I'm Getting Closer

I did manage to get out and work on my duck hutch more today, despite the cool weather that rolled in for a couple of days.  I would have had the roof done except that my metal blade on my circular saw was worn down too much.  So, tomorrow after Daughters soccer game (and I must mention Eldest co-coaches), I will have to go to the hardware store for a new blade.  Then I will be back to making progress.
My husband came over from his lawn mowing to see how I was doing and snapped a shot.  He just loves his new iPhone.
I had a heck of a time putting the vinyl flooring on the inside.  I was going to just lay it on the floor and flange it up the sides for 6".  That was crazy to try doing since I didn't make it exactly square (never claimed to be a professional).  So, I ended up putting it on the floor and the piecing it onto the sides too.  Then I used quarter-round on the corners and bottom edges with caulk to seal any cracks and keep it from ruining what is underneath.  I must admit, I am terrible at caulking, and it shows.  I have the siding on 3 sides, and I still need to make the doors, but I will get there.  Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be crappy, so I may not finish until Sunday.  My ducks are growing like crazy and need to get out of the garage!
I will be the proud owner of new baby bunnies by morning, I think.  One of the girls pulled a load of fur and made a nest for doing so, so I hope she completes her task by morn.  She sure was looking a bit uncomforable this evening.  I will have to go out and check on her before I turn in.
Middle is learning to do laundry.  It is part of his Home Ec assignment this week.  Now I am going to start making him do his own every week.  This is ridiculous that I have to do so much of it.  I am so glad the teacher assigns this to them.  They have made  her classes so big now, she isn't able to have the kids do the cooking and sewing projects that she used to.  It is sad.  So, as I dropped off Middle this morning (he had a track meet and didn't get to bed until late, so getting up was a bit difficult), I popped into the Home Ec room and got directions for him to make the pillow case that they would normally be doing in there.  Eldest did his with Owls on it, and it is a very nice one, and unique.  Then I bought this guitar fabric last year for a different project Middle had to do, and thought I could buy a couple of different kinds and he could make his pillow case out of it.  He still can and should.  Besides, what else am I going to do with guitar fabric?  I would like to make a quilt for him, but he will probably have kids before I have time to do that.
Maybe tomorrow is the day that I clip Zeke.  That poor boy is beyond shaggy and needs it bad.
Well, I guess I have enough to keep  me busy over the weekend.
Til next time....

CC

I Am Getting There

I have been working on my duck hutch for 3 days now.  Well, really about 1 1/2 because they were only half days.  I have it close.  I have to put siding on three sides still and put the purlins and the roof on, and make the two doors.  It rained a little today while I was working, but not enough to send me packing up my tools.
It is so funny, but this is a duck hutch, and the chickens are all over it!  They love to roost on the frame, I can't blame them, it is a good vantage point for them to watch things.  My big rooster, Dumbledore (soon to be Dinner) watches from a safe distance.  He is such a booger.  He comes charging up behind me when I am carrying out feed to them, and ducks under the bucket, bumping my leg, then wants to challenge me.  He must have never heard that old saying, "Never attack the human who feeds you."  or something like that ; )  Especially while she feeds you.  Daughter has to carry a stick with her when she goes out or he comes after her.  I told her to not be afraid of hurting him, he is tough.  I may have to put him in chicken jail and let him chill out.
The weather is sweltering.  The kids were complaining that 'We HAVE  to get A/C."  Well, I lived my entire childhood without it, so I think they can last one more summer.  I would love to have air and humidity control in the house, but it is just wishful thinking at the moment.  One day we will have something better.
My doggies need baths and to be clipped once again.  Now that the weather is getting warm, so are they, and Zeke still had his winter coat on.  They must be bathed first, and that may happen when I get done here.
My other dogs (feet) are tired and need a good soaking.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day the duckies get to move outside for good.

CC

What the hell happened?

