Global Warming?

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here...it is cooler than normal, it has rained over 20 inches in two months and I imagine we will get some pretty good snowfall this year.  I am in Texas, we don't usually get a lot of snow in Texas...maybe the panhandle...but this is the South, and we generally only have about two weeks of real cold weather and that usually doesn't happen until January or February.  Weather patterns change, they always have...some years we may get temperatures in the Summer up to 108, and we may get temperatures in the teens in the worst of winters...in my 56 years of life in Texas, there are usually more mild days than super hot or cold.  But I have seen as low as 6 degrees and as high as 114 degrees.  I have seen ice almost two inches thick one winter with the lowest of temperatures...and that was in the early 80's.  But so was the most days of over 100 degree temperatures.

I am talking about this because I am not really ready for the colder temperatures.  I need better housing for my roosters and with all the rain we have had I just can't work outside in the mud.  I set up a GoFundMe campaign for a tractor, but no one donated.  It was a long shot anyway.  But, I will have to just try and do what I can with a tiller and a shovel and my garden cart.  It would be so much easier with a tractor, but we can't afford one.  I will till and move the dirt by hand when it dries out, I may have to cut down some trees or figure out how to move the pile of railroad ties we found by the lake.  I need a retaining wall built and a level area for my critters housing.  I did it for my big coop, but I need a bigger level area that will drain higher up or to create better drainage.  It is awfully muddy in my rooster pens.  I need to go scrape all the muck off the pallets in them and put down straw.  I need to figure out how to divert water away from the big coop with what materials I have on hand too

I acquired two really long pallets yesterday at Tractor Supply.  They are at least ten feet long, and I got a couple of 2"x4"x12' pieces of wood from the pile.  It will help with the roof on the pallet coop I am building.  I still need more pallets, but I did get a few more pallets last week...they are just not the almost solid kind so I can't use them for the flooring without something over them.  I only have so much to work with right now, I am getting things here and there, like screws and staples, but I had run out.  I am going to use plastic feed bags on the north wall to block the wind...I think.  At least until I can get some kind of siding...I am leaning towards skinning it in metal, but that is not something I can do until I sell a treadmill or my elliptical machine.  I can try and get some crafts made to sell, but that takes time too.  There just never seems to be enough time in the days to get everything I want to do, done.

None of the 12 goose eggs I set were fertile, but I was told the males will wait until the spring before they "tread" the females.  Geese don't normally lay in the Fall, but I have one that is.  Only five of the duck eggs hatched and one of the ducklings died, something happened with the egg sack on it yolk is all over in the bottom of the incubator.  The four ducks that did hatch are doing well...they look like Khaki Campbell's, and since we actually started eating duck eggs...that is a good thing.  They lay almost every day, so even if my chickens need 14 hours of daylight to produce an egg...the ducks don't seem to have that issue.  They were all molting and didn't lay for almost two months, but the chickens were laying like gangbusters then...but now a lot of them are molting still and some days I only get seven chicken eggs, some twenty...just depends on how sunny it is and for how long.  I sold five dozen eggs yesterday and four dozen this morning and I don't have any more to sell right now...except two dozen duck eggs.  Baby ducks are so cute...but very messy, I am hoping to have a broody duck one of these days...it would be nice if they hatched them instead of me doing it and raising them in the house brooder.  I need to dispose of the infertile eggs and clean the incubator, I have two more goose eggs to try...and maybe she will lay today too, I may put more duck eggs in the incubator and maybe some chicken eggs.  I need to make some money somehow, I just need something to sell.