Early Birds Catch The Worms, I Suppose

Ahhh, the rain came starting at about 1:15 am...it has been raining hard for two hours so far and I cannot sleep, it is now 3:15 am.  I laid there for at least an hour, most the time I only give myself thirty minutes to go back to sleep, but 1:15 am is awful early to be getting up and starting your day.  

We knew the rain was coming, after five years living in East Texas you get to know when the rainy season starts and try and plan around it.  You have to keep an eye on the weather because sometimes, we will get 8 inches of rain in one day.  I bought a new rain gauge this year...the old one was emptied so many times that the painted numbers and hash marks had disappeared.  I tried sticking vinyl tape over it so we could still use it, but taking the tube that fills with rain out so often peeled that away too.  

I am behind on all my chores, never did get the dormant oil sprayed on my fruit trees and I noticed some are already about to leaf out, Chickasaw Plums are partially blooming too, and daffodils have started blooming.  I look forward to spring, but this year I am really not ready for it yet.  I have not started my vegetable seeds yet, nor have I tilled my garden.  It is only February 21st isn’t it?  Still winter, yet it was almost 80 yesterday when I was out digging trenches around in my poultry yard.  I was attempting to keep areas from flooding, trying to divert the water to the lower part of the yard and to the creek.  When I work that hard, it seems I usually can’t sleep very well, such is the case tonight.

I mail ordered trees to plant this year, instead of getting them from the big box stores or the feed store.  I added and planted, almond, cherry, nectarine, elderberry, two more fig, two more blueberry, and two different varieties of pear (suppose to be blight resistant)...to replace the one that died and the one that broke off at about a foot above the ground.  They are all pretty small, except the blueberry plants and figs are an OK size.  One of my figs died year before last and I didn’t replace it until now.  I pretty much just have a bunch of sticks sticking up out of the ground, some don’t have any branches...it will be awhile before I get any fruit or nuts off of them, except maybe the blueberry plants.  I moved my grapevines too, only one has ever put on grapes, I hope they do better where I moved them.  I also changed over to cattle panels to support them, the fencing I had used got a bit chewed up by the weed eater.  I really need to mulch around everything, I have been saving brown paper feed bags to lay down around the plants before I put mulch down.  I may have to go rake up leaves and twigs from the forest floor to use as mulch.

As for my bathroom renovation, it is paused for the moment.  I am trying not to hatch any chicks or anything else until it is completed.  But I really needed to get some chores caught up on, and get my garden chores started along with the seeds.  I also need to finish my drainage project around the house.  I have some more materials, and I dug the trenches, but I have a collapsed drain pipe, so that will have to be dug up and replaced or my French drains will be worthless.  With all this rain, I am sure I will have to dig the trenches out again too.  As always, I stay pretty busy.

Been Awhile...Last Post for 2017!

Yes, I am bad about writing in my blog...I was talked into starting it, remember? I stay busy and the past several months have been busier than normal.  I did have a good garden this past Spring and Summer, canned and froze a lot of vegetables.  But on top of that I fought my property appraisal, which took some time to prepare for and some running around.   I also refinanced our house, which also took a lot of time, finding a lender, having to go to the tax office more, having to get a new appraisal, but having to split my property back the way it was before.  It Texas, most lenders will not lend you money on your house if you have an agricultural exemption on the property...so I changed it.  The house and one acre is homesteaded now, and the rest of the property is agricultural.  I have to pay taxes separately on the 18.58 acres now, but we own that part outright now.  It also required to have a new survey done, which also meant more time and money.  Lenders are different when you try and do a cash out refinance in Texas, many turn you down flat.  We wanted some extra cash to make some repairs and get a new HVAC system installed.  I did not get enough money!

The past several weeks, OK, maybe getting close to two months...my house has been a construction zone.  All we wanted to do was to remodel the Master Bath and take out the huge jetted tub and put a shower in it's place, well and new flooring, a new light, sink and vanity.  Get the toilets seated properly and move the old vanity in the Master Bath to the Office Bath.  But, because of discoveries it has lead to having to have plumbing redone completely in all three bathrooms!  I still have no walls in the Master Bath, but I did get insulation put in the outer wall, because...well it has gotten rather cold.  It is suppose to get down in the teens tonight too...and stay below freezing the next couple of days.  It will be pretty cold all week.  I am afraid that if I didn't get the insulation put into the outer wall, how cold would it be in my bathroom...and attached bedroom?   A good friend is helping me out n this project, my Surrogate Son Mark.  He knows how to do most of this stuff, thank god.  There have been setbacks though, and now Holidays...and I watch his son while he works.  I have been wanting to paint and lay flooring, but I am trying to wait, trying to be patient (which is hard for me) until the plumbing part is complete.  I don't wan to have to redo anything, I can't afford to first off...I should have asked for more money on the refinance, but I really didn't know how bad things would be in the walls.  You would have thought, as much HGTV as I have watched, I would have known to double it!  Something happened and my kitchen floor is messed up too, I have to put down flooring in at least one more bathroom, a toilet got broken and with the new one being attached to the floor now...you can tell how terribly unlevel the floor is, in the office bathroom.  The floor needs to be leveled out before flooring can be laid...but it is the only fully functioning bathroom at the moment.  The Master Bath only has the toilet and the guest Bath is functioning only as a powder room with just the sink and toilet.  The Master and Guest bathtub/shower plumbing is hooked together and it was all leaking inside the wall...good thing is, there was a big hole in he slab that the water dripped into.

We have discovered that the slab is probably hydrolic cement, but not very thick in spots.  After Mark gets the plumbing soldered up we will have to fill in the holes and still have to set the shower pan and plumb the drain for it.  I didn't know you had to cement them in...lol, I am learning about what it takes though.  Oh and the foot thick walls have insulation with a plastic over them on the outer wall, and then the walls we have opened do have something like R-13 in addition to that.  The metal beams inside the walls seem to transfer the cold though, and there is a great big one that runs up and down through the shower wall, and another smaller one horizontally running against that beam.  Gonna have to insulate around them better, maybe with foam board or something.  I don't like taking a shower in the winter in there at least not when it is below freezing outside.  I put R-30 insulation in the outside shower wall and Mark put the old R-13 in the wall between the rooms, but it has been getting down in the low sixties in there even with that, but, I haven't covered the beams yet either.  There is also no cement board up yet and no vapor barrier either.  Not yet...I need to build my shower niche before I do that and maybe spray foam that.  This has turned into a do it yourself project, I am thankful for Mark and his plumbing expertise.  I called several people for bids on the project, two did not show up and Mark graciously offered his help.  I will watch his son when he is ready to get the ball rolling on his home remodel, maybe help when I can too.  Oh, I forgot to mention he and his family moved out in this area too!  They are only about 12 miles away now.  Now, if I could only get my son's and their families out here, that would be great!

I must go out and feed my poultry and let them out now.  That is just a fraction of what has been happening around here!  Lol, and I still have my chicken chores, laundry, shopping and regular home maintenance too...on top of it all!

Wacky Weather and Winds

Texas is known for "Big" things...sometimes our weather is one of those things.  A common saying is "Go big or go home!"...well this last week a lot of people have no home to go to.  East Texas was hit by tornados, lots of tornados.  We were fortunate not to have any bad damage here, the day before they hit, we had high winds that caused about an 8-1/2 hour power outage...I lost some eggs that were developing in my incubators, but that is about it.  I put some of the Hot Hands body warmers in with the eggs and in with the chicks that were in the brooders...all but one chick made it, I had hatching going on and it just got too cold.  I took the rest out that did hatch, as they hatched and put them in the brooders with the older chicks for additional warmth.  I even carried the one that died around in my shirt for awhile trying to warm it up before putting it in with the other chicks.

