Company

My younger daughter and grandkids are going to be visiting for a couple of weeks. As time allows I will continue to post.

All the rain has made for lots of green ivy. The plan was for the ivy to completely cover the wire fence and create an ivy wall. It has taken about eight years and most of the fence is covered with ivy or bushes. I like all the green.

Morgan is checking the tree for squirrels. She spends a lot of her day checking out the trees and tracing the squirrel scent tracks from tree to tree. Sometimes the squirrels will chatter at her which leads to her barking and then me yelling at her to "leave it."

The chickens are still locked up. It rained last night and is supposed to again today. The forecast is for warmer weather, but I don't believe the forecast anymore. I'll let the chickens out if the weather really does turn nice and the kids and I can stay outside with the hens. Hopefully, we will all be making enough noise to scare the fox away.

I'm going to have to make sure the kids stay out of the poison oak because you can get poison oak from the stems that are left over winter and the new growth is now coming up. I really, really, don't want them to get poison oak. It is a pretty plant and doesn't look dangerous. Here is a YouTube video about how to identify, guard against and treat poison oak, sumac and ivy. The video is not entertaining, but it does have some good information, photos and advice.

Kristine saw the therapist today, there is injury from the accident that will need care. We got our hair cut yesterday. Kristine got a trim, but my hair is really short. Maybe I could go to the barber next time. Wonder if that's cheaper?

I was planning on taking some photos when I was out, but the weather is so overcast there wasn't much point. 

click Peek at the Past

(June 4, 2009)

[7 eggs today]

~:>

Smiles

Poison Oak has Sprung

Spring must truly be here because on the walk to the gate yesterday I saw that beautiful green shiny poison oaks leaves were in evidence. The poison oak makes me think how great it would be to have some goats around the place to eat up the stuff. I wonder if the muscovy ducks would eat it? Probably not. Maybe next year after we enlarge the chicken coop. More fence? The poison oak is lovely, but I hate the rash I get from it. It is bad stuff.

As soon as it stops raining I will take the shovel and trek around

in the woods and dig and chop at the poison oak stems.

I don't expect to kill it, just slow it way down.

I think this oak tree might originally have been a bunch of little trees that grew together. These oaks look so nice with the moss on them, but when they grow like this they collect leaves in their middle and slowly rot and then part of them die and fall over.

Here you can see some of the leaves caught in the middle. I haul the leaves out, but water still collects in the winter and eventually harms the tree.

This tree has had several parts of it die and been cut away. 

The trunk where the bark has come off is pretty much dead and needs to be cut away before it falls on something . The tree that is laying on the ground shows how the oaks will just fall over. I have a neighbor who calls these oaks "weeds" and he removed most of them on his property. 

I would like to clear a lot of the oaks away from the house, but it is very expensive and they are way too tall for us to cut down ourselves. And having the oaks around the house in the summer makes the property soooo much cooler. And I do love how everything looks so green. But then there are the leaves to rake. I'll have to find out if oak leaves are bad for goats. We had a few oak trees when we had goats and when the goats could get a hold of some oak leaves they would gobble them up like potato chips. But they didn't get all that many or that often. 

[9 eggs today]

Smiles

:)

Good Morning Lucy!

(all photos clickable)

I hope the elves have been busy last night

and that if I lift the cover

I will find all the scraps sewn together!

I'm chicken, so I don't look.

I leave everything covered and head outside to face the leaves.

But first I check the nest boxes

and find

3 eggs!

Good girls!

They are starting to lay 3 to 4 eggs a day.

I would like to take the wooden eggs out of the nest boxes

but there are still a couple of hens that have bare spots.

They were laying from 8 to 12 eggs a day.

I really don't know if the wooden eggs

have anything to do with slowing egg production

and increasing feather production,

but it seemed to work.

I give the eggs to my daughter to put in the fridge

(the library is closed because of a holiday and

she is home studying for her Japanese class)

so I don't have to take my boots off to go in the house.

Put them on, take them off,

I avoid all that whenever I can.

Then I pick up the rakes and shovel and head off into the woods.

I thought you might like to see the rakes.

It took me a long time

 to find just the right kind of rakes that work for me.

The silver rake is my rock rake.

The round tines grab the leaves but

slip around and over the rocks quite well.

The green rake is my dirt rake.

The flat tines will hold and move a lot

of leaves and dirt.

But, it will lift way too many rocks off my driveway.

See those bare sticks?

They are the reason I started the whole path business.

That is how poison oak looks in the winter.

My dogs would run through the stuff

and I would have the worst cases of poison oak. Yuk!

So, I had the bright idea of clearing away the paths

that the dogs had made around the property.

This worked!

The dogs ran around the paths.

Well, except for the squirrel herding.

And the chicken herding.

Anyway, I was hooked making paths.

Be careful, if you see bare sticks like those

stay away

because you can still get poison oak from them.

I think you have seen enough photos of me raking paths

so here is just one photo of a finished path.

From one corner of the property to the next.

This is a short side.

Three sides to go, but they are easier

because they are really just narrow paths.

I'm quitting for the day

but Morgan is still on the job.

She is one quarter Australian Shepherd

and three quarters Border Collie.

It is hard wired into her to stay on the other side from me

with the chickens in the middle.

See her? Behind the tree.

I am going to have to do a chicken post

and tell you about what breeds of chickens we have.

Also, I have to do a bear post

because my daughter said that I got my facts

about the bear encounters mixed up.

And I'll tell you about

her hitting the bear

in the head with a metal dog food pan.

"You. Hit. The. Bear?"

"You hit the bear with what?"

This year my husband is helping with the leaves

and is using a leaf blower to move them

off the rocks.

(I have to tell you a secret...

I really like to rake the leaves because I enjoy it

and because it is great exercise.

So, I never asked him to help.

He does the roof and the gutters.)

He has got a bunch of the leaves

over here by the chicken coop.

I can use the leaf shovel to scoop these away.

Morgan would like the chickens in the pen

to come out so she can herd them

with the others.

Well, she tries, but the chickens don't all like to stay together

and split up into groups and go their different ways.

Which makes her a bit upset.

Before I went in the house I checked the coop

and found one more egg.

Pretty brown egg!

Boy, are the girls messy eaters or what?

The boards and metal are laid down outside

against the pen 

to slow down any critter

who would try and dig their way inside.

The only time I really worry is when we all leave

and Morgan is in the house

and the chickens are locked up without her protection.

If a large bear really wanted to get into the coop

he could just rip the door off with no problem.

But, the coop is very close to the house

and we have only been bothered by small young bears.

Farther up in the mountains there are larger coyotes

who work in packs and will take dogs as prey.

So far, we just have the smaller variety.

I hope the big guys stay up there.

I heard  a mountain lion up the road,

but I never saw him

and I haven't heard him in years.

Finally,

I get back to the house...

I remove the cover and find

that the elves were not at home last night

and

there are still a lot of bits of fabric

that need to be sewn together.

I don't plan on ever doing this again.

From now on I will cut my scraps into strips and squares

and file them in my new storage drawers.

So far, I have enough fabric sewn for 20 blocks

but I think I will try for 30.

I'll keep sewing.

Smiles!