Scrapbook Saturday

Rainy, rainy, rainy day.

We played a lot of Tetris on the Xbox 360 today. (I just bought it two days ago--the family loves it!)

And, I even got a few layouts done...

Bottle Babies

A little over a week ago, Amanda was watching Jude and Noah while I helped supervise a field trip for Jabin's kindergarten class. Afterwards, we went over to Amanda's brother's place to help bottle-feed their lambs.

How could I not share the ensuing cuteness with all of you?

Bottle-fed lambs are very tame. When they are hungry, especially... they follow you around like, well, like little lambs.

 

Lunch is served! The lambs gulped it back like they may never see food again! (They must be growing! Hee hee!)

The Twilight Zone

"Enough about the chickens and the coyotes and the farming already! Don't you have some kids, or a move, or something else to talk about?"

I know you were thinking it...

As soon as our friend Cheryl read my Desperate Measures post, she and her husband volunteered their holiday trailer for us to live in, as opposed to tenting throughout our transition. Thank you, Steve and Cheryl! What a blessing, especially as this has now turned into a very wet spring... tenting would not have been pleasant in the least!

Also, the trailer that we looked at and liked is the one we ended up buying. It had renters in it, so we needed to wait until the owner could give notice before arranging the move. Now we are waiting until the house mover has time to work it into his schedule.

The new trailer is twelve feet longer than this one, with a 12'x24' addition and a deck. It is in very nice condition, so the only thing we will do to it before we move in is paint it, something I hope to have finished in a week or less. (Any volunteer help with the painting would be gladly accepted!)

Our plan is to move our current trailer off a ways into the yard, gut it for anything usable, and burn it in the depths of winter. The local scrap yard will take the metal frame when all that is done.

We are partially moving into the holiday trailer for a few weeks, so some of our stuff is currently travelling around the yard. As far as the house, the plan is to only really pack up and move out the stuff that may break or fall down in the jostling that comes with moving the house. That pile will partially fit into our SeaCan, but mostly spend a week or so on pallettes under a tarp in the yard, is my guess. Then, once the painting is done, we will be moving into our new home, which will be sitting in the exact same location as our current one. (We like the view from here, and the amount of protection we get. Not to mention, all of our utilities are already laid in right to this spot.)

This is a weird move for me.We are halfway between several places, which is weird, but it is strange to only be packing some of our stuff, and figuring out where to tuck it out of the way in the meantime. Also, the expected moving date keeps changing--right now, it looks like the 29th, but it may have to be pushed later. Then, there is the need to coordinate when our gas, power, water, septic, and internet will all be disconnected--and then reconnected a few days later. Also, figuring out the logistics of moving the addition and the deck, which the house mover is not equipped to do. And finding a hitch for moving the trailers. Eep. No wonder I've been trying not to think about it. (I know that strategy won't work for much longer.)

The kids and I were sleeping in the holiday trailer starting on Sunday night--the same night that Jason left for a week-long business trip. And the same night, it so happens, that it started getting fairly chilly and wet. I am not experienced with holiday trailers, never having used one, but by Wednesday I decided I needed to turn on the furnace. I followed the instructions, but no heat resulted. Are we out of propane in there, or is it just not on? Not sure, but Jason will be home tonight, so he can help us figure it out.

Between the chill and the damp, the kids and I have all ended up with wicked colds, so by Thursday night, I decided that the mould inside and a good night's sleep was probably more desirable than the cold outside on hard, uncomfortable mattresses. Jason can help us haul out our own mattresses to use tomorrow--something I was not willing to attempt on my own, due to the mud and the wet everywhere.

So, half in, half out. Within the next week, we will likely be living exclusively out of the holiday trailer, so I can pack up in the house with less interference. Some dry weather for a few days later in the week would be good--if it is too wet, we can't move the trailers anywhere. Our driveway is pretty mushy with just the van travelling up and down it right now, let alone a truck and mobile home!

So, there you go... all you wanted to know, and way more than you needed to, about our moving adventure. I feel like we are in the Twilight Zone--halfway between houses, not really in either one. Also, the overcast skies have made it feel like twilight for most of the day lately--and the fact that we are only three days away from when the sun only sets for a few hours means that it is twilight for most of the night, too. (It would be, anyway, if it weren't so cloudy.)

And you know I can't leave the chickens out entirely, not with the ongoing saga-of-the-moment. Last night, I confirmed that it is, indeed, coyotes that have been molesting my livestock. I confess to staying up extremely late, worrying and listening to what was going on outside through the open window. Around 1:30 a.m., a pack of coyotes surrounded our yard, their eerie cries echoing from the trees in several places. Koda barked valiantly, and after a few minutes, the howls faded into silence. (He even howled back at them a few times. Maybe he secretly wants to be a coyote.)

