neck. At 58 years old I am not near as spry as I used to be.

We ended up almost getting the roof truss pieces in place before quitting. The Quiet One did bring over chickens! I now have an extra approximately 25 chickens. So there are about 40 chickens running around now. They need to figure out that they have to go to the front spring if they want water. I got a dozen eggs today, so the dog is back to getting an egg on her food twice daily.

Our Ring camera is getting a lot smarter. It can now tell you that the critters it sees are a flock of chickens! It is pretty amazing. They now need to work on the logic so the camera tells you when a dog enters the picture.

Haying done for now.

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Well we do actually go on vacation occasionally, we spent a week in Cove at Ascension summer camp. I am the nurse and Annmarie is the priest. I spend the week working on my jewelry as I am always too busy at home. I was able to complete three chains that were in various stages of completion. While we were away the Quiet One mowed the entire property again to knock down all the cheat grass a second time. It takes two mowings to get it knocked down. They did all the main fields. I spent one Sunday mowing around the buildings and along the road and up top a single time around the CRP. They had already gone around twice on three sides. This helps keep the weeds from creeping in from the fence lines. I did not see a single rabbit while I was mowing. We did have a second calf born while we were away, it is a little buy and he is already bigger than his three week old sister. He is a beautiful brown color. This is the second boy that has been brown.

I did try and mow on the back side of field #1 but it is tough. I just knocked down the high stuff. There is still a tipping point from the old hole that I did not get completely filled. So you have to be careful with the tractor or it will tip over. I really need to get the Gingerman over here with a dozer and cut a road on the back side so I can fence off the stream-bed. We might even be able to even out the side to the point that I could grow some grass on this side. I might be able to get 1-2 acres planted in grass. It’s a long term goal. It is going to require a dozer. I wouldn’t mind planting a couple of trees back there also.

The chickens have been getting decimated so we decided to upgrade our security. We now have a Ring camera on the backside of the old house and it watches the coop and entire ram pasture/back of barn. We should now be able to see coyotes, raccoons and other predators. It is a lot easier to review footage when it gets marked because something is there.

Our garden is pumping out herbs and we just picked all our fall planted garlic. The nice part was it was free! We saved garlic from last year and planted it in the fall, we will do the same thing again this year. We use an entire large brown paper bag of garlic over the course of a year. Garlic is a root vegetable, not a spice. We are picking raspberries also. We are getting about a quart every day now. Annmarie has started to freeze some for use during the winter. We are not going to get much tree fruit this year. The late freeze killed the buds, plus last year was a bumper crop and the trees like to rest after a great year. But our thornless blackberries and the wild blackberries are incredible this year. I picked almost 25 gallons last year. I will probably have to fill in the missing fruit with blackberries this year so I suspect I will need to pick at least 40 gallons this year. If you equate that to the price of buying fruit we probably save $800-1000 in fresh fruit by freezing our own. Plus, I don’t mind picking blackberries, it is fairly relaxing.

Predators 19/ Farm 0

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We have multiple fires around us so sunsets are now very spectacular.

Monday after work the Quiet One and Annmarie came out and helped me pickup 6 ton of hay from the neighbor’s place. We stacked all of it over by the grain bins then used the new corral pieces to keep the alpaca and deer off of the hay. We picked up another 290 bales. We did have to dump off one bale on the edge of the field. It smelled very bad. I am sure there was some dead animal inside the bale but I never saw anything when I was baling hay. It was so bad there was no way I was going to take it back to the house and unroll it.

At some point I am going to have add it all up to know how much is actually out there but it is enough! I do know that. I will still need to cut the Naked Gardener’s field a second time and that will generate over 2 ton plus I may need to cut field one a second time but that will depend on when I can get the baler rebuilt.

We are going to buy a ton of bagged cattle feed to supplement the grass this winter. We are getting a heck of a price on it. It is very high protein so it will help offset the low protein count in the grass hay.

Our back creek is starting to dry up. It is barely flowing, this is about two weeks early for us.

The chickens are making me crazy. We had 27 hens after all the “Townie” chickens were taken in. They were laying eggs like crazy. Then I got busy haying and kept forgetting to get eggs. Something started to eat all of the eggs. All I would find were shells in the coop. So I had an egg thief. Last week I went out after dark to pickup eggs (don’t want the egg thief to get them) and I actually counted chickens! Holy smokes! There were only 8 hens and 3 roosters. We have lost 19 hens and one rooster. All of the town chickens have succumbed to the farm hazards. Annmarie thinks I need to lock them into the coop yard but after the cows tore into the backside of the enclosure I will need to spend a couple of days of rebuilding the entire chicken yard to make this a reality. I am unwilling to give up two days of farm work for the chickens yet. The chickens are still laying more eggs than our household can use so we are still winning. If we have to buy eggs for ourselves then I count that as a loss. We have not had to do this since I got chickens. The few chicken customers we had are going without again. It is feast or famine around here when it comes to having spare chicken eggs.

