Yay our snow is gone and the maple trees are blooming. A very few special forsythias and daffodial clumps are in bloom where we headed inland today.
The mink story had an interesting twist. It took me about two months to mink proof my chicken coop. I had to tear out built in rabbit hutches to get to the windows that were stuck in rough openings and needed to be framed out. One day I cried the whole project was so depressing and overwhelming in the beginning.
In the meantime, I had two hens and a guinea cock in separate cages IN MY HOUSE, and at night brought the two ganders in and put them in a big pet crate loaded with shavings and hay and changed every other day....it was a living nightmare of extra work, but it was nice to know when the hen laid an egg and pick up a nice warm egg and give her a bit of soft bread as a reward=I have never seen two hens lay at such a steady rate- with that sort of positive reinforcement, no wonder!
And given the fact that we offically had 10 or more feet snow this winter, it might be easier to understand how difficult it was to do any sort of outside work when you have 8 foot snowbanks everywhere you turn. And lucky to have a day above freezing, Then when it is above freezing you are tramping in 6 inches of snow and mud.
I just roughly estimated in my head that the FIrebird and I must have moved 30,000 cubic feet of snow this winter with snow scoops- that's a lot of scooping.
I digress. I FINALLY got the chicken house to my point of approval. I put the chickens and guinea in around midday and worried the guinea might be aggressive towards the hens. Then the hens got into a full blown cock fight.
I had to break them up THREE times. Finally I picked up one of the pet carriers that I used to put them in to clean their cages and took it in the coop and shook it at them and said, "Would you rather go back in here or live in this chicken palace?!"
And I didn't hear another peep out of the two hens.
The guinea seems to believe the hens magicicked this awesome place. He has always had the crap end of housing, and this freshly rebuilt house with three windows and strategically placed perches and shelves....He is funny. We started calling him Fred (flintstone)
Then that night I put the geese in and jumped at every little peep wondering if they would survive the night out there...and if the mink was still around?
The next morning I was relieved to find them alive. I headed out with the Willow who needed her 3 foot tall paper mache redwood tree delivered to school. I pulled out of the driveway and noticed a truck parked over the culvert, and a guy walking to it from our side of the stream.
I pulled over and asked, "what's up?"
and realized he was wearing a game warden uniform.
"I was just releasing a mink."
I kid you not-he actually did
Well, I lost my cookies. I went up that guy and down the other, and he kept saying, "sorry" while we watched the little mink scamper up the bank directly towards my chicken coop 200 feet away, and my neighbor/'s coop 200 feet in the other direction...
He did deny releasing any mink there previously...yea right ugh was I mad!!!
I took his number threatening to call him. That night I was feeling bad about yelling at him. The next afternoon I watched the mink run along the edge of the lawn behind the coop, about 40 feet away.
The Willow and I found sign along the stream and it appeared the mink had hung around with tracks and dens in the snow, but still the poultry was ok.
I had to resurrect the outdoor pen for the geese during the day, with electric all around.
***
I fixed my whole goat pasture electricline and we had a blow that night and the next day I had a big windfall on the back line with a birch and a white pine across the whole fence...
***
I am in the middle of taking down goat fence I put up years ago for someone else who is cutting back.
***
The last time I saw my mechanic, he told me he was awaiting test results and had a catheter in.
I had the blazer in there this past week, and asked how he was faring, and he said, "I'm alive."
I didn't want to ask him about the test. My last words to him had been, "I hope you have good news about your test."
So he stops everything, as usual, and gets me in and gets his guy to start on the blazer, and this other guy comes in and wants to talk to R,. so they go in the office and I can overhear the conversation, and the guy is talking about getting the deed straight, and I wondered if R was selling, and then the guy started talking about estate type of stuff like who gets the truck, and I decided it was time to go out the back door far from earshot of that conversation and have a smoke.
So I know the answer to my question without asking it.
***
About a month ago I ran into an old friend of mine. The last time I saw him was over a year ago, and he looked like shit. He was all happy about quitting drinking and told me the whole deal, about he got pretty bad and his wife finally gave him an ultimatum and he quit. Well I was pretty impressed , but he still looked like shit.
We fell out of contact for a bit, and about 6 months ago or more I actually searched his name because I wondered if he had died,.
I finally chased him down, and he looked much better. He was on chemo round 10 of twelve for colon cancer. He had a large enough section of colon removed that he will now wear a "shit bag" (his words) the rest of his life. And he pats it on his stomach for emphasis, permeating the room with the odor of really bad diarreha.