I think the last count on tornados was 9.  One of them traveled for over fifty miles on the ground and I believe it was rated at an F-4.  Lots of buildings and homes were destroyed and people died.  The storms came within 11 miles or so of us, but we mainly had high winds and heavy rain.  I had a hen that didn't make it into a coop that died during the night, my husband found her in the mud hunkered down the next morning.  Please say a little prayer for all those affected by the tornados, and if you can help in any way, one of the hardest hit areas was Canton, Texas.  They are still trying to determine how many tornados spawned and based on damage, what categories they were.  It is time like these that I wish we had a tornado shelter.  I am sure all those in the paths of the tornados are probably thinking the same thing.

We were under a lot of weather warnings yesterday, high wind, thunderstorms, tornados to the north and south of us, there was hail and tornadic conditions 50 miles from us...I kept a watch on the weather yesterday, the thunder was awful and scaring the animals...but there isn't anything I can do about that.  When the rains hit us it was extremely heavy, but fairly brief.  It sounded like I had a stampede going over my roof...but by the evening it was over and the skies started to clear.  We are suppose to have a bit of a reprieve, until next week.  With the storms came a cold front and it dropped our temperatures down to about 50 last night.  It is cloudy here this morning and windy again today, and rather cool outside.  It is suppose to be decent weather the next several days, so I have some work to get done outside.

I got rid of 42 roosters in the last week and a half, but I need to get rid of more...I just need to try and get the ones I want to get rid of penned and call the man who took most the others, to come get more. He is trying to sell them and said he would split the money with me.  I need the money, but I need the roosters gone more than anything else.  I always thought it was cruel for hatcheries to kill the male chicks after they sexed them...but, I am starting to think differently now that half of my grown chickens are males!  They can be mean, they can gang up on a hen and hurt or kill her, the hens try and stay up high and away from them and don't eat as much as they should...so they have to go.  I have been hurt several times by roosters, when I tried to get them off of a hen...there may be six or seven on one hen...the more I can get rid of the better.  I only need so many for breeding purposes.  I have also been spurred and had a hole in my arm at least a quarter of an inch deep because of one rooster.

On a bright note, I did get some fencing put up for tomato plant supports and got most of the plants that survived the greenhouse roll-over planted.  I started some more seeds a few days ago, but they haven't sprouted yet.  I have a ton of work to do, but wanted to update my blog at least once this month.  We decided to try and make a batch of Dewberry wine this year instead of jelly...but I need to go pick more berries.  I think some of my blueberries may be ripe too...and I also have lot of strawberry roots to plant!  Lol, I think I have sixty to plant...so I need to get busy!

Crazy Days!

I can always tell when Spring is in full swing by the number of broody hens I have...it has been crazy around here lately!  My biggest chicken coop has broody hens in every nest box, some two or three in a nest box and sometimes a turkey in one with them...the corner under the nest boxes has at least two broody turkeys, but I find three in there a lot lately.  I have a goose that will go in the corner and add an egg to the pile too.  I have another broody turkey on my back porch, she was injured in what may have been a mating accident.  I go outside and find a hen sitting on eggs in a dog house used by my ducks...and another hen sitting on eggs in the chicken tractor.  I am not sure exactly how many broody hens I have...but I have 23 nest boxes in the big coop, and several of them contain more than one hen.  I will estimate close to thirty.

After finding a chick that was pretty much pecked to death, I went in and took a five gallon bucket and collected all of the eggs from the top nest boxes on one set of ten.  I candled them and stuck the viable eggs in incubators...I had a couple hatch during the night.  I woke up to new peeping in two incubators.  I moved five week old chicks to my back porch brooder day before yesterday so I would have more space in the house brooders.  I will have to do the same thing with the baby geese and turkeys today I think, they are outgrowing the brooder totes I have them in very quickly...except for the runt goose.  I have to clean the house brooders a few times a day too.  The babies get to a certain point that they poop a lot more and just make a terrible mess.  I may have to try sand as a bedding material soon, or make more wire bottomed brooders.  Baby ducks and geese are super messy...they play in their water so much, and the mix of water, food and poop gets all ovr the place.

Enough about babies.  I have been trying to get my garden planted too!  I was doing so good...had all my seeds sprouting in my popup greenhouse...had tilled and was about ready to plant my veggies...then we had a pretty severe storm and it tossed everything with some pretty heavy wind gusts.  Some survived though.  I have maybe 8 broccoli plants, maybe 12 green bean plants, about the same on Romaine lettuce.  I lost a tray and a half of corn and not sure what is left on a few...but need to get them in the ground too.  Pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe and maybe squash...it is hard to tell on some of the vining plants...I will have to direct sow some seeds.  I have sunflowers too...and a few herb plants survived.  I have tomato plants too...lost a bunch, but still have a bunch.  I just don't know what type they are.  I will plant them anyway, and start some more just in case.  I may have a fall garden started and do several plantings this year if I can fit them in my schedule.

Anyway, with the mild winter we had the berries are ripening early...so I need to pick them today...well, every few days.  I need to check my blueberries too!  The wild plums will be ripening soon too.  This time of year is always super crazy for me.  Just lots and lots to get done and keep an eye on.  I just thought I would let you know, in case I don't write again for awhile.  I just woke up early today...and it rained last night so today may be too messy to accomplish much outside.  But, I have to try and finish building the supports for my tomatoes and get them planted...I am glad I started them in bigger pots this year, maybe next year I need to go ever larger?  This is our rainy season...it is hard for me to walk in squishy mud and do much of anything.  After having foot surgery on both feet several years ago, I have to be careful...and rest a lot doing much work on soft ground.  I do try and wear my heavy boots to till and use the shovel...but it still makes my feet hurt doing it.  I don't sleep very well when my feet feel like they are on fire either...so I try to keep from doing too much, most of the time.  Ok...I am not good...I press through to get the job done and pay for it later.  But, that is what us Capricorns do...we don't like to admit defeat!  So yeah, it is a bit crazy right now.

Hard Work Makes For Rich Rewards, Not Always!

It may take me awhile, but I get things done eventually.  I have been incubating and hatching chicks, ducks, turkeys and geese...but, not very many.  Well not as many as you might expect with a poultry farm.  Right now I just have three turkey poults, four goslings and about 9 chicks.  I sold a few goslings and ten chicks, but I have more chicks starting to hatch.  One of my incubators broke, it wouldn't heat up, my husband replaced the element...it still will not heat up.  I bought another incubator, but ended up sending it back...the turner was missing parts and it didn't reset like it was suppose to.  I have not purchased another one.  I really just need to make a cabinet incubator.  A man I sell eggs to, that hatches them, is hatching some turkeys and ducks for me.  They should be hatching by next week, if I remember right.  I gave him 47 duck eggs and 43 turkey eggs to hatch and offered a female turkey in return of the newly hatched turkeys, and to grow another one up for him for the ducks.  We shall see what happens.

I still need to create the dividers on my breeding pens, I am trying not to hatch many, if any mixed breed chicks.  I have a handful of Salmon Favorelles in my back porch brooder and set some of their eggs and I have some Jubilee Orpington's also separated out to start hatching their eggs too, my Dominiques have always been separated...those are the majority of chicks I have at the moment.  

I have been rather busy as usual.  I have two garden areas this year!  My garden in front of the house, I have been adding composted chicken manure into it, crushed eggshells and need to sprinkle some Epsom salts...but I have tilled it multiple times and planted some of my plant starts...at least the ones that survived my green house blowing over.  About that...we had some pretty bad storms a few weeks a go...tornados within 12 miles or so of us, we experienced some very strong wind gusts.  Well, this greenhouse is basically like a tent made out of a kind of milky white translucent reinforced plastic.  The wind picked it up and rolled it over, it broke one of the stakes off and the ropes broke or came loose on the others.  I had a shelf full of plants I had started from seeds, some of them from seeds I saved from my last years harvest...I guess I did them right, most of them...including the corn, sprouted.  They were tossed around and mixed up, some destroyed...well a lot destroyed.  But, I salvaged what I could and got a lot of the non-vining plants in the ground yesterday.  I will have to start some more from seed.  It was rather disappointing, but I planted more than I really needed anyway...but, I was hoping to sell some of the plants.  Not going to happen now, I could sell tomato plants, but I don't know which ones are which.