This morning I was relieved to see that there were no further molestations of either dogs or chickens, so I guess the strategy worked. Yay! Those dogs are more than a money drain, after all! (I know they are cute, too, but that only counts for so much.)

Photos taken this afternoon:

On guard.

A rare strain of oxheart tomato (I think Hungarian?) that I got this spring from my friend Doug, from whom I have bought most of my adult chickens. I haven't the heart to tell him yet that the breeding pair of rare French Crevacouers I bought from him have both been killed by coyotes. (I'm not over it myself, yet.)

A meadow full of dandelions gone to seed in the rain. Up close, their rain-bedraggled heads look pretty motley. From a distance, the effect is like a field of clouds. The field is like a reflection of the sky. Two weeks ago, the merry yellow faces were reflecting the sun. (Too bad I didn't take a picture of that.)

A broken lawnmower means our yard has been "doing its own thing" this spring. In places, this is actually quite lovely.

Like here--a natural vignette by our walkway that reminds me of an overgrown garden.

Calling Beowulf

Further developments: the coyotes (or whatever they are) have started laying siege to the small "chick" tractor.

I know, because the Rubbermaid Roughneck container containing their food, which I keep snugged up to the side of the tractor to prevent the tarp from flying around, was not only flipped on its side, but the lid was off and the food spilled out. Further inspection revealed several tooth-mark punctures in the lid.

The tire used for tarp-anchor on the other side was also flipped over.

The huge, 6 cu. ft. bag of pine shavings that was also being used as tarp ballast/dog digging deterrent had been dragged several feet away, with puncture marks in numerous places through the plastic. (The bag weighs around 50 pounds or more, would be my guess.)

And the outer layer of poultry wire on the "front" of the chicken tractor was completely mangled. The inner layer was stretched, but had managed to hold.

So, that's why Sunshine was barking last night... Every time I stuck my head outside into the dark (we have no outside light right now) I could not hear any kerfuffle, so I figured she must have been barking at the fireflies. (Yes, fireflies. In my thirty-something years as an Alberta girl, that is the first time I have seen fireflies here.)

Tonight's plan: "Tether the dogs close enough to the chicken coops to actually fulfill their purpose as guard dogs, but not so close that they can molest the poultry themselves."

We'll see how it works. My only fear now is that I may find a mangled dog in the morning instead of a mangled coop. I'm not really sure what made all those teeth marks, after all.

By the way, that "tie the dead chicken around the dog's neck" thing? I'm giving up on that. It never works. They only eat the chicken. Lesson learned? I think not.

Epic Fail

Since I am only in my second year of chicken farming, and the monetary investment into the project far outweighs the benefits received from it, when I have a loss, I feel it. Not just in my pocketbook--I am still attached to the darn critters, because they are my responsibility.

Now granted, I no longer weep when I find a dead chick from confusing causes in amongst the healthy ones--an event that, thankfully, has been rare this year. And the only deaths of adult birds that I weep at are the ones I inflict myself.

In fact, I am emotionally hardened enough already that I don't really cry when the deaths are inflicted by another sentient being, either. But not so hardened as to feel nothing. Oh, no--there are definitely other emotions evoked.

Like anger.

This week has seen some serious losses to my flock. The flock that we spend money, time, and effort on so that WE can have the benefit of our labours, not some random passing coyote who realizes that these dumb, domesticated birds are much easier hunting than the other prey he might find in the trees.

I should have 20 adult birds. I only have 12. The numbers have been dwindling at the rate of about one a day.

Jason has been working on digging the post holes for a permanent, enclosed, fortified-against-wildlife chicken run, but it is slow going in our gravel-pit of a yard. Also, he is away on a work trip this week, so hasn't been able to take advantage of the ground softened by rain, and I have been too busy to do the same.

We can't get that thing finished fast enough. I managed to get a "temp" enclosure of orange snow fence and electric-fence-posts up around the coop the other night (the soft ground certainly helped with this project). It has, so far, mostly managed to fulfill its purpose of keeping the chickens inside, out of the trees where they are "sitting ducks", so to speak. At only three feet tall, the soft plastic wasn't animal-proof by any stretch, but I hoped it might be a deterrent for the coyote.

Nope. Two more today. I could see the remains of their struggle right on the border of the fence, little feathers scattered about as an enraging reminder that something else was profiting at my expense... and probably laughing at me, too.

