Ripe?

I took my sister in laws advice and put my green cherry tomatoes in a brown bag, folded it up, and waited.
I spent a week in mexico (thanks #jacqsbirthdaybash) and when I came back, some of them were red and the rest are on their way to being ready to eat. We made a salad the other day, used them, and they tasted great.

Just to rub it in, this was the view from my beachside bed x 6 days

This Means War

It makes me sad when I come home from work and make sure the girls have made it to the roost and I only count five butts. I miss my Penny. I'm not going to lose another one. 


Claire mad a good point. It's the circle of life and the poor Hawk was just hungry. It's the survival of the fittest. I understand that, but, I still hate it. 


I have waged a war on this hawk. I haven't see it around in the past 3 days, but It's been cold and rainy. I'm sure the first day the sun comes out it will be back. 


So, I have done a few reinforcements to the coop. I hung some shiny eye ball looking things in the trees to hopefully scare it away. Some people use old Cd's but I bought mine today at the feed store. Supposedly the shiny will scare it away. 


I bought some netting that I am going to hang throughout the run. Hopefully, this will make the hawk unable to swoop down and prey on the girls. 


Lastly, I bought a decoy. It's an owl. Supposedly one of the fiercest, most feared predators around. 
Check it out here: 


HAWK WAR

RIP........Sweet Penny

A hawk took her out today. 
Im sad................

Penny(in front)

Killer on the Loose

I have never really been a big cat person.  I have had them in the past, but as an adult never really wanted one. Their judging eyes and "making biscuits" on my face in the early a.m. were a real turn off. But now all of a sudden, I have an unwelcome feline friend. 


For the past few days, I noticed something having a field day in my garden boxes. Digging stuff up, messing up the irrigation, and pooping. I thought it was a squirrel or raccoon. The other morning, I woke up and much to my dismay I saw a cat sitting by the coop door, preying on the girls. Great. I ran out to the coop, watering the newly seeded rye with morning coffee, and shooed him away. I thought I had scared him for good. 


I noticed it here and there after the above encounter, but it never did much in terms of harming the girls.  It basically just sat and stared at the girls with curiosity but never went in for the attack. I stopped worrying really. I figured if it's been around this long and hasn't hurt them, it probably won't in the future. I came home from work at lunch to feed the girls and check on them a few days ago and got quite the scare from the new cat.


Disclaimer: I swear to you the following story is true. Just as it happened. This thing is vicious. 


Anyway, I'm feeding the girls and I suddenly hear a rustling on the other side of the their fence in the bamboo. I turn and look and the cat is in attack mode. It looks at me and with a swift pounce move, its go go gadget arm reaches high into the bamboo and grabs a poor unaware  pigeon. Seriously it just grabs this bird out of the air like it's no big deal. I'm standing there with my mouth wide open and I swear to you all of a sudden, I'm making some serious eye contact with this killer. At the moment our eyes meet, the cat puts the bird in it's drool dripping mouth and takes a bite out of it. If that cat could talk, it would have told me at that moment, "this is a warm up lady, your girls are next." 


Shit. 


So for weeks, I have been scaring(and this just means raising my voice saying, get out of here) this cat away. Again and again and again.


But I started feeling kind of guilty. I didn't want to be mean. I felt bad that if it was feral and didn't have a home, maybe it just wanted a little human contact. The other morning I decided to talk to it nicely. And wouldn't you know it, that little cat started purring, came right up to the fence, started rubbing on it and just wanted to be petted.  Well, I feel like an asshole now. 


So, the cat has become a part of daily life. Now, I worry if a day goes by and I don't see it. So far so good. We are all living in harmony together and well I must admit, I kinda like cats again now................as long as it doesn't touch my girls. 

You want to see something annoying?

Here it is:

Well yeah. I know it's pretty. 