The smell clings to me long after I make my goodbyes.
The mink story had an interesting twist. It took me about two months to mink proof my chicken coop. I had to tear out built in rabbit hutches to get to the windows that were stuck in rough openings and needed to be framed out. One day I cried the whole project was so depressing and overwhelming in the beginning.
In the meantime, I had two hens and a guinea cock in separate cages IN MY HOUSE, and at night brought the two ganders in and put them in a big pet crate loaded with shavings and hay and changed every other day....it was a living nightmare of extra work, but it was nice to know when the hen laid an egg and pick up a nice warm egg and give her a bit of soft bread as a reward=I have never seen two hens lay at such a steady rate- with that sort of positive reinforcement, no wonder!
And given the fact that we offically had 10 or more feet snow this winter, it might be easier to understand how difficult it was to do any sort of outside work when you have 8 foot snowbanks everywhere you turn. And lucky to have a day above freezing, Then when it is above freezing you are tramping in 6 inches of snow and mud.
I just roughly estimated in my head that the FIrebird and I must have moved 30,000 cubic feet of snow this winter with snow scoops- that's a lot of scooping.
I digress. I FINALLY got the chicken house to my point of approval. I put the chickens and guinea in around midday and worried the guinea might be aggressive towards the hens. Then the hens got into a full blown cock fight.
I had to break them up THREE times. Finally I picked up one of the pet carriers that I used to put them in to clean their cages and took it in the coop and shook it at them and said, "Would you rather go back in here or live in this chicken palace?!"
And I didn't hear another peep out of the two hens.
The guinea seems to believe the hens magicicked this awesome place. He has always had the crap end of housing, and this freshly rebuilt house with three windows and strategically placed perches and shelves....He is funny. We started calling him Fred (flintstone)
Then that night I put the geese in and jumped at every little peep wondering if they would survive the night out there...and if the mink was still around?
The next morning I was relieved to find them alive. I headed out with the Willow who needed her 3 foot tall paper mache redwood tree delivered to school. I pulled out of the driveway and noticed a truck parked over the culvert, and a guy walking to it from our side of the stream.
I pulled over and asked, "what's up?"
and realized he was wearing a game warden uniform.
"I was just releasing a mink."
I kid you not-he actually did
Well, I lost my cookies. I went up that guy and down the other, and he kept saying, "sorry" while we watched the little mink scamper up the bank directly towards my chicken coop 200 feet away, and my neighbor/'s coop 200 feet in the other direction...
He did deny releasing any mink there previously...yea right ugh was I mad!!!
I took his number threatening to call him. That night I was feeling bad about yelling at him. The next afternoon I watched the mink run along the edge of the lawn behind the coop, about 40 feet away.
The Willow and I found sign along the stream and it appeared the mink had hung around with tracks and dens in the snow, but still the poultry was ok.
I had to resurrect the outdoor pen for the geese during the day, with electric all around.
***
I fixed my whole goat pasture electricline and we had a blow that night and the next day I had a big windfall on the back line with a birch and a white pine across the whole fence...
***
I am in the middle of taking down goat fence I put up years ago for someone else who is cutting back.
***
The last time I saw my mechanic, he told me he was awaiting test results and had a catheter in.
I had the blazer in there this past week, and asked how he was faring, and he said, "I'm alive."
I didn't want to ask him about the test. My last words to him had been, "I hope you have good news about your test."
So he stops everything, as usual, and gets me in and gets his guy to start on the blazer, and this other guy comes in and wants to talk to R,. so they go in the office and I can overhear the conversation, and the guy is talking about getting the deed straight, and I wondered if R was selling, and then the guy started talking about estate type of stuff like who gets the truck, and I decided it was time to go out the back door far from earshot of that conversation and have a smoke.
So I know the answer to my question without asking it.
***
About a month ago I ran into an old friend of mine. The last time I saw him was over a year ago, and he looked like shit. He was all happy about quitting drinking and told me the whole deal, about he got pretty bad and his wife finally gave him an ultimatum and he quit. Well I was pretty impressed , but he still looked like shit.
We fell out of contact for a bit, and about 6 months ago or more I actually searched his name because I wondered if he had died,.
I finally chased him down, and he looked much better. He was on chemo round 10 of twelve for colon cancer. He had a large enough section of colon removed that he will now wear a "shit bag" (his words) the rest of his life. And he pats it on his stomach for emphasis, permeating the room with the odor of really bad diarreha.
The smell clings to me long after I make my goodbyes.