I was doing so good this year...the past few years I didn't get anything planted until late May or early June.  I am ahead of the game this year at least.  I may have some tomatoes by the time the Farmers Market starts, I will have to restart some cucumbers...I can't tell at this point what the vining plants are...except the watermelons.  Not sure if what I have left is pumpkins, squash, cantaloupe or cucumbers...but, I have more seeds...so, I will plant more and stick these plants in the area my neighbor tilled for me.  I still need to build my potato towers, so far I have only been able to produce a few tiny potatoes...most have died or rotted because of too much rain.  It is a learning process for me...that is for sure!

Spring is Springing...

Have you ever been attacked by a rooster or turkey?  It is not fun.  When, what I will call Spring fever hits, they can get a bit frisky and rowdy.  You have to be on guard sometimes, well, a lot of the time around here...I have a lot of males.  When the weather warms up, it is mating season.  No, they didn't try and mate me...but I did have a rooster try and attack me when I went into his pen to feed the batch in there.  Pompadour is a gold laced Polish, he usually does a little stutter step and runs at me... But I got in a hurry, and was not watching him closely and if he did it prior to flying at me, I didn't see it.  The pen he is in is about 8'x8' and I know he was in the corner across from me when I went in there, he flew across the pen and spurred me in the arm while I was dumping feed in to the feed pan.  He made good contact with me too, I will estimate the spur went into my arm at least 1/4 of an inch if not 1/2 inch.  Puncture wounds hurt, his Spurs were sharp and pointy.  I had a hole in my arm and blood was running down and dripping off of my fingers within seconds.  The hole was probably about 1/4 inch across too...and I could see down in my arm a little ways.  I tried to finish feeding but, thought maybe I should go wash up and bandage it, before I did anything else...I was getting drips of blood all over everything and I had on a blue jean long sleeve shirt.  Rooster Spurs can be needle sharp, I have picked up a rooster before and a spur went through the webbing next to my thumb.  I usually cut and blunt the Spurs of any rooster over a year old when I doctor on them now.  A Dremel tool goes through the spur fairly quickly with a cutoff wheel attached.  I used a diamond cut off wheel on him the next day, my husband caught him and put him in a cage on the porch for me.  I smoothed them off and did his beak too.  He is an older rooster and I have cut his Spurs before, but never the beak, I smoothed it up so if he bit me maybe it wouldn't break the skin.

Then there are the turkeys, I have 11 males.  They are all sparing with each other...or were.  One by one they have been separated into different pens.  Two of them I caught trying to mate chicken hens.  I still have a Blue Splash Marans hen in a cage on my back porch from one incident.  She is finally putting weight on her leg and walking around again.  My Tom turkeys are pretty heavy weight, around 35 pounds I think for the biggest ones, I have 12 turkey hens but I guess a few of the turkeys just jump at the opportunity to try and mate just about anything they can.  Even the n the pens they strut and fight through the fencing.  I have been bitten when I got to close to a pen and not paid attention.  I am glad I had on my blue jean jacket, one got me on the outside of my inner elbow through the fence when I was locking up the pen next to him.  I still have a knot under my skin and a bruise a week later, he scraped me and I have a bit of a scab too, but at least I didn't drip blood on that wound.  Yeah, I am a bit of a mess...scratches and scars on my hands and arms most of the time now.  I get them healed and it starts all over again.

I have a few hens starting to get broody too, I am going to have to remember to wear gloves when gathering eggs now too.  I separated a bunch of roosters into the back section of the chicken yard because they were literally attacking my hens, five or six on one hen!  I would reach down to help the hen and a couple of the boys didn't like that I grabbed a rooster off of the hen and bit me on the back of my hand...yep, need to remember to put on gloves and wear a long sleeve blue jean jacket for a bit of protection.  It hurts when they grab a mouthful of skin and pinch you...it swells up and makes a weird almost triangle looking bruise with a V-shaped mark or cut/scrape.

Enough about all that.  There are other more pleasant signs of Spring, I have plum, peach, apple and pear trees blooming and leafing out.  It smells wonderful.  We have gotten up in the 80's a few times and it has been in the sixties pretty regularly this "winter".  I am not sure we are done with freezing temperatures yet though...my pecan trees have done nothing yet...people around here say when the pecan starts to leaf out, then there will be no more frost and you can plant your garden.  My husband got my pop up greenhouse out of storage for me last weekend, or was it the weekend before?  We had a heck of a time getting it set up, kind of a comedy of errors...it is in my front fenced area at the side of the house and anchored down.  Anyway, I put my lime tree, my pineapple plants and a jalapeño pepper plant in it, then some plastic shelving and finally got some seeds started this week.  I also got garlic and onions planted in my garden...after hauling a ton of spent bedding and chicken manure out there and tilling it in...it looks pretty good.  I have a bit more work to do to get it ready to plant.  I sprinkled crushed eggshells out there and tilled them in too.  I am going to put some Epsom salt out and hopefully my garden will do very well this year too...even better than last year hopefully.  I need to check on my plants and water them today, see if anything is sprouting yet.  It was cloudy and rainy the past two days so I didn't open it up.  We have still been getting down in the thirties here and there at night, so I must remember to close it up before dark.  I also need to plant some more seeds in starter pots.  I want to build raised beds for asparagus, strawberry and herb gardens too. Alas...there are only so many hours in the day.

I can hear that it has been raining, that tell, tell sound when a car drives by...the sun is just starting to come up and I can see light through the curtains.  I guess I better get busy.  My hens are laying like gangbusters and I have eggs all ovr my kitchen that need to be washed.  Oh, and I did get eggs set in three incubators, but one of them is not working...it will not heat up, I got a new heating element for it and still nothing (my husband was kind enough to install it for me)...so I guess I had better get to work on my cabinet incubator soon.  I have been researching parts for one...I may have to learn some wiring and more about heater coils, PID controllers, fans and hygrometers...and maybe making an egg turner too.  I still have not made my top bar hive either and saw an article that bees are starting to swarm in this area...dang it!  Yes, I am a busy woman...stay that way too.

Winter, Where Art Thou?

This year, so far at least...it has been a mild winter.  We have had numerous days that were in the mid sixties to mid Seventies, quite a few weeks it was cloudy and rainy so kind of nasty out in that regard but fairly nice temperature wise.  After being sick for a month I have been rather busy playing catch up...I have a lot more to catch up on though.

I did finally get the outer portion of the walls on the chicken run done on my breeding pens I started over the summer.  I put quite a few roosters in it, but still need to get dividers done and separate four breeds in it to get some pure breed chicks one of these days.  I need to start on another set too.  I finally did a head count on my female chickens, if I counted decently I currently have about 175 hens.  I am going to guess about 80 roosters, but that is just an estimate.  I culled three roosters the past few weeks, they were mixed breed roosters that had been beat up pretty bad and with injuries I didn't want to take the time to doctor them again.  Yes, I said again...I healed them up and put them back out and they got ganged up on, smashed into the mud and the one I did yesterday could barely stand up, it was his second stint on the porch...he was given the opportunity, but even though he was treated for worms and I could not see anything wrong with him, he was very thin.  After another month on the porch, he kept loosing weight, his comb yesterday was practically white along with his waddles.  He had zero meat on his bones!  It is hard to tell on chickens unless you pick them up...all the feathers give the illusion of weight.  The rooster that was in with him gained weight and looked good...so I put him and three other out in a pen with a turkey that keeps getting picked on back in the yard.