But it's green. That's the annoying part. So all summer, in the searing heat, I have been nursing my garden. Shade cloth, water, fertilizer. I babied it. A few weeks ago the weather finally cooled off and the garden started flowering and producing. I thought for sure that there would be time before it got cold to have a little harvest.......... but I didn't. The past few days have been a low of about 28 degrees in Austin. Seriously, I am so tired of this extreme weather and because I have been rotting in the box (job) nonstop, I didn't have time to put up plastic or set up a hoop house and well, it froze. So this is what we are left with, a big ass bowl of green. It's ok though. You know why? Because in the spring, I am going to have the biggest, baddest garden ever. If I can grow the above in this heat, I think this spring I am going to knock it out of the park. I think I may have finally figured this gardening thing out.  Bring it. 

Thankful

Came home from work this a.m. and found this outside. Always a sure sign that Thanksgiving cooking has begun. 

I'm lucky and thankful for a lot of things...............

Rye Rye Rye

Remember the buffalo grass? Native seed my ass.

I tell you what, it may have worked out if this spring in Austin wasn't Death Valley Apocalyptic hot. But it didn't. After this summer, I had a backyard full of weeds and no buffalo grass mix. It was just too hot to germinate. No worries though, my nickname should be "second chance Kelly." I'm much better the second time round. Exhibit A: my small little harvest today, which is so much more than I grew this past spring when there was not a drought. 

Anyway, I am going to try again this spring. Not with buffalo, but with something else(not quite sure what). I got rid of all the weeds again and decided that I'm done with the mud pit we call our backyard. So, I threw down a cover crop for the winter and I can't believe IT WORKED! With a few days of rain, we have a backyard full of annual rye grass. It will stay all winter and die of in the spring when the temps warm up just in time for spring grass planting.  Even better, the girls will feel like they are in Heaven when I let them out to free range in the rye area in the spring. 

Exhibit B: I finally did something the first time around successfully. 

These Balls Make Me Smile

Stop it. 


Ok no really though, I'm still a little unmotivated. But my 70 year old neighbor is not apparently.  He sports these ginormous balls right in his front yard. They are all different sizes but the biggest one could probably barely fit in your living room. BIG.


For awhile they were clear, for awhile they were blue(yeah, I know), and tonight as I drove home they were a flashing rainbow. They literally put an instant smile on my face. Even better is when I wake up in the a.m. and they all rolled in the street after a windy night and I have to dodge them in my car like an obstacle course. 


Keeping Austin Weird...........one ball at a time. 


For your viewing pleasure:

BLAH

Been gone awhile.

I went to Miami a couple a weeks ago. Claire had a conference for work and hell, I needed to escape the heat so, I went. I'm really really good at tagging along on business trips and I am even better at sitting on the beach and doing nothing. Seriously, if there was such a thing as professional beach sitter I would be one of the best. There is nothing better to me than getting up early, grabbing a cup of coffee and heading out to the beach to read, swim, nap, and beautiful people watch. I could literally sit there all night, except, as always, the nice gentlemen who rent the beach chairs have to pry my sun burnt, salt laden body off the chairs at sundown. Why they start taking the chairs back and putting them away at 6:00 is beyond me. Anyway, a few days on the water makes me wonder why we chose to live in drought ridden, hotter than hell Austin, and not somewhere closer to the beach. Sigh.

Back on the mainland, I'm finding myself uninspired, unmotivated, and quite frankly LAZY. I have been battling a nasty virus that knocked me down for a few days and I'm sure that's part of it, but I just can't seem to get any umph in my step lately. Hence, the lack of posts. The list of things that need to get done here at Uprooted Bamboo is never ending and a direct correlation exists between my lack of pep and the amount of things being marked off as completed. I'm sure with the cooler weather finally coming in I will regain some momentum and start getting some stuff done. I guess it's good to take a step back, breathe, and re-evaluate the backyard. It's a huge blank canvas and while exciting to have such a big piece of property, it sometimes is a bit overwhelming. Which is where I find myself now.

