Friday, January 16, 2009

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

1 comment:

Tanya said...

Makes me feel like I have a bunch of new friends!