My porch chickens are generally checked on several times a day (doctored on, if needed) for usually a month or more, some just need a break because of a small injury, or things like an eye infection or a mouth canker, sometimes because they feel too light weight to me...so, I feed them well and get their strength up.  I have six females and one male out there now.  One Marans hen was stepped on by a big male turkey and was holding her leg up, another was being over mated and ganged up on by roosters...not bald on her back...but gonna be there soon if I didn't help her, my little hen Crooked toe had been over mated but her feathers are all back now, she was mostly put into a brooder as company to a Salmon Favorelle hen who is blind in one eye, she gets picked on too...runs around in circles and others peck her on the head to try and make her stop.  Two other Salmon Favorelles are now in with her...enjoying a break from the boys.  I need to make a small coop for them and fence an area, just for them.

I have been trying to clean pens the past few days, which basically is a maintenance thing.  Scraping poop out, turning dirt and evening it up, washing water dishes and refilling them.  It is an ongoing thing, but when I was sick I got behind on it.  So basically a lot more poop than normal, I can only do a few pens a day with all the other chores.  I need to muck out my largest coop, the duck house and breeding pens today and spread fresh straw and pine shavings.  It doesn't take long for the duck house to get nasty with 30 ducks sleeping in it at night...if I have time I need to get the chicken tractor cleaned out too...I may do it first.  I need to change out the pine shavings in nest boxes too...I don't like dirty eggs and when it rains feet get muddy around here.  I bought some nest box pads and those may need cleaning too...my experiment using rubber door mats was unsuccessful...I cut them in two and lined the bottom of the nest box with them...none of my hens would go into the nest boxes.  I put pine shavings on top...still only a few will use them.  I may order some more of the washable nest box pads...at least they can't kick those out!

I have been baking a lot of cookies and pies lately, I never should have started!  Lol...it doesn't take long for them to disappear...and my jeans have gotten tight.  I need to start getting outside an working more, out of site, out of mind?  It is either that or my husband needs to take them all to work with him.  I made several Custard Pies, two Lemon Chess Pies and dozens and dozens of Oatmeal, pecan/or walnut and raisin cookies and bars.  Who doesn't like cookies for breakfast?  Hey, at least they had some good stuff in them!

I have also been working on improving my soil in my front garden, gotta do something with all that chicken poop and spent bedding.  Hopefully my garden will be really good this year.  I need to start seeds soon too.  I got a bit larger pots to start plants in this year, the small seed starter pots don't really allow for much growth and when we get a lot of rain or a late snow, I can't put the plants in the ground when they are ready.  I still need to make a greenhouse too.  I have a popup greenhouse in storage...I am not sure I can get it out by myself, but I may try.

Well, that is all I have for now.  I have at least one goose laying now and got my first turkey egg yesterday...I may try and clean up incubators and set eggs soon too.  But, I need to get my chickens off the porch and clean it well before I do too.  I have people calling me already wanting chicks, ducks and geese.

Today Is My Birthday

It would be nice to sleep late on my birthday, but it didn't happen.  I figured since I got up so early I may as well write a little.  My mind clicked on this morning and I was laying there thinking of all of the things I need to do...or want to accomplish in the next week or so.  We are due to have some pretty bad storms in a few hours, but since it is pitch black outside, I don't want to attempt chores outside yet.

Our owl is back, and they like to hunt early...usually, and I have already lost one rooster to the owl, or a feral cat that has been hanging around in the yard.  I could go outside and put feed out, but since it is going to rain, I prefer to put the feeders in the coops so the food doesn't get watered down...they won't eat it then and if I open the doors they will come pouring outside.  I will have to wait until the sun rises...be patient and just have some coffee I guess.  I have already had one mug of coffee, about to go get a second one...I will probably need it today.  Today I will more than likely get wet, about the time I go outside we are supposed to have an 80% chance of rain and it increases to 100% by 9:00am. It will be a rain coat and rubber boots kind of day.  I am glad I got straw spread yesterday and a few of the smaller coops mucked out.  I did not have my garden cart to haul the muck away though...so I made a couple of piles and need to get it into a muck bucket and hauled off.  Not exactly a glamorous or fun thing to do on your birthday...but neither is falling into the muck which gets rather slick when it rains.

This past year was kind of tough, my husbands business has dropped off some which is not a good sign.  I sold some turkeys, ducks, chickens and geese this year...but not near enough to make up the difference.  I need to get my breeding pens finished and get rid of a ton of excess roosters...OK, maybe 50 roosters or so, they are eating machines and they gang up on my hens and the egg production is way down to his time of year anyway.  They need to go.  I have one coop with 13, one coop with 21 and three pens with about 22, but need to select a few to keep.  Then I need to pen up some others that I want to keep to thin the numbers down...who am I kidding, I probably need to get rid of 100 roosters or more!  At least it was just a mixed breed rooster that got eaten last week, my Double Laced Blue Barnvelder just disappeared...but he may have jumped the fence and got picked off by something, I just didn't find any of his feathers.

Since it is raining today, we may take down the Christmas tree...I usually leave it up until the day after my birthday, but since my husband is home today...maybe we can get it done quicker together and haul the decorations out to the shed between storms or later today.  My husband doesn't normally take anything but Christmas Day off, or New Year's Day, but after several days with no customers he decided since everyone else was closed downtown, he would close too.  When it rains, he rarely has any customers either.  Here lately we have actually been talking about moving to a different area, a town with a bigger population.  I imagine if we do, I will be selling off my flocks...or leave them for who ever we sell the house to.  We are going to give it another year, but if business keeps dropping...it will be tough going with so many mouths to feed.  But, spring will be easier to reduce my flocks numbers too...people just don't normally want non-laying hens over the winter.  I started looking at housing prices and what is available more in central Texas around Tyler and Temple, but if he is going to continue with his computer shop we need someplace that has a bigger customer base and high speed internet...not satellite.  Since the town he has his shop only has a population of about 5,500 we probably need at least a city of 20,000 or so.  I still want to live in an area that has land though, I would love at least five acres so I can have some chickens.  I guess we shall see what happens, maybe with a different president things will get better.  If not, I will continue to search small towns and see what might work for both of us.  I don't have to have chickens, but if I don't...I want a nice workshop/studio space.

Anyway...I hope you are as happy about living another year as I am!  I am thankful for every day I have on this earth.  I use to take life for granted...things change when you get cancer and live through it.  Flowers smell sweeter, the grass looks greener, rainbows look brighter...you enjoy the sound of the rain on the roof more.  So, today on my 58th year of life...I want to wish each and every one of you reading this a Happy Birthday!  It may not actually be the day of your birth, but I hope you discover the joy of being alive one more year too, because each day we live is full of promise, yet each day is not promised...so make the most of every day you wake up to see!

Happy New Year!?

Ok, I should have written more last month...but, I was sick and when I felt pretty good I had to play catch up with my chores.  It is not much fun mucking out pens and digging drainage ditches and winterizing coops when you have no energy.  As long as I took severe cold medication regularly I didn't feel awful, but got a lot of headaches doing my chores...but I just heard about something called Cedar Fever and am wondering if maybe that is why I have been having issues for over a month now.  We have a ton of Cedar trees in this area, it seems like every time I go outside I get a headache.  But, when you have a farm...you do what you gotta do.

We had company for Christmas and my husband and I managed to get a tree up and decorated, a little shopping done and gifts wrapped before they came.  Mainly just stuff for the young grandchildren this year, although I did get my husband a few items of necessary clothing...lol, yep socks and underwear...and some jeans, he has worn holes in favorites.  My son got me a new coffee maker, which I really appreciate, my old one had taken to leaking all over the counter when you put water in the tank...I had it sitting in a tray to catch the leaks.  I also got a couple of gift cards and will be going shopping soon with those...I am just trying to figure out what I need the most.  I may end up buying new tires for my garden cart...I use it a lot and just had a major blowout or rubber rot, I need never flats!  My husband got me a Tens unit, I have been trying not to take as many pain killers and the Tens is what they used on me when I went to pain management for my back, he also got me a Truffle kit and a cheese kit...maybe I will make some soon, I needa few gallons of milk which I forgot to get at the store the last time I went.  Lol, he also got me some Chicken Poop lip balm...I am an admitted Chapstick-abolic, it will come in handy...and no, it doesn't contain chicken poop!