The girls are doing well.  Bridget and Monica(the little ones) have been incorporated into the flock. They aren't hugging and high-fiving the big girls yet, but with a little more time they will all work it out and get along.

The garden, shockingly, is doing well. I have cucumbers, tomatoes(yay!), banana peppers, green peppers, green beans, serrano's, and jalapenos all getting ready to be harvested. I need to get some lettuce and strawberries in this month and in the next few weeks start digging my holes for the bare root fruit trees going in mid winter. And given Austin's hard, dry, clay soil that may take me awhile.

Good stuff........ lets just keep adding to the list.

Solar Power Ya'll

With fall approaching, the days are getting shorter and I have run into a slight problem. I don't get back from rotting in the box until 7:45. This was no problem in the summer. I would let the girls out in the a.m. and they would go in by themselves at sundown. All I had to do was lock them up when they all made it to the roost, usually around 9:00 pm.  Now, its getting dark way too early, and waiting to close the coop when I come home late is way too dangerous in regards to urban wildlife. The raccoons and opossums would jump at the chance I'm sure to take a taste of the girls. 

I have been having Claire take care of this issue for the past week, but already I can see she is getting somewhat annoyed. The other day she called and said the girls were staring at her and wouldn't go in when she went to lock them up. It was only 630 'ish, the light was still out, and I'm sure they were like, "uh uh. Who does this girl think she is making us go in early." 

I needed a solution stat.

So, I ordered a door. An automatic door. What what. And since I was tired of the three extension cords running to the coop all trashy like, I decided to go solar. Yeah that's right an off the grid chicken coop. Every morning, it opens at sunrise to let the girls into their run and at sundown it closes once all the girls are safe and sound in the coop. It does have an automatic safety mechanism where it will open again for one minute and then shut in case anyone didn't make it on time. I installed it today so tonight and tomorrow is the big test. Unfortunately/Fortunately it has been raining the past two days and I'm worried that the battery may not have enough juice in it since it has been cloudy. Hopefully, we have no issues with this. 

Door with motor and battery installed

Barb, all sassy, trying it out

Solar panel 

In other news, the garden is somewhat kicking ass. 

Crooked Neck zucchini 

Can You see the little butternut squash?

A bigger butternut

Cucumber Harvest 

What the hell is this?

Yup..................cucumbers. In my yard. That I grew. For awhile there i was considering throwing in the towel and giving up. It was just sooooo freaking hot. This summer was one of the harshest I have ever experienced. Snorting prozac three times a day would not have helped my mood with the amount of 100+ degree days we experienced. Finally this week, the weather has dipped into the upper 80's and things are starting to look brighter. My cucumbers are flowering, the crooked neck zuchinni's are ripening, a butternut squash is brewing, and the girls have finally stopped panting. I'd say Fall has arrived....................FINALLY. 

Busy Busy Busy..........

Ok...... Sort of but not really.


Past three weeks have flown by. We cautiously ventured out to West Texas (Marfa) to escape the heat for a bit and do a little recovering. My farmhand Claire is BRCA2+(click on cancer risk tab) and a few weeks ago she had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. After a nine hour surgery, a stay in the ICU, and a few days of begging to get out of the hospital, she is doing remarkably well. Marfa is the city of do nothing. So we did a whole lotta nothing, except rest and recover. It was a beautiful 75 degrees everyday and a chilly, fire starting 50's at night.  I was able to catch a few shows at El Cosmico, where the fabulous Patty Griffin and her legend of a boyfriend Robert Plant played to a crowd of less than 150.  

Patty and Robert

It was awesome to get away, escape the heat, and do nothing. I definitely needed the recharge.I have been thinking a lot about water conservation since this drought in Austin began and I realized I may need to change the way I have been doing things around here at Uprooted Bamboo. I have been throwing around a few ideas and am still weighing some possibilities. Something has got to change since I can't seem to grow anything successfully.  