You know, I know Roald Dahl has us all sympathizing with a chicken-stealing fox in his classic story, but in my heart, I am really with Boggus, Bunce, and Bean. Those darn foxes, coyotes, and other critters have no right to the fruits of my labour!!

However, despite the staggering losses to my adult flock, my chicks have been okay so far, as they are always completely enclosed in our other, smaller chicken tractor, within which they are warmed by a heat lamp, protected from the wind, and get to see fresh grass about once a day. When we first got the chicks, Sunshine (our golden retriever) proved that although she seemed to have overcome her need to chase adult chickens around, she had just as keen of an interest in these new little appetizers as Koda had with last year's newbies--at four days old, she managed to dig a hole under the chicken tractor and extract at least one chick before Jason caught her in the act, little brown body still in her mouth.

Koda had been spending a lot of time kennelled, unless we were outside, since he has a tendency to wander off to the neighbours' to visit his buddies if left alone outside for longer than ten minutes. However, Sunshine had been free to wander around (ideally, protecting the yard from thieving coyotes). Since that incident, they have both been on detention.

We make an effort to make sure the dogs get several hours of exercise a day, which is usually pretty easy. When we are outside doing our yard work in the evenings, we let them out, and they exercise each other. However, with the rain for the last several days, I haven't been outside that much at night. Since Koda seems to have been doing better (not running off), and Sunshine had seemed to be less interested in the chicks now that they are a little older, I thought I would just let them run around tonight and keep an eye on them. So, every now and then, I would look out the window and see Koda running around. It should have set off an alarm bell that Sunshine was not there wrestling with him. But it didn't--after all, she isn't the one who runs off.

When I went out to "put them to bed," I was very thankful it wasn't raining.

Because I got to fix holes in my little chicken tractor's poultry wire (she went through two layers!)

And Sunshine gets to spend the night with a dead chick around her neck. I don't know if she got more--the hole which she also dug in the ground under the rear edge (and dragged one through, I'm sure--the holes in the wire didn't seem big enough for her to get through, and the chicks were more interested in staying at the opposite end under the heat lamp) was certainly big enough!

Sunshine had an epic fail tonight. I'm just thankful that it wasn't quite as epic as Koda's--as far as I can tell, she only got a few, (a lot less than 40!) and maybe only the one I caught her with. It's really hard to count seventy-five portable little chicks!

Why do we have dogs again?

(On a more positive note--Koda seems to have either learned from last spring's experience, or has grown past that stage, as he has not attempted poultricide this year.)

Something New Every Day

Last Saturday afternoon was our local Home School Education Fair. It is a chance for the home educated children in the area to get together and show some of the work they have been doing this year. Last year, Jude's project (the bat house... which I am now discovering I never managed to blog about? Was I busy, or something? Photo here.) was not finished in time. This year, the teacher planned a little better (ahem), so both Jude and Noah had a presentation all ready to go.

The assignment for Jude was an ocean animal report, and he had to do it in a tri-fold board format. He did awesome, doing research on the internet and in books, typing up the information, painting the board, colouring and cutting out letters that we printed from the computer for a title, matting all the sections, and being self-motivated to do it all.

Things I learned from Jude's report:

• Orca society is matriarchal.
• Orcas and wolves have a lot in common; for example, they hunt in groups and will eat anything.
• Orcas can live almost as long as humans.

Noah's assignment was an ocean animal report, but I gave him a sheet to fill out with just some basic facts while he did his research. Obviously, I had to work a lot more "hands-on" with him. He painted a "modern-art" picture of sea lions (a sea of blue with a tiny blob of brown in the upper-right corner), picked his favourite sea lion photos to print, and even did a story about sea lions for his writing sample for our teacher-facilitator, which I photocopied and he included in the presentation.

Things I learned from Noah's report:

• Sea lions get eaten by orcas
• Noah can be pretty creative when he wants to be

(I thought I had a photo of the actual Sea Lion report, but I don't know what happened to it... Sorry. Maybe I'll add one later.)

I am very proud of how both the boys did. Jude also did a great job of public speaking, and he had all the pressure of being first to present! Great job, guys!

Danny Ocean I'm Not

When one's five-year-old manages to turn the little knob on the front door on his way out to eat watermelon (thereby locking the door), and there is no one left in the house, there are several things one realizes immediately:

• your house keys (which you never use anyway) are inside the house
• your van keys are inside the house (with the house keys)
• your husband doesn't even carry his house keys, you're pretty sure, but that doesn't matter, because
• your phone is also inside the house
• your afternoon is going to look a little different than you thought it would

I'm sure you have guessed that the "you" in the above list is actually me! 

I took stock of my options as I finished the chore I was working on. I could try picking the lock. I could try getting in the back door. Or I could try going in through the window.

