Things I Learn While the Kids Are Away...

Right now, our elder child is away as a camp counselor for two months. She made it back here for 36 hours over the weekend, but really, she is gone for two months. Our younger child is responsible for most of the chickens, and one small group of the goats, but I am essentially taking over lots of responsibilities I used to share...

This had led to me learn a few things while she has been away...

1. My two goats really do poop more than all of the others put together. That wasn't an exaggeration. Lulu seems proud of that, but she is jealous of sharing me with the other goats while their caretaker is away,

2. The camouflage shade cloth makes the kidding pens look like a MASH unit. The goats all hoped it was real leaves, and had to try it. Then they tried it over and over again until I tied it WAY up to keep it out of their reach!

3. The boys really do knock their little house over as many times per day as you are willing to put it back up. She wasn't blowing me off when I asked her to pick it up.  Now, I believe they think it is funny since I fuss over them having the extra shade. Then when I go in to fix their messes, they dance and act neglected since their usual caretaker is away.

4. My geese really are as destructive as I thought. They are working extra hard to plow through the container garden. They trimmed the citrus trees, including some new trees that really didn't need it, ate three pots worth of mint- three times each- and the basil twice, not to mention a few other things!

5. Bailey's black Cochin hen has issues. At least she is finally letting the new little hens sleep on the same side of the house. But that little chickie has issues!  Very antisocial, that one.  New little ones are fine, not sure what to make of her, but fine.

6. Shadow gets lazy in the summer. She will sleep in from of the fan with the boys all day if allowed, then roll in the mud but still expect to come back in. Okay, that part really isn't new, but she used to get up and head outside with me at first light! At least she still takes guard duty seriously, I suppose.

What have you learned when you were required to go without your partner in crime?

Sexing Goslings and Other Fun Times at Our House

Chock it up to yet another thing on the list of things I never knew I would learn in this life. Last night, the boys caught the young goslings and I worked on determining boys and girls. Yup, sexing geese. I never thought I would be able to add that to the list! Seriously, who puts that on their career goals, anyway?

The geese around here are interesting. Not overly friendly, but not mean. They keep the hawks and owls from attacking. From times of losing chickens even through the roofs of pens, we have not had one loss like this since the geese came to live with us 2 years ago. They are pranksters, trading pranks with the puppy and the goats, and busybodies, always with their nose in someone's business. But they do their job.

Each year in the Spring, Mother Goose nestles in to hatch babies. I set her up with her own food and water, over behind the swingset near the old greenhouse. Twice a day Uncle Wiggly gets her up and they fly around to the goose area to eat and drink before he walks her back. He looks out for her, and is an attentive father as babies hatch as well as with rearing them.

We keep several small water containers with their food so they have easy access to water without letting the little ones get in over their head in the good area.

The baby geese have the sweetest little voices! I hope you have the volume turned up! While they are beginning to get the orange in their bills and legs, the voices are all baby!

They are rather used to free run of the property! They meet me at the feed shed in the morning and ask to be fed before the other animals on my list.

Shadow Paws, who normally pranks the adult geese in exchange for them pranking her, maintains a safe distance to keep the geese parents happy while they are raising the little ones. 

However, we DO NOT need EIGHT GEESE. Goodness! We have a few folks that requested to be called first for little ones once they were sexed, and I will do that today, and give them until the end of the week before I open it up to others. But in calling, the first question is often, are they males or females?

So after dinner last night, the boys caught the little ones, one at a time, and I working on determining sex.  This little female really relaxed int he process.

He stood her back up, and she registered her complaint!

This one had even more to say!

I love the attitude form this one. By the way, curious about the plant pot on what used to be my clothesline? There is a fake owl there that the puppy thought looked VERY destructive. We had hoped the pot would save the clothesline from the puppy, but it blew off, and now Wyatt put it back on.

This one took its attitude straight to Charlie!

I am not going to claim to be anything approaching an expert at sexing chicks or goslings! But so that you know, here is what we did...

Vent sexing. And I have to admit, I had to ask for help with the camera since my hands were occupied, and clearly that didn't work out very well. I will add more photos later for better reference. This one is a female. If you could see more closely, the vent relaxes and begins to separate, leading to a little open there, showing you either (n this case) the folds just inside the vent and nothing else,

or in this case, a little corkscrew of a penis protruding out.  One of them didn't relax well for me, and while I think it is a girl, I will double check all of the girls to make sure one boy didn't sneak through. Our best educated guess right now, though, is One young gander, four young geese. At most, I believe I could be wrong on one of the girls.