We got home yesterday and the heat is back to 103. This week it's supposed to dip down to the low 90's.  I went ahead and decided to go ahead and put my artichokes in the ground, praying that the cool weather comes around soon. Anyway, here's what happens when the girls are around and I try to plant something. Not the best helpers around. Seriously, killin me. 

Uh Uh, Stop it..............I know.

Boneless skinless in the House.

Yeah that's right. Remember when I said I could write a book with instructions about how to handle rare chicken happenings that occur when raising chickens? Well seriously......... I can.

A couple of months ago our two furry, four legged farmhands got a little rowdy and ambushed the girls. I know they were probably scheming this sneak attack for a few months, but one windy day, an unlatched gate, and my forgetfulness gave them their long awaited opportunity. Rouge ended up with a hurt leg and a few feathers missing and Penny ended up with a small cut on her back and a few missing back feathers. I cleaned them up, applied antiseptic, massaged Rouge's leg for a few days and in no time they were on their way to recovery. So, I thought. 

Rouge healed up nicely and after a few days the limp was gone. Penny on the other hand seemed to be losing more feathers. Over the next few days, I noticed more and more gone until one morning I walked out and all of her feathers were gone.  I mean, it literally looked like a piece of boneless skinless chicken you would get at the grocery store. Great.

What the hell was going on? I started a search and the list of differentials was long. I ruled out everything from mites, illness, to molting and came to the conclusion that the other girls must be pecking on her. They free range all day, are fed a very balanced feed and have plenty of space, so it took me awhile to believe that this indeed was the cause. Normally chickens turn cannibalistic( yeah I know harsh word, but that's what the feed store guy called it) if the aforementioned needs aren't met. But, I think the cut on her back from the dogs led the other girls to believe she was weaker, low on the totem pole, and ultimately in their world gave them the right to pick on her. The thing is, I never really see them peck at each other. They hang out, eat together, free range, and even at night on the roost I have yet to see them peck each other. One friend even suggested that since it's so hot in Austin, she probably just pulled them out to escape the heat, like taking off her down jacket of sorts. With this heat, as crazy at that sounds, I wouldn't put it past her.

Either way, the situation started to make me worry.

I headed to the feed store for some advice. I had read some things about Blue Kote and wanted to give it a try on her bare skin. It turns the skin a bright blue almost purple color, helps to rapidly heal wounds, and also tastes bad to the other girls who peck her.  The guy also suggested that I try a product called Rooster Booster.  According to the guy, it tastes awful(he knows because a coworker snuck some on the top of his drink once), only needs to be applied once, and will definitely keep the girls away from her. 


I went in guns a'blazin with both products, snatched up Penny, and applied liberally. Shockingly, she was fine with me putting it on her. The real test would be to wait and see if it worked. 


Ok. Now. Really. You have got to be kidding me. Remember when I said I could write the book on yada yada yada............................ well seriously, I can. 
I mean really, only MY girls would like the taste of both of these products. KILLIN' ME. Penny thought it was a buffet on her back and the others took a few tastes and went back for seconds, thirds, fourths. They pecked her back more in the first five minutes of the application than I have seen in the last few months. 


Now what? I could separate her, but the reintroduction might be just as miserable. I found another option, a last resort of sorts. When I found it, I couldn't believe it actually existed or that I would be using it on one of my girls.  Enter the chicken saddle. I know. So freaking ridiculous, but hysterical at the same time. And so versatile really. I put it on Penny yesterday and she's so easygoing she didn't even mind. She is now probably making the other girls jealous now with her sassy new jacket. I know....stop it.


We had a cool front blow through yesterday. 91 degrees. Aaaahhhhhhh. Feels like fall already. Just in time for Penny's new sportswear, only time will tell if it works. 

Chicken saddle sassiness

Oh yeah. It's camo too.

Merge

So the merging of two flocks begins.................... I wouldn't be so worried except with my unlucky chicken history, I could write a book about how to handle rare situations that almost never occur when raising chickens. Seriously. 