The "back" door of our trailer does not latch properly, so Jason had screwed it shut from the outside not long after we moved in. If he hadn't, it would be caught by every strong wind and slammed backwards on its hinges with an astonishingly loud noise. So, I might be able to get in that way if I unscrewed it. But that would definitely require finding and moving the ladder, as well as the other tools needed. The same could be said of going in through a window.

I decided to try the simplest solution first. I have never picked a lock before, but they make it look so easy in the movies, right? Just put something thin and straight into the lock, jiggle it around a little, and it just pops open. How hard can it be?

Note to self #1: look up a "lock-picking" tutorial on the internet the next time I have a few spare minutes. I suck at it.

Not yet discouraged, I went to the next option. Ladder and screwdriver at the ready, I made quick work of the four screws holding the door closed. (The ladder is necessary as there is no staircase leading up to the back door. The bottom edge is about two feet off the ground.) The outer door easily popped open, hanging there like a sigh of relief. The inner door was grumpier--it wouldn't budge along the bottom.

I did not want to get too forceful with it for two reasons: the ladder I was standing on did not offer the best leverage, and also, I wasn't sure if the inner door was maybe screwed shut at the bottom, too. It could just be caught on the carpet, but I didn't want to risk ruining the door and/or plunging to the ground and being helpless to even have Jude phone someone to assist me if I was injured. (Later inspection from the inside proved it to be just the very plush carpet, untamped by lack of use, that was the culprit.)

I turned around and sat on the top step of the ladder. "I need inspiration here, Lord," I muttered quietly.

I thought of the holiday trailer sitting behind the house--at least we wouldn't be shelterless, if we needed it. However, there was no water hooked up to it or in it, and I was getting thirsty. Also, Jason still wouldn't have keys when he got home, so what was the point of waiting?

Just then, Jude's lip connected with Jabin's head on the trampoline, where all three boys had been happily playing. They had stripped down to underwear, since two of the three had still been dressed for the cool morning when we got "trapped outside" in the bright afternoon sun. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was screaming, it would have been slightly comical to see Jude's head sticking out of the zippered entrance in the safety net and his be-Spidermanned backside pointing at his brothers.

Jude's wail sounded more like it was related to the blood now pouring from his lip than actual pain. I jogged over to the van, thankful that I had extra paper towel and napkins in there and spied my water jug while I was there. As I jogged over to the tramp to proved first aid and comfort, I thought "wouldn't it be great if I kept an extra house key somewhere?"

Note to self #2: Get another key cut. Store it someplace not in the house or van. (My kids have managed to lock me out and the keys in to the van before, too. Not for years, now--I learned that lesson when Jude was still a toddler.)

With Jude's bleeding and distress under control, I knew what was next, and just hoped it would work--frankly, if popping out a screen and going in through the window didn't do the trick, I was down to a literal "BREAK"-in. I know we are done with this house in a few weeks*, but I still want to keep it sound enough to keep our things dry and mouse-free until then.

I decided the likeliest window was the living room. It had a screen, and the sliding glass was partially open. The screen did not fit extremely well, and the window was large enough to easily allow me to enter. Also, on the other side was a chair to make it easy to clamber through. Most of the other house windows were either closed, too small, too high, or had too much stuff on the other side--frankly, it was usually a combination of three or more of these issues.

My prayers were answered. A minute or so later I was climbing through the window and unlocking the door, and three minutes after that I was re-screwing the back door closed and putting away tools.

Now, to go check things off my "mental notes" list...

*We will not be "swapping out" trailers this weekend, due to varying issues with schedules. It looks like that will be happening the weekend of June 25/26, if we can arrange everything for that date.

The Great Gardening Experiment

Remember how I mentioned that I was going to try straw bale gardening this year? A perfect way to get an "instant garden", while doing something with the ratty straw bales that I used to winterize my chicken coop with, thought I.

Well, it just keeps getting better.

As the plan evolved, Jason helped me set the bales up in a ring around an odd patch by the vegetable garden with a little dirt in it. The dirt was "left" from when I was first building my raised veggie garden beds, and I had needed a place to dump the dirt-in-waiting before moving it into the beds. That was two years ago, so mostly it had been taken over with quackgrass, dandelions, and a bit of the marshy weeds that had come with the dirt. (I got this dirt from our friends Greg and Robin, who had made a big pile of topsoil while digging a new dugout for their water source a couple of years ago.)