We purchased a ring camera to watch the coop and ram pasture. I will get it figured out so an end can be dished out to the offending party. It takes 6-8 months to raise a chicken until it can lay eggs.

Trying to get rid of cheatgrass

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Last weekend was spent going around in circles! We are trying to get about three acres cleared of cheat grass. The stuff has totally taken over the fields and there is nothing left but cheatgrass and thistles. I tried to plant grass about a decade ago without any success. It got choked out by the cheat grass. Our plan is to keep killing the cheat grass until we cut down on the number of seeds in the soil. I will keep spraying Round-up and plowing the field under until we just don’t get much cheatgrass emerging. We got a really good kill on the grass and I was trying out the new plow that the Gingerman brought over. It is an old rotating or flop plow that allows for the direction to be changed. It took a few hours to get the number of pulls on the rope figured out. It cycles through a transport/lower/lower/flip cycle depending on where you are in the rope pull cycle. Plus, there are a couple of springs that need to be replaced. I had to get off and kick the levers every twenty minutes. I do have the springs on our grocery list so I do not forget them. It took me two days to plow, disc and harrow the three acres. When the equipment is only 2-4 feet wide it can take a while!

Annmarie went out and checked on the bees. They are doing great and finding all different colors of pollen. They are not even bothering to eat any of the sugar water we put out for them. We pick up our second hive in the evening of May 1.

The new town chickens we were given are so stupid, they keep flying into the yard where the dogs are residing. Every day, Annmarie or I chase some chickens out of the yard. The kids came down to stay the weekend and they bring our older Border Collie dog Mouse. Our young Border Collie, Chance, just harasses the chickens all day long. She has not killed any yet. Mouse killed two last weekend. Honestly, we warned the chickens that the yard needed to be a no fly zone for their own safety and they ignored us. The chickens are just too stupid to live.

Greenhouse project started

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Friday was a solid day on the farm. Mr Rainman came out to help this weekend and we were able to work on the base of the greenhouse. This took about three hours to level and set. We filled the middle with gravel and there are four earth anchors screwed into the ground almost three feet. I tried to find bolts anywhere on the farm that were long enough to go through the anchor and into the frame. No go, I had to run to town to get four eight inch 1/2” bolts with washer and nut cost $6/each! We were going to turn the greenhouse more toward the South but due to trying to protect the door from wind we went with this orientation. The greenhouse door will be on the old house side of this foundation. It was time to get the greenhouse up as we have had it in a box for several years.

Once we had that base done, we started to haul dirt to cover the culvert crossing. The dirt has been flushed away several years ago and I had not corrected it yet. So we hauled over a few yards of dirt and flattened it out with the tractors. This should make the crossing much easier now.

Mr Rainman drove out a large bale of hay out to the momma cows. We still have the last calves in the orchard. They still hide as far from us as they can in the orchard. They do walk around even if we are outside but they are still crazy.

I decided to work on the tractor gun mount. Mr Rainman pointed out that the tractor had two bolts on the roll bar and I could just bolt the support up instead of welding it to the bucket arms. It was going to be in the way visually if I mounted it to bucket arms. It was a great idea so I went with it. I cut the channel iron to the correct length, then proceeded to clean up the metal with a grinder.

As I was grinding on the rifle rack my wire wheel kicked back and sucked up my pants! I let off the trigger as soon as I realized it but the damage was done to my pants. I ended up with a couple of small superficial scratches from the wheel. Pretty good.

I painted it, then mounted eyebolts on the ends. I figured I am always trying to hang more stuff off the tractor since I don’t have a tool box that is very big and the eye hooks will let me hang a bag or just clip stuff onto the rack. I mounted the locking arms and then tried to bolt it onto the tractor. I was off by 1/4” on one of my holes and had to scoot the hole over. This is much harder in a piece of steel than it is in wood! I got it all done and now just need to use a piece of closed cell foam cut to the barrel shape to keep the front of the rifle from bouncing around. I ordered non lubricated condoms so I can cover the barrel opening with a condom and a rubber band. I am ready for predators now! I might have to put in some practice since I only get one shot! I wanted minimal parts and movement that could get mucked up from all of the dust, dirt and rain.

We had some friends bring out 16 laying hens. They are getting out of the chicken raising gig. I had to go out after dark, find them and toss them all into the chicken coop. They were all roosting outside the coop on the fence by the old house. Chickens are not that bright. The nice thing is their chickens are used to people and being handled so they are super tame compared to mine. I hope this does not make them easier food for the predators. We now have 24 hens.