The little girls(Bridget and Monica) have been out for almost a week now. I think they were shocked going from a nice breezy 73 degrees in the laundry room to a scorching, melting, make you wanna move out of Austin 107 degree heat. It took them a few days to adjust to the heat, but with a box fan and daily ice downs they are doing well. 

2 little chilled chicken booties

The big girls are super skeptical. The pecking order does indeed exist in chicken life and the big girls aren't letting the little ones off the hook. I am merging slowly as all the literature advises. I have a small chicken hutch within the coop where the little ones reside. The older girls see them and interact with them, but the little ones are safe from the occasional peck that flies at them. So far Penny seems to be the biggest bully. She likes to walk up to the hutch, throw a few pecks around and act tough. As soon as the little ones are big enough to defend themselves(a month and a half or so) I will let them free range with the older girls and then merge them as one flock. Seems easy enough, but ya'll know me, the more complicated route is more my style. 

Hutch in the coop

Bridget

Monica

Dry Dry Dry..................Parched

Texas is dry. A drought they say could last for years.
I read a good opinion piece in The Times a few days ago that sums up what we here in Texas are going through and have to look forward too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/as-texas-dries-out-life-falters-and-fades.html

Sigh

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch..............

I have been lagging with the mulching. 

Mulch  does a variety of good things for plants, veggies, and trees. With this heat it really isn't something I should have been ignoring.  Did I mention I just rotted in the box(Job) for 11 days straight? Yeah, I said 11. Yowser. Anyway I have four days off (yay!) and today I was able to snag some pine needle mulch. I went with pine needles because at the end of the season, I will be able to just till it in and use it in a good organic matter kind of way. 

I fertilized today and will every two weeks with good ole stinky John's Recipe. Im tellin you, after I use this stuff(and spill it all over myself), the dogs go crazy around me and I'm not allowed to sit on the couch until I shower. P U. It keeps the plants strong, growing, and is super simple to use. 

I am spraying the leaves also every week with NEEM oil. I have a little bit of an ant problem and also have noticed a few little slimy worm patterns on a few of the tomato leaves. So, I am keeping ahead of a potential problem(remember spring) and spraying every week. It's safe, organic, and wont hurt the plants or us, even if we harvest and eat on the same day. 

Pepper plant with the new mulch. Drip Irrigation is underneath

On a happy note, the little girls Bridget and Monica are thriving. They love to go outside in their backyard hutch, scratch around, and take dust baths. I can't believe they are already almost three weeks old. 

Bridget and Monica

Heats Killer. 


 I started seeds last week indoors for Chard, Broccoli, and brussel sprouts.

Shade Cloth Savior

Remember when I said my fall garden was going to kick ass. Well it's gonna, if the heat lets up and if it ever rains. Did I mention we here in central Texas are in a serious drought. It literally hasn't rained since May. 

The last good day to plant tomatoes and peppers in Austin was around July 25th from what I have been reading and from what the good folks at the garden store told me. So, I planted mine. Round two. Here we go. I swear if I don't grow at least three good tomatoes this fall, I'm going to..................... yell and hell I don't know keep trying I guess. 

Since it's so hot and sunny, the mid day sun is killer on the tomatoes, peppers, and squash. My savior is a 40% shade cloth I set up. Because it's 40% it's supposed to cover all of the boxes for the full day and allow 60% of the UV rays to soak through, enough for ample plant growth. So far everything looks good. By the end of the day the peppers look a little sluggish, but I give them a little water and they perk right up. 

I really just want this to work. 

Btw, the black around the boxes are weed barrier. My next project is to edge the garden area off and add some gravel. Soon. 

whew............................

It's hot. 


I know I complain about the heat a bit but seriously this is no joke. Another record today....... 106 degrees. The real feel with humidity was 115 degrees. Uh Uh. No thanks. I'm super ready for Fall. Or hell, even a day in the 90's would be nice. 

