Almost Free!

I am a crazy chicken lady these days, I hatched chicks way longer than I intended to this year...but, I am going to move the last of them to the yard tomorrow...I think.  Once I get them off of my back porch and get the cages cleaned up, I am hoping the flies will go away!  I am so tired of scrapping poop trays out and dealing with maggots and poop...well, you just wouldn't understand unless you have been hatching chickens steady for 9 months and taking care of babies.  So, I will consider myself almost free...no more cleaning brooders for awhile...I think anyway.

I still have a goose sitting on eggs, I think they should hatch this weekend...if they are going to hatch. I am hoping the Momma Goose will take care of them so I don't have to.   I have a lot of young chickens in the yard, but I am going to have to gather up a lot of the males the young are being extremely aggressive with my hens, some of the young roosters I hatched out this year are huge!  It may sound awful but I really need to process a lot of them soon.  They tend to gang up on the hens, sometimes five males will go after one hen and I need to put a stop to it.  I have a man who buys roosters from me for eating...he stopped by the other day and said come October 1st, he would probably come by and get at least ten, possibly as many as 20 roosters.  I will probably get rid of a lot of mixed breed roosters, I have 20 roosters in my big pallet coop, but half of them are full bred Cream Legbars, I may go around to pens and just selectively choose mixed breeds for him.  Getting rid of twenty roosters would help the feed bill...goodness knows I need all the help I can get with that!  I am up to 21 five gallon buckets of feed fermenting in my feed shed.  I had to increase it, you can't add turkeys, geese, ducks and chickens and not feed them enough...I went from 9 turkeys to 23, I added 15 ducks and 3 geese, and no telling how many chickens.  The bad part is, about 3/4 of them are males!  I don't need more males...my goal was to get more laying hens to sell.  The only reason I grow them up is for food...and since I have not finish my processing station yet...I am selling off the older roosters for cheap.  I have plenty more growing up for when I am ready.

I think people around here wait for fall, cooler weather and a lot of chicken keepers will thin their flocks.  I may only get rid of roosters this year...but, I have had people calling wanting hens this summer.  I am not willing to get rid of my breeding stock.  I have some nice birds, the heritage Rhode Island Reds are a very rich deep dark red, the Cream Legbars are gorgeous, and I have some nice Marans.  I am hoping my Welsummers start laying soon and the newest of the Blue Laced Red Wyandottes.  I need to tag or band all the ones I want to keep for breeding and do an inventory of each breed so I know how many females I have and males from different sources.  I may sell the Isbars I hatched though...kinda pissed that they turned out to be bantams.  I prefer only large fowl because of the size of some of the breeds I have...like the Orpingtons and Java's, some of the mixes are huge too.  But, I am trying to get large birds that can take care of themselves, the Falcons, Owls and Hawks don't stand a chance with my fowl these days.  I have not had any deaths since my geese and turkeys have grown up and I have such huge roosters running around.

I have lots to get done today, well every day...but some days there is more than enough to keep me busy from dawn to dusk...my body will only let me do so much though.  I rest every few hours most of the time, sometimes for an hour or more in the summer.  I come into the house, cool off, drink a ton of water, do some laundry, maybe some dishes or wash eggs sometimes and then go back at it outside.  We are suppose to have a cold wet winter...gotta get ready for it.  It is suppose to get up to 91 today, I am just hoping the humidity is not to high when I get out there today.  I need to do some cleaning in a few coops and then moving of the young juveniles from the porch brooders, then clean the brooders too.  Then I will go from there...

We Are Mortals

When you are young, you take risks...you try new things, sometimes dangerous things and come out without a scratch.  You don't really think about the consequences most of the time.  There was a time when I was more daring, did things like rock climbing, water skiing, snow skiing, canoeing, camping out on top of a mountain knowing there were bears around.  I have suffered a few injuries, but nothing too bad, the worst was a bad bruise when I was learning to waterski, I didn't let go of the rope when I fell and tried to pull myself up...the resul,  my butt hit the water, but I was still holding on and being dragged...I had the rope between my legs and when it suddenly popped out of my hands the rope caught me on the inside of my left thigh.  It hurt bad, I was afraid to look, afraid that I had torn my muscle open or that my leg was just hanging by a thread.  I was in severe pain and afraid.  

Why am I bringing this up?  Because I rarely take risks any more, well not in those ways, maybe small risks now, like wearing a sleeveless shirt to mow and work in the garden knowing we have horseflies the size of birds, or not wearing gloves to pull up random weeds knowing there may be fire ants and I will get bitten.  I guess, after having cancer that I feel lucky and I don't want to do anything that will change that.  We are mortals after all.  Not all of us get cancer and survive.  I have lost a relative to cancer recently, actually yesterday.  She was my age, she died of cancer and it was only diagnosed a short time ago, it is sad and kind of slapped me in the face again with reality.  My Mom and her sister both had breast cancer and survived, at least so far...they told me since I already had ovarian cancer there was a good chance I may get breast cancer too.  I have made a lot of changes in my life since the ovarian cancer, read up on alternative treatments, essential oils, vitamins, lifestyle changes.  I pay attention to my body's cues, when something is wrong...I know it.  I may ignore it for awhile, but I know when something is wrong.  I have not been to the doctor for a checkup in awhile, I have to go soon, been putting it off...I am not fond of doctors, they prey on your weaknesses.  They know when you are afraid and give you prescriptions...prescriptions you are afraid not to take in some situations.  But, sometimes those have such bad side effects they make you worse...and they give you more prescriptions to "help" the side effects of the first ones.  At least that is how it was in the "big city"...it is not as bad here in the country.  But, the medical clinic I go to has changed hands, so I am not sure what to expect when I go in again.

