PhD?

I read today on a blog

that Phd means

Project half done.

Well, my Japanese quilt isn't even half started.

I'm still working on the layout.

But these scraps are almost going to be done.

After I sew the bits together,

I will cut out some blocks.

I believe it is called stash busting.

Something like that.

After I worked on the bits and pieces,

it was time to go out and rake leaves.

But I was missing my dirt rake.

Ah, I remember I left it in the chicken coop,

where I used it last raking out the coop.

Big mistake!

I should never have gone  to the chicken coop

because I was captured for almost the whole day

doing chicken stuff.

(click the photos)

So, I left the strips and...

Went out to the coop and found

that the chickens had dug themselves a dusting pit.

So I put a good sized rock in the hole

to slow the girls down.

My daughter saw a coyote this morning

walking along next to the house.

The coyote can dig his own holes

and doesn't need any help from the girls.

Then I filled the hole up with dirt

and stomped on it a few times.

I found the rake.

I'm done right?

Wrong...

This is a view of the top of the chicken coop pen

without

a covering of leaves.

I used the hose to squirt off the leaves.

It was kinda fun to see the leaves go flying away.

Now the sun can shine into the coop

and warm the girls bedroom up.

That anchor fencing across the top

keeps the bears and the raccoons

out of the chicken coop at night.

A bear got in once, but that was because

my daughter didn't lock the door.

We were gone and she forgot.

Oops!

The bear story is another post.

Then I noticed that the girls had decided to roost on the edge

of their nest boxes and poo in them.

I have spared you photos of that.

Here is a photo of me cleaning out the boxes

and taking the wood shaving away.

The boxes are empty!

And there is a big bag of nice new wood shavings.

I would rather have straw

but we couldn't get a bale of straw in the car.

Well, we could but it would make a mess of the car.

Nest box full of clean wood shavings.

Now what to do about the poo problem?

I know! I will lower the roosts!

Here you can see the roosts are now lowered.

Thank goodness I used screws when I built this thing.

And thank goodness for power screw drivers.

I also strung wire across the top of the board of the nest box

to try and convince the girls to use the roosts.

We'll see how that works.

The eggs you see in the nest boxes

are wooden eggs.

I put them in there to fool the chickens.

They are not too smart

and I guess they think they have already laid an egg

and so they don't... lay an egg.

The chickens were molting and looked terrible

without feathers but they were still laying.

I wanted them to grow feathers instead of laying eggs.

Hey, it worked!

It is getting late and I'm still out here!

I cleaned the waterer, filled the feeders with lay and corn,

raked out their pen and

put oyster shell in a little pot under the feeder.

This pen would be too small for all the chickens

we have if they had to stay in it,

but they are out running around

most of the day in the woods.

So, it works out OK.

I had a little time left to rake

but I only raked halfway across the driveway

before it was time to quit

and go lock up the girls.

Here are the happy campers!

Good night girls!

Smiles