Chickens don't like temps in the high 90's or 100's. It literally is like a part time job keeping these girls alive in this ridiculous heat. It is easier to lose one of the girls to heat than cold weather, so here are the steps I'm taking to keep them chilled:


-box fan in the coop running at hottest part of the day
-mister on a timer that runs twice a day for an hour and a half
-frozen watermelon or cantaloupe at lunchtime
-electrolytes in their water
-when its record breaking heat, I put ice in a pan in the coop. They like to sit by it or walk on it. The ice is also placed in front of the fan, so if it's not too humid, the fan + the ice acts like a swamp cooler
-The coop and run is in shade with lots of trees


If you have chickens and its hot, try these. They really work. 

I wanted a happy ending......................

But it didn't end that way.  It's been a crazy, bummer kind of a week.  

First off, I got kind of worried that the eggs I slipped under Little shit weren't going to hatch. I did the float test and the eggs floated, but they didn't move much in the water. I knew then that there was around a 50/50 chance that the egg (btw I say egg because somehow the other one ended up a dud and wasn't fertilized) was still viable and would hatch at that point. Because its been so hot (103-105 daily) my thoughts were less hopeful, leaning more to the 50% failure rate. Incubated eggs do best with 40-50% humidity and a 99.5-100 degree temperature range from what I've been reading. I started to worry. 

On Saturday, I decided that I wanted to try to slip two chicks under Little shit so she could mother them and hopefully break her broody behavior, just in case the egg didn't hatch. This is a technique that is used with success many times. In theory, the mother thinks she hatches the chicks and immediately switches to mother mode. Saturday morning I headed to the feed store, it was National Cowboy Day there that day, to buy two chicks. They had an excellent selection and I ended up picking out a Light Brahma and a Salmon Favorelle, both two days old. The man in the chick room, who I happen to chat up frequently really wanted to give me a chick because of my "valued customer" status. Love those boys at the feedstore.  So, I ended up taking home three. I told myself and Claire that I would only get two while I was there, but was secretly happy I had an excuse to bring home three. He gave me a beautiful little Ancona on the house. YeeeeHawww.


Saturday Night at around 10:00 pm we headed out to slip the new girls under their sleeping, waiting mother. Little shit fussed a little but settled back down after the little ones were slipped under. As I strategically placed the two under, I took out two eggs. We left her alone and after about an hour, I went back to check on her. The girls and their independent spirits had jumped out of the nesting box. I put them back in and they settled in nicely. I reluctantly went back to bed and hoped for the best in the am. I wanted to watch them all night. 


Unfortunately, sometimes this technique does not work and in this case it did not. When I checked on them at sun up, the little Ancona had been killed and the other two were hiding in a crack were the big girls couldn't get to them. I was devastated. I couldn't believe it didn't work. I worry now, big time that I didn't check on them enough and I wish I would have gone at sunrise to make sure she would not kill them. I honestly thought she would take them as her own. Ugh. I regret doing it for the sake of that little one. I talked to some people from the poultry forum and was reassured I did everything ok. It's just sometimes some chickens, even though they are broody, don't want to be a mother. She obviously doesn't.  Much to the dismay of Claire, we now have two little chicks brooding in the laundry room again. We will have to raise them and integrate them with the flock later.  They still don't have names, so if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears. 


Ya'll are probably wondering what ever happened to the fertilized egg? The answer to that is another big let down. I did the float test again this morning and no movement. I made the decision to crack the egg open and see what was in it.  Little shit had done her job of setting well.  I'm pretty sure the heat was working against her because inside was a dead fully formed little chick. Ugh. Seriously. 

So now I have to figure out a way to break little shit. Surprisingly, today she was out and about with the rest of the crew. I noticed she made a beeline to the coop a few times, but for the most part she hung with the other girls. I think taking away that one little egg and 30+ days may have finally snapped her out of it. 