Our weather has been warm and muggy, very cloudy for the past few weeks and fog on a lot of mornings.  It has actually been near 80 a few times and that is unusual for around Christmas.  We have had pretty major temperature swings too.  It will be cold at night...like in the upper twenties and the next day get up to 78.  I did finally get all the tarps and plastic up on my coops and got one door built for the breeding pens, I still have a long way to go getting the four finished.  I just haven't had the energy, and have been staying in the house more because of the humidity and damp conditions...I still have a cough too.  I need to get them finished, it would probably take me a week if I worked on them every day.  I just need a break in the weather.  I can build the doors in the shed, but the framing and stuff for the runs is all outside work and I need my garden cart to haul all of the tools out there.  It makes it easier because the compressor and the table saw are kind of awkward and heavy to carry and I need a couple of very long extension cords strung out there to operate them too.  By the time I hand carried everything, I would probably be kind of tuckered out and not have much time to work before I had to haul it all back.  I gotta feed the poultry at least an hour before dark so I can get the turkeys put up.  I have also  been feeding the ducks and geese after the chickens are mostly roosting, most of the time they will not eat from the same troughs as the chickens and the chickens follow me to each trough as I fill them.  I just want to make sure they are getting enough to eat...the male geese I have picked up feel light to me, so do some of the ducks I have managed to pick up.  They free range but we have had several freezes and the grass is not really growing any more.

Last night was New Year's Eve, we just watched a movie and didn't even fix dinner...I fixed us a batch of steak nachos for lunch at almost 2:00pm and neither of us was hungry enough to bother.  We had a couple of cookies and a piece of banana nut bread later in the evening.  We only stayed up until about 10:15...so no midnight happenings here.  Our neighbors set off fireworks at around 9:00, it was driving the dogs nuts...some of them sounded like explosions and I could feel the blast waves.  I didn't even bother looking out the window.  I am sure if I acted alarmed, it would not have helped the dogs anxiety.  Bailee tends to jump up on the couch if she hears things and looks out the window, we just had to keep reassuring them it was OK, kinda like when birds set off the driveway alarm.  I get up and look to make sure it is not an egg customer...but some days it happens every few minutes and I stop looking after awhile.  If someone is out there Bailee will let me know...she barks when necessary.  Sophie seems to bark at every sound some days, all three of them together...I know someone or something is outside.  It is funny that I can tell now, when they are in the backyard and I am in the chicken yard the difference between their barks and what they are barking at.

I hope and pray that this year is a good year for everyone, family friends acquaintances and customers...even anyone that I don't know personally.  May the New Year bring you peace, prosperity and happiness in your lives!

Chasing Turkeys

I still have 22 turkeys, they are all pretty much full grown too.  We don't leave our poultry out at night so every night we do a turkey roundup.  Some nights it is easier than others, sometimes I can get our oldest turkeys to follow me into their coop...they will follow me if I have food or scratch grains.  The younger turkeys, just a few will follow me to their pen, others make a run for it. A lot of turkeys have to be cornered and picked up and carried to the pen...not easy to do when they weigh 20 to 35 pounds.  Some of them fly up on top of coops, into trees and walk around on shade tarps I have hanging around.  A lot of the time my husband gets them rounded up while I get food out for the rest of the poultry, I grab any that get close...but some are wise to our ways and we end up chasing them around the yard, trying to get them in a pen or cornered so we can pick them up without getting hurt or hurting them.

I have to many male turkeys so, if we can stand to do it...we will more than likely be butchering one or two during the holidays.  Turkeys eat quite a bit, but weighing around 35 pounds you have to expect that. The females are generally only 18 to 20 pounds.  Both can fly pretty well, it is amazing when we open up the pen for the younger turkeys...they run and take off flying over fences and coops, they have an impressive wing span and their wings are very powerful.  I learned that the hard way...broken glasses from getting buffeted with wings.  Once they get heavier they don't fly as well, but their muscle size and strength gets better as they reach two years old.  Some of my turkeys are just five months old, so it will be awhile yet.  I believe I have seven young females and eight young males.

I started this blog post a couple of weeks ago, The time has changed since then so...I am on my own getting the turkeys now.  I have been trying to feed a bit earlier and put food in their pen first.  If I put food there they don't eat out of the troughs and four or five of the males will follow me and go into the pen...hey, I don't have to catch and carry them so I will take what I can get!

We had company just before Thanksgiving, two of our kids came with their families.  It was great to get to see them all, but one of my granddaughters was sick and we all ended up getting sick.  I have been battling this cold for three weeks now.  I don't feel horrible, just coughing and congestion now...but I did very little outside the first two weeks.  I am trying now to play catch up, we are due for a very hard freeze tonight.  It will get down in the lower twenties if not the teens here.  I had some 4 millimeter plastic that I have covered several of the coops with, but I ran out...so I have been stapling bright pink feed bags up...looks kinda funny, but it will keep the weather out and block the wind.  I really need more plastic, I hate using feed bags...they have no UV protection and only last a couple of months and then deteriorate...the poultry pecks on them and bits and pieces come off...it is strange seeing letters laying around the yard, why whole letters come off perfectly is beyond me.  It could be they are darker and deteriorate at a slower rate, I guess.  Any area that is black lasts longer, go figure?!

I guess I will have to take some pictures and post them, lol...my chicken ghetto.

My Thoughts On This Presidential Election

I worked for the Elections Administration for about 10 years...I met a lot of politicians during that time.  I never did vote for the "Party", but tried to get a feel who I thought would do the best job for our country.  A lot of politicians will do pretty much anything to get elected, I saw a lot of it first hand.  A lot of people will do anything to get their candidate elected too.  I know there is voter fraud...the county I worked for had a number of cases of it.  I am not sure what kinds of checks and balances other counties had, but we had quite a few to make sure everything was on the up and up.

I hate to say it, but I don't remember fraud occurring in anything but in primarily Democratic precincts.  We had issues with Election Judges and people marking ballots for others and not marking the ballots as the voter wished.  There was also voter intimidation going on, groups like the Black Panthers threatening voters outside the polls.  More ballots ending up in some of the boxes than actually signed in, things like that.  I have watched the news a lot lately, kind of makes me sick to see states registering illegal aliens to vote, making people who were suppose to be deported, made into citizens instead...this election is worse than any I have ever encountered.

I have been watching a lot of the speeches, watched the debates from the beginning, I am not really happy with any of our choices.  It would be nice to see a woman as president but, I will not just vote for someone based on gender.  Like I said, I vote for the person who I think will do the best job.  I also vote for someone who's beliefs are in line with mine.  I believe we have rights and I believe in the Constitution and all it embodies.  My family helped build this country and fought for those rights...I am sure many of yours did too, no...our country is not perfect, but it is a whole lot better than some of the ones I have seen.  A lot of my family has served in the military, to protect our freedom and prevent war from coming onto our shores.

Something has gone wrong along the way, we have become complacent.  If something does not affect us directly we dismiss it.  As long as everything is good in our little part of the world, everything is good.  We need to open our eyes and pay attention.  Things are not what they seem any more.  The media portrays everything as rosey, yet more people are out of work than ever, more kids going hungry, businesses are closing, massive layoffs are happening, prices for food and medical are going up and up, we hardly make anything in America any more, crime is rising, cities are becoming wastelands, water is contaminated in many cities, the people in charge are doing little to change anything...I could go on, drugs, crimes, people turning on the police, gang violence, riots in the streets, looting.  Makes you feel real safe doesn't it?

I myself want things to get better for everyone.  I would like to be able to afford groceries, gas, insurance, my utilities and house payment and have some left over to save.  I know a lot of you have good jobs and everything is going good in your corner of the world, but it isn't for everyone...a lot of people actually.  But, unless you pay attention...you aren't going to see it.  Where I live, there is a lot of poverty, the churches are trying their best to make sure people don't go hungry.  The businesses are hurting, anyone that tries to open and run one soon finds out that people cannot afford to eat out, or buy things that aren't absolutely necessary, and then...they go to Walmart, because it is cheaper and they may be able to get more for their money...so the businesses close within a few months time.