I bet you always wondered about that, right?  Well, I will call folks this afternoon and give them the option of picking up geese, and I will admit we will likely be keeping a little female.  (We will work on naming her once all the dust is settled!) 

We will catch you up o more later. So, what things have you learned to do that you never though you would need to?

Spring Follows the Ups and Downs of Our Little World...

Last year, we incubated and hatched lots of eggs, and kept or sold a fir number of chicks.  Somewhere in it all, we ended up with one single (hopefully) pullet in this age range. Not one of our better planning moments, but I had mandated that we turn off the incubator during the holidays, so there weren't any younger ones coming along to keep it company.

The little one, on the left in the photo below, was living in the house, mostly in the tough brooder.  As the only one, her interaction was with us, as well as with Shadow. As she had grown, she would get out of the brooder, go for a walk around the house, hang out with Shadow while watching Wyatt practice piano, and chat with me while I put on my shoes in the morning.

She has not been a tidy roommate, as you can imagine, but I just couldn't seem to come up with anyone for her to hang out with. Then, I found some black sexlinks, fully feathered, and near to her size at a nearby feed store. While I am normally not big on hatchery chicks, I needed someone to teach the little pullet that she was, in fact, a chicken, and help her transition to her pen. So Saturday afternoon, on my way home from work, I brought her friends and Wyatt got them all set up in the first step of the grow out pen. So far, so good...

While I was at it, Friday night, Wyatt helped me dig a hole for the lower section of this pond insert that Grandma didn't want anymore. He even helped me situate the bricks for steps.

The geese are truly loving their new pool!

The geese are also laying. Wyatt is concerned about the fact that some of the hatching didn't go so well last year, and because the first egg that Mother Goose laid was pecked by Miss Friendly. The clutch was at three eggs at last count, though it got dark quickly this evening when we got home and we didn't get to check. What would you do? Incubate or let them try to raise the little ones?

You saw the project Wyatt helped me with, but on Monday, as the boys headed off to pick up the feed store and Bailey and I were heading home from town after the gym, we knew this was to be our big project!

We started by pulling EVERYTHING out of the tack shed.

The only thing that remained was the shelf unit, which was pulled well forward and wiped down. The walls and floors were cleaned, and we organized and cleaned as things went back in.

It was dark when we finished, but so worth it to get things cleaned and ready for Spring, and especially to do it before the feed order went in.

And this was the end result! What do you think?

Well, with Sunday night closing out, and a new week beginning, more big projects await and more always being added to the list, it is time for rest and recharge before the coming week.

What is on your list for this week?

The Shower Project, Day One

This is my big project for the semester break. A long time in the making

Over ten years ago (I am thinking more like twelve...), we renovated our bedroom and bathroom. We hired a handyman to come out, put up drywall and completely redo the bathroom. Among several little mishaps, the shower never was quite right.  We had to take it out immediately and fix plumbing. We tried to maintain as much of what had been done as possible. It turns out that was a mistake.

All of this time later, I had been fighting with caulking that would not stay adhered for more than a few months along the base. The walls weren't holding up to my constant interventions, so last year I purchased an entirely new shower to put in. I was going to do it while Charlie was away for hunting season, but he never managed to stay gone for very long at any of the times, so it went on the list for my break between semesters! Therefore, yesterday I got busy tearing the old one out!

As of last night, the walls from the shower came out, the handles are off,  The handles are a bit of a funny story, somehow the decorative housing was filled with caulking when we re-put it up all those years ago. I won't say how that happened, but it was the most difficult part of the tear down to this point! I also discovered that only about one inch at the bottom of the wall board was concrete backer board, the rest was green board. The concrete board had apparently gotten wet early on, and had just been degrading all of this time, hence the caulk wasn't staying adhered due to moisture behind the shower wall.

I pulled that stuff out and threw it away, then cleaned up after myself for the night. Wednesday, around my to do list for the day, I will be pulling out that green board tot he ceiling, then removing the pan. Charlie will pick up the backer board on his way home from work, since it will not fit in my little car! The scariest part for me will be removing the pan, as I want to preserve all of the tile if I can and only redo the grout at the edge of the shower pan (keep your fingers crossed for me on that one, please, will you? That part is the scariest for me!)

At the end of the night, I tidied up as best I could and put a tarp over the walls. Hopefully, the next update will look far different and have good news! Have you ever done one like this? Any input for me on the project?