I hate that a month later Little shit wasn't able to become a mother (even though in reality she didn't really want to be) and that this situation wasn't able to have a different ending but at least I ended up with two things that make me smile............................

Once again, chicks are really hard to photograph. These are the best I could get

Wanna see something cute?

I was thinking about the eggs I slipped under Little Shit. I stole one of the eggs (the little Bantam one) from a hen that is also broody and setting on a mound of eggs at my dads house. She had started sitting on them 2 days before I took one, so I realized that they were due to hatch on the 20th or 21st since Little Shit's are supposed to hatch on Sunday. So I called my Dad that morning and talked to his friend Ms. Freida who takes care of the animals and she said none had hatched yet. I told her to call me as soon as they started to hatch, knowing my calculations couldn't have been wrong. 

At 4:00 yesterday, my phone rang and it was Ms. Freida. She said she had just checked on the hen and she saw a broken egg. Concerned that a snake had gotten the eggs, Ms. Freida was looking around when she heard the faint sounds of sweet little chirps. She lifted up Red(the hen's name) and there they were. Three sweet little chicks. She didn't want to disturb them too much but she was able to get a few pics and send them to me. Hopefully Little shit will hatch hers in the next few days. 

Blurry but still cute

It's a St. Supery and Chicken Candling Kind of Night

I know I know. I have been gone awhile. This heat we have been experiencing makes me wanna shrivel up and do nothing. The garden............ gone. I stopped watering it a few weeks ago. Austin is in the middle of a serious drought and I'm doing my best to conserve H2O. My hope is that the fall garden will be a tad more successful than what I had going on the past couple of months. Yooooooowser.


So today is day 14 of Little Shit setting on the eggs. If the way she guards those eggs says anything about the kind of mother she is going to be, this feisty lady is going to win Mama of the year, no doubt. She puffs up, ruffles her feathers, and totally gets annoyed when you mess with her to get the rest of the eggs, but surprisingly she has yet to peck me. Sweet girl.


Anyway, I was starting to wonder if there really was anything brewing in the two eggs that I snuck under her on July 4th. I wasn't quite sure how to tell. I was just being patient, waiting for day 20 to see if anything hatched. So I did a little google search and who knew there was such a thing as chicken candling.  I didn't.  I read up about it and tonight I grabbed my flashlight(not the fancy set up provided on the previous link) and headed out as soon as it got dark.


Huh.


I am not quite sure what the hell I was looking at when I shined that light on the eggs. Granted, I did have a couple glasses of the Supery before heading out, but all I saw in my eggs was a black blob. This could be normal at Day 14, or it could mean that it's just a rotten egg in there. Some people say that if they aren't growing chicks, they will smell rotten. Well, they didn't smell. I sat there smelling them like I was sitting in the middle of a rose garden. They smelled fine. So, my optimistic self is remaining hopeful that these eggs will hatch in 6 days.


If not, I have plan B(no, not that kind you crazy kids) up my sleeve. My plan is to get some day old chicks from the feed store and slip them under her. She will never know the difference and she has definitely earned the deserving title of mother in these past three weeks.

9 eggs and two golf balls later...........

I thought I had broken Little Shit(L.S.). 


I picked her up, booted her out of the coop, and closed it up for the whole day.  Every so often, I would see her scurry across the yard trying to get back to the now empty nest, only to be met by a locked door. She would fly up onto the roof,  looking for a way in. I have never seen or would ever believe she could fly that high. Don't mess with a lady on a mission is all I'm saying.....yowser. That night, she roosted with the rest of the girls. 


The next day she seemed great. Hanging around outside of the nesting box, eating, and drinking. I thought to myself, "well that was easy enough. No big deal." I thought breaking a broody hen would be ten times harder according to what I have been reading. She wasn't laying but I thought she just needed a few days to regroup and then she would be good as new. 