So, when I go to the polls this election...I will try and choose someone who will actually help our country, who sees the problems and is willing to work for us...we the people.  It has been too long and  too many of "the people in charge" don't do anything, except draw a paycheck off of the backs of the Americans who are lucky enough to be working.  I am not just talking about the president either.  But I think the government has gotten too big, it needs to be streamlined and get some people with morals and ethics that don't just keep lining their pockets in there...people who will work for us, and with our country in mind.  We should not be taking care of building other countries up, when our own is crumbling around us.  Do your homework before you go vote, don't just do a straight ticket without looking at your choices and please don't just vote for someone because you recognize the name...that is why so many Senators and Congressmen have been in office for so long...we tend to determine how long they sit there.  Yeah, there should be term limits...and I would like to know how someone can draw retirement if they don't serve at least twenty years?   Just does not seem fair does it?

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.

Rain In August?

It has continued to rain here, we have had about 10 inches of rain in a little over a week.  Louisana has been hammered with a lot and flooding...historic amounts of rain, some are saying it ended up being around 30 inches!  I have seen pictures of the devestation...so many houses flooded, coffins floating in the streets, highways underwater.  People with no place to call home any more.  They speak of the Cajun Navy helping rescue so many people from their flooded homes, these are people with boats, just helping to save lives.  I think the death toll is up to thirteen now.  It is sad to watch, but the people helping each other is amazing.

We had been dry for quite awhile, so no flooding here.  Even though we have gotten a lot of rain the earth has absorbed most of it now.  The creek was dry and I can here it running from the house, but it has not left it's banks.  The lower part of the yard has had a little standing water, not much.  I got the yard mowed yesterday before the rain started up again.  It had gotten pretty high and the younger chickens were hard to see in the tall grass.  When I was done with the mower, the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys were having a field day...running after grasshoppers!  It is funny to watch them taking them away from each other and running with them.

All the rain has been bad for my garden, my watermelons were starting to rot, I picked most of them. My Brussel Sprouts have pretty much been eaten by ants and started turning black.  My pepper plants have gotten out of control, my Habanero plant is probably four feet tall and at least that wide.  My Bell Peppers have gotten so heavy that they have been breaking the branches, as is my Broccoli...most is split and some has died.  My tomatoes are pretty much just vines laying everywhere now.  The rain came down so hard it basically beat up the plants.  I need a break from gardening...changed my mind about a Fall garden.  I have so much to do before winter I need to concentrate on getting the poultry yard ready for it.  The Farmers Almanac is predicting a cold wet winter for us, so I have to prepare for it early.  We already have cooler than normal temperatures and more rain...August is generally the driest month here and we already have ten inches of rain for the month...it is not over yet either.

I have several chickens with fowl pox now too.  It is a virus transmitted by mosquitoes, it causes little scabby raised bumps on the chickens combs, waddles, ear lobes and around the eyes.  Some of my chickens have them bad and I have no be hen you n the house that can't see out of either eye because of them.  I have been having to force feed her, she will drink on her own if I set her in front of the water bowl and push her head down to it and wet her beak.  She won't eat if I do that though, so I have been prying her mouth open and feeding her boiled eggs.  I am not sure if she will make it, she is a sweet little hen and I am trying my best.  The pox on her eyes is awful, I have been putting a Vasoline and Sulphur mix on her and tried putting Teramycin in her eyes, but you can't really tell she has eyes any more.  The eye area is very swollen and the pox are black scabby looking spots...I am hoping to dry them out enough to scrape them off and get at least one eye open, so she can see to eat.

Wish me luck, I have several more chickens on the porch that have a more minor case of fowl pox...but it seems I notice more popping up on chickens in the yard, the more it rains.

Big Surprise

We have been so hot and humid that it has been making me feel bad to be outside for very long, heat indexes of 107-115 pretty much every day..until yesterday.  We have had a lot of pop up showers that will dump rain on us, a lot of rain in five minutes time.  These are accompanied by a lot of thunder and lightening...that part usually lasts longer than the rain.  Yesterday was different.

The temperature dropped, we had a gust front hit and it rained without all the thunder and lightening. It is a big surprise to have temperatures only in the 80's in Texas, in August.  August is generally the hottest month of the year here...in bad years it is July and August, sometimes having weeks of over 100 degree temperatures and not a drop of rain.  We are suppose to be getting rain every day this week...and it is not suppose to hit even 90!  I know we have gotten 2-1/2 inches of rain so far this month, but that came with high temperatures following the rain...it made it very humid too...but it helped my trees and garden, and the grass is pretty green now.  It was raining when I got up this morning, a slow gentle rain and all week the lows will be in the 70's with highs in the 80's!  But, we also have a good chance of rain every day too.

I worked in the garden a little bit yesterday, it is a mess.  Weeds are overtaking it since I have not been going out every day and pulling them.  I just haven't felt well, not sure what it is, maybe allergies?  I have had frequent headaches and shooting pains that move around.  Here lately I have felt like someone hit me across the shoulders with a big stick and having sharp pains in my wrists and elbows.  I haven't been taking Aleve every day though...so it could just be arthritis I suppose.  I don't like the feeling though, maybe I will take some aspirin today.  I have things I need to do, canning wise.  If I don't do it soon...the chickens will be getting my crops.  I want to plant a Fall garden, I wanted green beans and corn to freeze or can and I didn't get enough out of my garden before a lot of it fried to a crisp.  I need to put composted chicken manure on the garden and till it in still too...can't do it when it is wet though, so I may start seeds in pots while it is rainy and then transplant them when I get it tilled again.  I pulled up all my corn plants and may pull up my cantaloupe and watermelon plants too.

I am upset that ants are eating my Brussel sprouts, gotta find a solution to fix that too.  I just have a lot to get done.  I have still not finished the run on the breeding pens I built either.  Just too hot and too much other work to do.  I will enjoy the cooler temperatures and I am sure my critters will too.  I need to put a couple of new tarps on today and move some roosters around.  My rooster population has gone down some and I need to try to put some in coops instead of pens, I just don't want them to fight.  I have some repairs to make too all of the feed sacks I put on the pallet coop to keep the rain out have deteriorated and the chickens are ripping them up, I need to clean it off and do something different I suppose.  So, if you ever use feed sacks as a siding material to block wind and rain...you only have about six months in a really sunny environment until they start falling apart, maybe a little longer...but to get them off in one piece...six is about max.  I touch these and they crumble in my hand unless the part was double layered.  I have a big mess to clean up.

Sweaty Work

Summers in Texas can be brutal, I keep hoping that I will get use to the humidity out here but I am just not so sure that will happen.  I worked out in the garden some yesterday and started cleaning up after the chickens and turkeys I have on the porch.  I don't think I had a dry spot on me when I called it a day.  Today was pretty much the same, taking care of pools and cleaning things, doing some Bumblefoot procedures and cutting Spurs off some of my Polish roosters.  I had sweat running down my arms, my shirt was soaked and even the top of my jeans were wet, down to my knees.  I really need to power wash my porch and the cages the chickens are in, but can't do that with them inside of the cages.  Finding places for 50 plus chickens while you clean is not easy, neither is catching them all and moving them...so it will have to wait.

Since I hatched so late into the year, I have a garden and canning to do at the same time as everything else, some things get put on hold for periods of time...too long sometimes, like cleaning under everything on the porch and moving everything and scrubbing down the porch.  I have been doing it twice a week, it takes me at least four hours, sometimes longer...way longer.  Like when it is 100 degrees in the shade.  Yesterday and the day before were like that.  I don't mind sweating, not really...the part I don't care for is the chafing if I do a lot of work.  I found something called a Friction Stick, it reminds me of a stick of deodorant, same shape and size and looks like deodorant too.  I wish I had remembered to use it yesterday.  I have slightly sensitive skin...and I cannot have any kind of rubber touching my skin for very long.  I had to switch to wearing cotton Sports bras in the warmer months, otherwise the bottom band of a t-shirt bra rubbed me raw, well...now sports bras are doing it if I forget to rub some of the Friction Stick on my skin.   One thing I did not count on was chafing under my arms from a wet t-shirt and chafing were my jeans fold at my inner thigh...or at my waist.