So, last week, we were getting snow flurries in the morning.  Today it was 86˚F and the humidity was up in the 70% range.  Give me a break.  We were starting to get Spring, and then we took a jump to this!  No fair!  I want Spring! 
Global Warming?  Maybe, or maybe just some crazy phase the Earth is going through.  Does it matter, I am tired of it at the moment.
Oh well, I will survive it.

My poor chicks and ducks and bunnies on the other hand....
I have two momma bunnies that should be having their babies tomorrow.  The poor things having to go through that in this steam.  Wait, I had to go through having babies twice when it was hot and steamy.  I just wasn't wearing a fur coat while I did it.  When I gave birth to Eldest, it was 99˚ and we were in Virginia in May.  When Second was born, it was 98˚ and it was August on the north side of Minneapolis.  Daughter came during an ice storm in March.  I guess hers made up for the heat of the other two.  :)


I better get to bed soon, I know half the night will be spent laying under the ceiling fan thinking about how much better our new house is going to be when we build it, and we have it climate controlled.

CC

Winding Down the Year

We are in the last month of school for the year here in Minnesota.  The kids didn't have too many snow days, so they won't add any on this time around.  The kids are getting a little anxious, and with tomorrow's summer like weather projections, I think they all will be just giddy and fidgety and some fit to be tied.  I can't say as it makes me too happy though.  I have been getting tired of the cold and all, but to jump from snow last week in the mornings to 85˚ tomorrow is just plain crazy.  Who ordered this weather?
Actually, I am going to be glad it is not cold tomorrow so that I don't have to carry jackets all day on the field trip with my daughter's third grade class.  I am so lucky to be able to chaperone. :\  It is not that I don't like going on these things, it is just that I have a million other things to get done.  I understand why they have their big trips at the end of the year, as it brings to a pinnacle the learning from the year.  But spring is a time for much outside work for us rural folks with furry and feathered critters.
I think I have easily passed the 200 mark for poultry, and I have had a couple of litters kindled in the rabbit cages.  Yes, kindled is the term used when a rabbit births its young.  I have two more that I think are due tomorrow if they are pregnant.  They are tricky little buggers, and not as easy to proliferate as most people believe.  "They breed like rabbits." is an expression used by those who have  never tried breeding rabbits.  I have had one doe I could not get 'in the mood' until it was 85˚.  Hey, maybe tomorrow is her day for nookie!  Seriously, I think I have her re-bred after giving birth to a stillborn litter the other day.  This is only her second litter ever and the first one was such an awful experience for her.  She is a small rabbit, a Netherland Dwarf, and they only are supposed to be 2- 2 1/2 pounds.  She had 4 kits the first time around and they were not so small as to pass easily and ended up losing all of them after it took 3 days to have them.  The poor girl was in such a state, I could not breed her again for a while.  But, rabbits can be re-bred almost right away.  It depends on your prespective.  Some people go right ahead and breed the same day they kindle if the litter is lost.  I like to give them at least a couple of days.  But I would only do that one time and then give them a while to rest up and get back into shape, even if the second litter were lost.  I just can't see asking one to go 3 rounds of being pregnant right after the other, that would be just too much.  And it does depend on the condition of the doe as to whether I would breed again the second time anyway.  You have to use your senses.
So, I will have a few cages full again by next month at this rate.
Have I mentioned anywhere that I am now the proud 'Momma' of 23 ducks?  Yes, I am so entirely, undoubtedly, certifiably insane.  I know this and can admit it, so I must be on the path of recovery, which is to expand my poultry dwellings to accommodate all my poultry.  Easy peasy.

I went to a friend's house who has all sorts of poultry: ducks, chickens, geese, turkeys and lots of them!  I wanted to see about getting a few for my kids to show at the fair this summer.  The boys said they would show meat ducks, and since Daughter is too small to handle carrying big old meat ducks, I got her some little, cute as a button Call Ducks.  They are so stinking sweet!
 