I went out of town to my Dad's in Louisiana for the fourth of July weekend. When I got back after three days I never guessed she would be broody again. There she was again, as happy as can be sitting on the eggs the girls laid over the weekend. Alright, maybe I got a little cocky with my skills. I thought I had fixed her easily. 

Over the weekend, I got to hang out with Henry and Sonny (the two roosters I brought to Dad's). They are huge and beautiful now, but seriously they crow all day. I had an idea to bring a few fertilized eggs of my dads home, just in case L.S. was still broody. I thought it would be cool if she could hatch eggs that they were fertilized by my Henry or Sonny. I was originally going to bring home 3 big eggs and one bantam egg( a miniature hen) but my brother made some killer Margaritas for the fourth and dammit, I dropped two of the big ones as I was headed out. There were only 4 eggs that day, so I ended up only bringing home one big egg and one bantam egg......and a headache. Thanks bro. 


When I got home, I slipped them under her and she hasn't moved since. I am hoping at least one of them hatches for her so she can be a mother. And if the one that hatches happens to turn out to be a hen rather than another rooster, that would be even better. We will see what happens in a few weeks. 


On another note, I found out that that the Tater tot loves to go fishing. I left him on the shore and he swam about two hundred yards to get to the kayak to go fishing with me. Stinker

Girl gone Broody

So L.S. (little shit) has gone broody.  I don't think she realizes that those golf balls she's sitting on aren't going to hatch anytime soon. She is just ready to be a mother I guess. This happens from time to time and there are many ways to break the broodiness, but I need to figure out a solution stat. She's guarding those eggs like a pit bull in a junkyard. I mean damn I almost lost my hand trying to get the remaining eggs that weren't nestled under her. TLC or A&E, I have a new episode for you. Chickens that hoard. I mean seriously, would you mess with this crazy Lady?

Fore! (get it? she's sitting on golf balls)

My plan is to give her a couple more days and see if she will just get bored or move on. If not I will remove the balls and eggs and see if that will break her. If not, I may have to place some chicks under her, so she can experience motherhood. Oh mama, I'm not ready for more chicks. 

Fill er' up

Filled up the pool today. Have a little leak in one of the pump parts but other than that it's awesome. I added about 27 pounds of pool salt to the tank. It has to dissolve and the filter pump has to run for 24 hours before we turn the saltwater pump on. Other than that, it easy breezy. I shouldn't have to worry about the salt level until the pump says low salt. Add a little and we are good to go. Inaugural swim tomorrow night. 

Pump up the jam....pump it up

I'm working like a maniac this week and next. My only days off were today and monday. Then I'm rotting for the rest of the week. I was hoping to have the pool done today so we could be lounging in a raft (Claire bought one for the inaugural opening float day) tomorrow but you know how it goes. Shit always has to get in the way. Today was quite the lesson in patience.


I originally was going to line the tank with a pool liner.  I'm worried about the tank eroding sooner than it should since I have decided to go the saltwater route. Yeah, I don't really want the eye burn and skin itch of a chlorinated pool, so saltwater it is. The pool liner kicked my arse today. I hate it. It wouldn't match up and center with the tank, the holes weren't in the right place for the pump attachments, and dammit it kept burning feet in the sun. Claire came home and was like "um, why are you in a bad mood?" Ohhhhh that liner. Seriously, can you recycle Vinyl? Thats where its going. Either in the trash or the recycle bin. I'm done with it. Au natural stock tank is the way we are going. 


I was able to get a lot done with the pump and filter system today. Its all done. Just waiting for the silicone sealant to dry. I went with a pump and filter from Intex, an above the ground pool company and then hooked their saltwater system pump inline. It was actually a lot simpler than I had envisioned. I think the hardest part might be hiding the extension cord so it doesn't look ugly.


On a weirder note, the garden is suddenly taking off. I mean leave it to me to have a nice producible garden at 103 degrees every day for the past ten days. I'll take it. 

Filter

The pump and saltwater system