After circling up the bales, the boys covered the top with composted chicken litter from the winter (one more "waste item" getting put back into use!), and drenched the whole thing with water to kick-start the composting process. A week later I managed to dig and pull and chop most of the weeds out from the middle, and in between battling mosquitoes I had time to think what a waste it was to just be throwing that valuable greenery over the side to smother the wild strawberries.

That night, while I was reviewing the ins and outs of straw bale gardening on this site, my eye was caught by another link called "lasagna gardening." (Wouldn't you be curious how pasta and meat sauce works into the garden?) Well, by the time I had read that page, I knew what I was going to do in the middle of that straw bale garden.

My original plan had been to dig out the weeds, throw in some sunflower seeds (which I have been collecting for years, because apparently I have many good intentions when it comes to flower gardening, and am a little short on follow-through) and see if any of them grow. I wanted to clean out my seed drawer and start fresh, and I knew most of them would likely not germinate anyway, due to their age, so what difference did it make?

However, I really liked the idea of sheet composting the middle section of the garden. For one, it would help the straw bales retain some moisture. For two, it would give me a good start on some nice, rich soil, and the beginnings of a permanent, rather than temporary, garden spot. For three, it would help me use up some stuff that was laying around the yard.

So, in went the layers. Ripped-up cardboard boxes, followed by all those weeds (and then some) that I had dug out the night before (Yes! I actually put weeds into my garden!), followed by a layer of composted chicken litter.

Several days passed before I was able to progress from there--days involving rain, and snow, and wind, and coldness. Sunday afternoon was bright and sunny, and I knew I had to finish the job before the growing season got any shorter.

More layering commenced: partially-decomposed compost from the bin (collecting since last summer, but some of it was pretty fresh); partially-decomposed straw from the dogs' winter bedding; extra bags of peat moss that were laying around, full of holes and ants (the peat moss and ants went in, not the bags); some potting soil in a thin layer on top.

After that, I mixed all my sunflower seeds--old and new--together for the official scattering. The boys and I each took a handful and threw them in--the result was covering a rather smaller area than I expected that many packets of seeds to handle. A bit anti-climactic, since I had been promising them they could help me plant sunflowers once I got the garden ready. Oh, well. I filled in the rest with daisy seeds.

Then I planted as many other flower seeds as I could around the straw bale edges, leaving a few spaces to insert tomatoes in a week or two when my plants indoors are ready to move out.

Will anything grow? I don't know. It would be nice if it ALL grew, but right now, I am just kinda excited to see what will happen.

I call it my "Anything Goes" garden. If no sunflowers grow, at least I might get a few more hills of potatoes out of the deal from the "extras" we threw in the compost pile last week! :-)

Potatoes sprouting in the veggie garden (wire to keep the chickens out)

The peas and corn have sprouted! Yay! (Last year, my corn didn't grow at all. Also, I'm using last spring's pea seeds. I was a little relieved to see them start to peek out above the dirt.)

Gardening assistants? Well, three out of four, anyway. The hairy one mostly likes eating the fertilizer!

Wish

Blow!

And again!

Did I miss any?

Yep... gotta get every last one!

Making the world a "funner" place... one dandelion at a time.

So Much To Say, So Little Time.

What with our upcoming "move", getting the garden in, and school year wrap-up activities, I have had quite a lot of "life" happening that I would like to get onto this blog, but very little time and energy left at the end of the day to do it. The same could be said today, but I am MAKING the time.

First things first. The offer we made on the mobile home we really liked (see this post) has been accepted, and the mould test for the house was passed. If we can get the gas-fitter, mover, and all other necessary activites, people, and things lined up just right, we should be moving the trailer this upcoming weekend!

That is going to make for a very busy week.

Thankfully, the garden is officially in, as of today, except for a few tomato plants I have in the house still.

My chicks have been doing just fine. We have lost a few for various reasons, but now, at two and a half weeks old, they all have enough weight that they are a little more hardy. They proved this on Thursday night, when we had freezing temperature, heavy wind gusts, and rain which turned into snow (!) the next day. Yep, you read that right: Snow on June 1st. It still doesn't top 2002, when we had snow on the August Long Weekend! (First weekend of August, for you non-Canucks.) Anyway, the chicks were all still breathing the next morning, so all my prayers on their behalf through that cold, blustery night must have been heard! (Thanks again, God!)

I realize that this is a VERY brief update, but I really need to hit the hay. Let me leave you with some photos I took about two weeks ago, when spring had literally seemed to explode onto the scene in less than a week's time. We went from barren-looking trees and snow-covered lawns to crabapples in full bloom. (Some of last year's crabapples haven't wanted to "cut the apron strings" yet.)

And bees taking advantage of it.

And boys being silly...

... Wait. That happens year-round, doesn't it?