A lot of the time I work with wire, or around wire, and things that are super dirty...I am talking about dirt, poop, large quantities of thick dust, spider webs and flies/maggots.  I have been wearing men's jeans with no stretch to them, at all...and men's t-shirts.  Why?  Well...I can get a pair of men's work jeans for $12, and a mans t-shirt for about $3.50 or so....they offer more protection than the women's versions and are several dollars cheaper.  I can lean over a cage to try and catch a juvenile chick and get caught on the wire and rip holes in a woman's t-shirt...they are thinner and very lightweight compared to mens t-shirts.  Pretty much the same thing with jeans, I got some cheap women's jeans from Walmart, Riders I believe...although they are more comfortable with the stretch in them they do not hold up well when working with fence wire or hardware cloth, or even construction...carrying wood...I have several pairs with holes in them or the thighs have "pills"...those little balls that form when the material wears out.  They are Ok for sitting here n the lawnmower and cutting the lawn, and just general cleaning...I have to be careful though, first time I brush up against a fence, or squat down to clean and fill a chicken waterer, if they are worn at all they rip.  I was walking around with a good sized rip in the butt of one pair of jeans and I didn't even know it...my husband told me.  No telling when it happened, hopefully not when I went to buy feed.  I squatted down the other day and two holes popped open on one leg in a different pair of jeans...so, after not being able to find any non-stretchy women's jeans anyware...I guessed at my size in men's and bought a couple pair to try out.  So far so good, except the chafing part.  I guess I found a couple more areas to try to remember to rub the friction stick onto.  I never had an issue with chafing and jeans before, but I got these a little big so I could bend and stretch and they are not skin tight like some of my other jeans.

Being a farmer is not glamorous or easy, it is tough, dirty, sweaty work...easpecially in the summer.  I use to wonder why a lot of farmers looked such a mess most of the time, or why people's yards were such a mess, full of rusty metal and old things laying around...now I know.  When you get up early, work pretty much non-stop all day trying to get all of your necessary tasks completed, are not eating dinner until 9 at night, if you have an appetite at all and still have to go secure the animals for the night once you finish...you get tired, you start not sweating the small stuff, you spend more time with animals and plants than people and you get to the point that everything you own may have some rip or stain on it, but you haven't sold enough of your critters or crops to feed them, or you...so you just don't buy new stuff...I guess that is where the term "Sunday Best" came from...you save back at least one outfit to wear to church on Sundays...so it is not stained or torn, so you look presentable...but ya know what?  Animals don't care what you wear or if that feeder you accidentally left sitting on top of a table is rusted out...they just want you to bring them food and water and love on them for a few minutes out of your day...and it doesn't matter if you are sweaty or dirty and have wood shavings in your hair either.  I love it though...

So, next time you see a farmer or rancher...thank them.  If they didn't love doing what they do, you would not have food on your table...yeah, the majority of people don't think about why that steak costs so much, or the butter, eggs or bread...you just go to the store and buy it, not how much work goes into getting it to the consumer...I use to be one of them.  I have found timing is everything too...wait too long to pick your fruit or veggies and they are gone, all that work is eaten by the bugs or birds too...gather those eggs twice a day or they get broken or a snake might eat some.  I am learning the hard way...but you know what, when it happens...and you have fresh homegrown tomatoes canned, salsa and sauces made, pickles and watermelon and fresh green beans, corn or broccoli...and have enough to last a good while, it makes you proud that your hard work pays off...now to go cook myself an omelette with my farm fresh eggs and peppers from my garden!

Dog Days Of Summer

August has arrived now, the hottest month of the year for us.  The actual temperature may only be 98, but we received a few inches of rainfall in the last week and the heat index has made it feel about 115!  It is hard for me to work outside when it is that hot, but I must.

The heat is slowing my garden way down, I have lost some green bean plants and my corn plants crispified...is that even a word?  I pulled them all out yesterday, I just have a couple of piles of dead plants.  My plan is to clean out more of the composted manure from my big chicken coop and run and till it into the soil before it rains again.  I had added it to half of my garden, now it is time for the other half.  I should have done it all at once...but, I wanted to get my garden planted and I just had a window of opportunity in the Spring and hoped for the best.  Most of the time Winter and Spring are very wet months...and since I moved my garden, and had to erect a fence that rabbits could not breach, it took me awhile, it had to be dry to till and I am not fond of working in the rain.  I only have a small hand tiller, no tractor so I have to walk behind it and it takes me awhile to break up the grassy weeds.  We have a lot of crab grass and grass called Bahia, it has very large roots and sends out shoots so I get really large clumps caught up in the blades of the tiller.  I have to stop and unwind them or cut them off the blades fairly frequently.

Everyone who stops by and looks at my garden is amazed at the size of my plants, and asks how I grew them so large...all I can tell them really is that I used composted chicken manure.  I have a lot of chickens, therefore I have an unlimited supply!  I will have to find the right balance though, otherwise I will have to put more space between the rows when I plant next time.  I want to expand my garden too.  I still have much to learn about farming, because if I am ever going to make any money off of it, I must do it at the right time of the year...when I can sell things at the farmers market.  One of my egg customers has been stopping by and buying some of my tomatoes and peppers to sell. I have a good amount canned so I have been selling them pretty cheap, he picks them himself and it keeps them from going bad while I am busy doing other things.

I need to clean out my largest chicken coop and run to get the manure for my garden, I will probably do that today.  I may just pile it up by the garden until I am ready to till it into the garden...I need to start some seeds too so they can be transplanted into the garden for a Fall harvest.  We usually don't have our first freeze in Texas until Thanksgiving, if not later...it may get really cool prior to that, but I should be able to get another crop this year.  I also got something called a plot spike, it is winter crops like peas and radishes or something for my poultry to munch on.  I just have to plant it and some perineal rye grass seed.  Hopefully we will get some more rain after I plant it so I don't have to water it every day.

I still have broody hens and a broody goose, they drive me crazy!  Lol, I let them sit on eggs, but so far...only a few of the hens had babies hatch.  I have to get to them pretty quickly or other hens kill them, I have taken away chicks and eggs in those cases...so I still have chicks in the house!  I hatched longer than planned and was hoping to get finished up before my garden had crops I needed to pick, that did not happen.  I have one last (I hope) batch of chicks in the house, I am going to give them another week in the house, then move them to the porch brooder.  They have to be able to stand the nighttime temperatures and the last one hatched is not yet two weeks old.  So, once they can handle down to 80, I think they should be fine.  I had a few chicks get Coccidiosis on the porch too, two died but I got Corid in the waterers and I think the rest of them will be fine.  I was canning and not paying as much attention to them as usual, I missed the symptoms.  It has been so hot anyway, I am not sure I would have been able to tell until I saw blood in their poop.  I have fans running 24/7 out there, but it is still very hot.

I moved my batch of Heritage Rhode Island Reds out to the coops yesterday and my last batch of baby turkeys to the grow out brooder they were in, so they are now separated from the chickens still on the porch.  I need to finish my set of four breeding pens run area and build more roosts for the big coop too.  I am selling some of my older mixed breed roosters today, so hopefully it won't be too long until the wire pens we call the big top will be practically empty.  I really need to revamp them too and move them to an area that doesn't have runoff running through the middle of it.  The tarps don't seem to last very long on anything out here, so I need to think about replacing them with something different on the four cattle panel coops I built.