Now a week and a half later, they are about 3 times this size.  The Pekins are getting to be a handful already, though they still have their fluffy down and will have for a while yet. 
But you know what happened?  I took Middle to a farm and fleet store with me on Wednesday, and they had newly arrived, baby ducklings!  Yaaaaayyyyy!  So, he looks at me with his sweetest little boy look and says, "Oh, Mom, pleeeeease?"  I couldn't say no.  We came home with 3 Swedish Harlequins and 5 Khaki Campbells. God, I must be crazy.  To top it off, I have duck eggs in the incubator!  I still have 4 Call eggs and 3 or 4 Crested duck eggs too.   Let's not forget a couple of turkey eggs too.

So, as my kids and their school year are winding down, I am just cranking it up.  We will have plenty to keep them busy over the summer months.  But how is it I know I will still hear them saying, "I'm bored."?

CC

Constitutional rights

I read a thread today on my favorite backyard chickens forum (backyardchickens.com) that this veteran in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania got some chickens that help him deal with having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  His idiot neighbor protested him having them because his coop was 4 inches too close to the property line.  Give me a break!  4 inches?!?!  Here vets are coming home from these damn wars going on over in no man's land, and they are messed up to the nth degree.  One of them finds comfort and peace from all the baggage they are left to deal with by keeping a few chickens, and his dumb ass neighbor has the balls to complain about it????  I apologize for the language, but really????
So, a fellow veteran and his wife hear about this and build him a chicken tractor (portable coop to you non-chicken folks) and now he can keep his chickens.  Thank Goodness!  Isn't that just awesome that someone would do that for him?
I am confused, I understand why we have laws regulating the keeping of animals in towns.  But I don't understand the restriction of keeping chickens in your backyard within a reasonable number, of course.  What happened to our Constitutional right of pursuit of happiness?  To some people like this one vet, it is truly about the pursuit of happiness.  It seems like more an more the government is taking away the rights of people to actually pursue happiness.  There are extremely stringent laws on how dairy products are handled for raw sale and consumption, like just because we don't want to go cook I mean, pasteurize all the goodness out of our milk to then fortify it to return the goodness back into it that was there naturally in the first place that was killed in the heating process, that raw milk is all bad and carries e-coli.  There was a farmer who was selling raw dairy to consumers here in my own state, who was blamed as part of a small e-coli outbreak because someone he sold to got e-coli.  Uh, there were other people in that same outbreak who had never had any of his products, so how can it be his fault?  I am confused.  So, something like that comes up and the first people to get blamed are the ones doing it raw or natural or organically.  That is proposterous!  The fact is, that our food that we buy in our grocery stores is mostly shipped from over 1,000 miles away at a minimum, and it isn't all that fresh either.  SO, isn't it just possible that the really bad food stuffs are not from the local farmer trying to sell good, wholesome (key work WHOLE) and fresh foods is the one to maybe NOT worry so much about.  But, oh yeah, the neighbor selling the raw milk isn't to one lining the pockets of the lobbyists so that bills can get passed to help out those big guys who cook the milk and spray our fruits and veggies so they can ship them across continents and across the country, so they can arrive in our grocery stores nice and fresh(?).
I know, how did I go from a rant about chickens to this?  Well, it all goes together.  This is getting insane.  Like someone has to legislate what we can and cannot buy to eat because we are too stupid to decide what is good for us?  Is that what this is about?  I don't think so.  I think it is more about  money and the little people trying to do what is good and what is good for us trying to eek out a living by doing so, getting in the way of big food corporations that won't stand for some little guy getting in their way of monopolizing the supply of food. 
What is next?  Am I going to be breaking the law if I plant my own vegetable garden?  Are my chickens going to be taken away?  What?  I don't understand how the lawmakers use the Constitution to tell us what we can and cannot do, but they blatantly disregard the rights that same document gives each and every one of us to make our own choices.
It just doesn't seem right.