I have to get a medication checkup or the won't write a new prescription for my hormones and one other anti-spasmodic I take because of nerve damage from surgery.  I was hoping to get off of everything soon...but, I gotta sleep and without the hormones I get bad hot flashes and because of them and pain, I really don't get much sleep without them.  I got off of heavy duty painkillers a few years ago, and just take over the counter meds...like Aleve, but been trying to get off of that too.  When I don't take Aleve PM at night, I wake up between 3:30 and 4:00am.  So, I have cut back and take it once every few days.  I have been taking Turmeric and Arnica for pain lately. I am trying to stop taking Aleve PM because I read one of the ingredients can cause dementia and I was having some pain in my chest...I don't want heart problems or dementia.  I am trying a more holistic approach...we shall see if it works for me.  I am increasing the amount of turmeric I take, I have arthritis all over and it is suppose to help with that and some other things.

There are times that I wish I was immortal, times I wish I was magic too.  But alas, I am not and neither are you...so take care of yourself and know what is going on with your body.  Stop things from happening in your body before they start, if you are aware of what is wrong inside of you fix it before it gets out of hand.  Exercise more, take those long walks, drink lots of water and eat good food to nourish your body...take good care of yourself and your body will repay you in kind.  That saying, you are what you eat, well it is very true...don't poison yourself with soft drinks, fast food and drugs with horrible side effects...because we are mortal, and we do reach a tipping point and once you get beyond the tipping point there is no return.  I got lucky...I teatered on the brink of no return, but opened my eyes and fixed things and brought myself back to decent health.  Not perfect, but at 58, I will take it.

Not Feeling It...

I guess it is no surprise, I wore myself down too much and developed a sore throat.  It started yesterday.  Hurts worse today, so I am drinking hot green tea with turmeric, ginger, lemon, cinnamon and honey in it.  It feels almost like I swallowed a popcorn hull or something...mainly hurts when I swallow and my ear is starting to hurt too.  I have been trying to stop taking Aleve PM...but, after doing a bunch of digging last week and raking, I took some last night.  I slept until almost 8:00 this morning after waking up at around 4:30am for several days in a row.

I have one more batch of chicks on my back porch, I moved out all the adults and the older juveniles out to the yard, but then I found a few with injuries and possibly fowl pox that I brought back onto the porch for medical treatment...lol, I say that...I rubbed a mixture of  99.8% food grade Sulphur and Vaseline, Tea Tree Oil and Oregano Oil on all the combs and waddles, and put Teramycin in the chickens that had eye problems, one was pecked on the ear lobe and he got sprayed with Scarlet Oil too.  After January 2017, they are pulling a lot of things off the shelves in the way of antibiotics, treatment for Coccidiosis and possibly wormers for farm animals...you will have to get them from a vet.  I have a feeling a lot of animals will be dying because people will not be able to afford a vet visit and the medications needed to treat them.  I am hoping that with the knowledge I have regarding essential oils and tidbits I have picked up over the past few years, that I can keep my flock healthy.  I ferment my feed and that seems to keep them pretty healthy, my main problem is injuries and this year, Fowl Pox.

I am trying to do as little as possible today, I know I need rest.  The weather is cooler today, so I really would like to take the opportunity to work on my breeding pens.  I got all the poop cleaned out of the coop part yesterday and raked up the pine cones, rocks and sticks from the area.  Filled holes too. I have a long way to go filling holes though, the poultry loves to dust bathe...they make deep holes sometimes and because all the grass is gone in a large area the rain washes the sandy soil down the hill...it stops at the fence line, but builds up.  I shoveled it from the built up area and moved it to the holes, covered some roots too.  I have a long way to go, it is a constant battle.

We went for a short walk this morning, up to the shooting range.  It is amazing how fast trees grow around our pond.  Last summer we cleared a lot of trees out from the edge of the pond, weeds too...they are all back and some as high as ten feet already.  With the ten inches of rain we got week before last, the pond is pretty full.  I guess this year during the cooler months I will be busy clearing again.  I have not walked the path around the lake either, I am sure it is probably severely overgrown.  Maybe one of these days we can creat a rock path around the lake...and try and keep it clear.  Fall is a beautiful time of year out here, we are already seeing some of the Sumac leaves changing color.  The Farmers Almanac says that this is going to be a cold wet winter this year for us.  I have to get ready for it.  Lots to do on the farm...always.