Time is flying by...it is hard to believe it has already been three years since I first started my chicken adventure, and three years this month since my husband opened his computer repair shop.  We signed the papers on this house in January of 2013, we still have a lot work to do on it...but we have come a long way on whipping this place into shape.

Summer Happenings On The Farm

My garden is producing pretty well this year, even though I planted it in the middle of May.  I have been getting a lot of tomatoes and go out and pick them every other day.  I have been picking green tomatoes too, they get heavy on the vines and start laying on the ground...if I don't pick them...the ants have a treat.  I am going to have to figure out better supports for all of my plants, this year I tried t-posts and nylon rope thinking if I got 150 pound test strength it would hold the tomato plants up...nope, well...not really anyway.  I guess I need a t-post for every plant or maybe cattle panels and t-posts, then prune the plants too.

I will say this...the chicken poop compost sure helps this sandy soil produce a good crop.  I only spread it on half the garden so far, but the tomatoes, bell peppers and broccoli have done pretty well, that is the half I spread it on.  I have put a little uncomposted pine shavings that ducks and chicks used down the isles in a few other spots as mulch, not much poop in it...but my water melon plants have gone crazy, none have gotten ripe yet...I picked a variety that takes too long to ripen I guess, at least that is what a neighbor said.  He told me Jubilee or Charleston Grey do better out here...I think maybe if I can get my garden in the ground quicker or earlier next year, I could still plant the Black Diamond Variety and Sugar Baby.  I need to get my garden ready earlier!  If I had not moved it and had to break new ground and fence it, I could have a better, earlier crop.

In the mean time, I have been super busy.  I have had to start watering every day, it got up to 102 here yesterday and sand dries out very quickly.  We have had no measurable rain in the past month.  There have been a few spotty showers, but not enough to measure in the rain gauge.  July and August are usually very dry here...the rest of the time it rains quite a bit per month.  We don't have water in the creek anymore and the lake level is dropping rapidly.  I have a feeling, if we had a well that it would have to be pretty deep to still be getting water too.  I know we have underground springs fairly close to the surface, I have been digging to plant a tree and all of the sudden the ground fell away and I could see water.  The ducks and geese have dug holes and found water too.  We have about a foot and a half of sandy loam and then a clay layer, I am not sure what the soil is like beyond that, it is too hard to dig once you hit the clay.  We discover this when we tried digging holes for posts.  Some areas may be a little thicker layer of sand depending on the lay of the land and washout areas...some areas the sand has washed down the hill and the clay is exposed...like my poultry yard, most of the main yard anyway.

I have been cooking and canning lately, first I made 9 quarts of tomato sauce, then 8 pints of green tomato salsa with Jalapeño peppers, 6 pints of red tomato salsa with Habanero peppers and Jalapeño peppers and I think 8 quarts of Spaghetti Sauce with mushrooms and onions.  I have a big tub of ripe tomatoes that I may deseed and try my hand at making catsup today...after I get a few chores done.  I have been harvesting green beans, broccoli, bell peppers and cucumbers too...but cleaning chopping and freezing everything but the cucumbers.  I have not had but five or six cucumbers at any one time...four plants is not enough for pickle making it seems, they almost died too.  I need to amend the soil better and mulch better, since I started watering them every day...they are doing better and growing.

I pulled the last chick out of the incubator this morning.  At least I think it is...the one egg left, the air cell is not shrinking like it should.  These were eggs I took from broody hens and I really didn't know when they would hatch.  I think if it was going to hatch, it would have by now.  The last batch of ducks I hatched has been out in the yard for over a week now, they are getting their wing feathers too.  I have them in the fenced area behind my main coop, last night they went into their house all by themselves...otherwise we would have had to coral them.  The last batch of chicks I took out to the yard are still not all going into the coop at night yet, we have about six to eight a night that we have to pick up and put on a roost in there.  The baby turkeys are growing like weeds, I know I have three male Bronze turkeys and think the buff and almost solid brown one are both females...I need more females!  Locking up the males during mating season doesn't seem fair to them, but at least they aren't able to tear up my female turkeys just having two out.  I have been letting the babies out during the afternoon...the are so excited that the fly...some fly for probably 40 feet or more and have gone over the fence into the pasture area and into my old herb garden.  I will probably move the fencing to that garden when it gets a bit cooler out.  The largest of the babies are the same size as my adult female turkeys.

Update on Mercy...Mercy is doing well, in case you don't remember...Mercy had her wings damaged/chewed off by our first hatched goose Gracie.  Mercy still has one wing, but the feathers grow at a really odd angle, she had a big blister on the wing for a couple of months while she was trying to grow her feathers out...the feather tube was very large on one feather and she kept chewing it as it came out.  Anyway, Mercy does not go into deep water...she can't really use her wings to balance or flap to get out of the biggest and deepest of the pools.  We have been setting her into a pool and watching her bathe, she enjoys it so much...but doesn't like being in water two feet deep.  She likes enough depth to submerge her body...but still be able to stand in.  Ok, now the update...we suspected Mercy may be a boy goose by the wide stance...we now know, Mercy is really a boy!  We discussed changing his name to Mike, but since we have been calling him a girl and Mercy for the past five months and he knows that name, we are just going to continue to call HIM Mercy.  How do we know it is a boy?  Well...he was getting aggressive towards our other males, and mounted one of the females and we saw his appendage.  I am afraid Gracie may be a boy too, but time will tell.  Hope is a girl though, she has developed a keel...Gracie is two weeks older and has not.  Hope is also nesting and has been sitting on eggs in our main coop.  We shall see soon...I may just have to wait a little longer,  if Gracie is a male too...well, I may just have to order some more females from a hatchery next year and we may be selling a male or two.  My husband loves the geese though, and Gracie and Mercy are special to him, so we will see what happens.

Hot Hot Hot

I have not been working outside as much lately, it is very hot and humid and even though I drink a lot of water, I sweat so much that I have lost 7 pounds in one day...in about three hours time.  I try to go out later in the day when the humidity gets lower too.  The water for my poultry heats up, even in the shade and I worry they aren't drinking enough.  I feed fermented feed which helps keep them hydrated, but is it enough?  I change out the water, it is no longer as cool as it was...but the heat index is around 105 most days lately.  I have to water every other day too, my young trees, bushes and garden start wilting if I don't water.  Today is partly cloudy, so not quite as bad as it has been...but we could use some rain.  This sandy soil dries out a lot and fast, I try and mulch around the plants, but I can only do so much at a time.

I have started on the run to my breeding pens, just one wall erected so far.  I will probably get the perimeter walls done and have to add the dividers later....as I can get supplies to do it.  I had the babies out of the house for a short while, but I hatched chicks for someone and got some eggs replaced and hatched them too.  I have one brooder going in the house now.  I have a few more eggs in the incubator that I took away from broody hens.  I have two broody hens left, that are sitting on eggs...my Dominiques eggs are starting to hatch, I hope she is a good mother...I am going to try and leave them with her.  I may change my mind if any get killed...or hurt.  I have another broody duck sitting on eggs, a goose sitting n eggs...and one turkey.  Hopefully I will get housing built for them soon.

I have put a lot of the young pullets and roosters out into the Big Coop and Sidecar.  I put all the older young turkeys into a pen with an adult turkey hen that was injured, she is showing them the ropes out in the yard.  Some of the Bronze turkeys have gotten pretty large and a couple of them have started strutting...at least two are males.  I have one that looks buff (blond) and a dark brown with very little other color...I think they may be females.  Not sure about the Bourbon Red turkeys, they are still kind of young to tell the sexes.  I still have about five young turkeys in a porch brooder.  Still have a lot of young chicks on the porch in brooders also.

I have put all the young ducks into the yard, I have five starting to get their wing feathers now...and nine that are almost big enough to go into the main yard.   I am tired of cleaning brooders and will be glad when everyone of them are out in the yard!  I have a garden to tend to, veggies to can, weeds to pull and fruits to pick soon.  Lots going on here on the farm, it has been a very busy year for me and I still have a lot to do.