Today was lovely. Clear skies, no significant breeze, a balmy (relatively) 60F. I spent today using the lovely weather to finish up the winterization of the rabbits and chicken coop. Good thing, too. Tuesday, at 8am, it is forecast to be 14F, wind chill of 0F. I found this out about 2 or 3pm today,… Continue reading A lovely day
My father spent last weekend visiting. One part of the visit was to see his granddaughter. One part of the visit was to help his pregnant daughter (that is, me) get some stuff ready for this terrible concept known as “winter” before the weather turns really bad. I will say right now: I don’t think… Continue reading Winterization
Three days of nothing but storm fronts — and bad ones, at that — reminded me how soon winter will be here. So, despite the non-stop rain of yesterday (it finally slowed to a drizzle a long time after sunset), I acquired the lumber and various bits for building out a new hutch. It is,… Continue reading New hutch and bad weather
I generally butcher the day that trash goes out, since I don’t have a good way to otherwise dispose of the offal at this time. Several rabbits were … rather late for their appointment for freezer camp, but it was abnormally warm, and I’ve been abnormally exhausted. (Six months pregnant does that, and the delay… Continue reading Experiments
After no sightings of raccoons in a couple of weeks — not since the one was found dead along side the road — I separated out the pullet juvies from the butcher birds in the grow out pen, and moved them up top. Everyone needed space, and the pullets don’t need meat bird feed. I… Continue reading
Since removing the Brinsea brooder, I’ve lost exactly one chick. That poor chick was one of the smallest — probably a Bantam — and had gotten pushed down into the bedding in a chick huddle under the remaining brooder. I’ve resolved that by placing something solid for the brooder to sit on. I’ve not used… Continue reading Chick update
Well, FUCK. Back in April, I purchased a Brinsea “Ecobrooder”, because it had high reviews on, if I recall correctly, one of the chicken groups I’m on. The Amazon reviews of the device were also pretty good. Remember how I had such hell with that batch of chicks? How I couldn’t figure out WTF was… Continue reading Insert Really Strong Words Here …
We spent the weekend a couple hours north, so I had to split up one cage of grow out bunnies into two, to ensure they’d have enough food over the weekend. This meant the cage the hens had been hiding in overnight was locked out from their use. We arrived home earlier, and not only… Continue reading Tentatively hopeful
I didn’t get as much completed today as I did yesterday. Still, every step completed is a helpful step. In the picture below, you can see part of yesterday’s work and today’s. The scrap wood comes from my husband’s friend, who imports sculptures and carvings from his native village in Africa. (He does some himself,… Continue reading Upgrades
Finally doing well enough to work on some of the projects I meant to complete over the summer. The days are already getting noticeably shorter — and up here, that means it’s going get cold long before I’m ready for it. Spent time today dismantling the small interior coop I’d put together in a rush… Continue reading Coop ‘n’ Stuff