Bee~ Journal of then...

[Beekissed]

Hey, Quail...you can hijack any thread I start...especially to talk about the Lord!!

I don't really get this whole hijacking thing, really, as this forum is sort of a conversational format and one doesn't stay on the same topic throughout a conversation with several people....if you did it would be one very boring conversation!! Every word spoken has a different relevance to different people and may spark a different thought path. I say....let the thoughts run free and don't try to rope them into a certain framework!!

FK, you are right! Boys and girls can learn cross-gender roles and it makes them more valuable within a partnership. I know that was sort of frowned upon in some era's...until the men folk were gone or there weren't enough women~then all the traditional roles fell by the wayside. I want my boys to be prepared for anything in these uncertain times. My oldest canned my tomatoes this summer and he did this at his own initiative~I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least!

 

[Beekissed]

Today has been a whisper of spring, just a teaser of things to come. I couldn't stop turning my face to the sun and trying to soak it all in.

We have decided, as a family, to get Eli in shape for basic training. Until now, I've pretty much let him handle it on his own but he is clearly not making any headway. I think he got discouraged and depressed and just didn't want to tell me. So....we had a family intervention meeting and decided, if one of us needs to run, all of us need to run! Jon will be going to basic this summer himself, so now is as good a time as any to start getting tough.

So I am walking briskly and they are running ahead and sprinting back to me and then we repeat that throughout the whole mile. In two weeks we take it up to two miles and so on and so on. It feels good and Eli seems so relieved. Tears came to his eyes when I told him that we were going to save him from himself and make him run towards his future. He's a good boy, that Eli. So is Jon, who gladly stepped up to the challenge and wants Eli to succeed. Usually they are so competitive that I thought they wouldn't work together.

Tonight we took my youngest dog and I used the opportunity to reinforce his training off the leash. He only took two real corrections before he remembered "walk" instead of going ahead of us. Pretty good for a pup who hasn't had any training for about a year!

This was a good day!

 

[Beekissed]

My utility trailer has finally outlived its repair value. This makes me a little sad, as this old trailer, that I got for free, has hauled my worldly goods around for the last 3 years, hauled wood, hay, manure, and everthing else too big to fit in the back of my van.

The frame is bent, the axle bent, one tire is bald, the wood is rotten, the ball coupling is broken and the dog chewed the wiring harness out of it~for the second time! Time to sell ol' Bessie for what I can get and buy another. I checked on what it would take to repair her and it would be almost as much as buying new.

No one, and I mean no one, is parting with any used utility trailers in these parts, so this means I have to purchase new....and man, do I hate that! Sure it will look nice and haul heavier loads and it will no doubt pay for itself over and over, just like my oldster.

I just don't like buying new things! I like to recycle, recycle, recycle. I just may go and price the new ones and see how much they cost compared to sprucing and repairing my Bessie.

One thing is for sure, when one doesn't have a pickup truck, a utility trailer is worth a gold mine!

 

[freemotion]

Come up north for a visit! They seem to be on every major road with a "for sale" sign on them. There are so many landscaping services and lawnmowing, leaf-blowing, nose-blowing services here, someone always has a trailer for sale, the open kind with low sides and a tailgate that is a ramp.

 

[Farmfresh]

Your utility trailer has just got to the PERFECT state to turn it into a "Chick-Mobile"!

What, you may ask, IS a "Chick-Mobile"?

I have the back half of a pickup truck/utility trailer (Chick Mobile #1)... the springs are shot, the wheels are rusty, the tires go flat. On top of it is an old camper shell (that I found for free)... the windows are covered with chicken wire, bolts go through the roof to hang a feeder and water container, 2 x 2's crisscross the front half of it, and the feeders are at the back. I got a free plastic bed liner to cover the holey rusty trailer floor and a tarp on top of that for easy cleaning. It has sun shades over the windows and I can mount a solar electric fence charger to the side. With a little paint it actually looks quite presentable (Ford tractor blue).

What do I do with such a thing? Raise my broilers of course! As soon as they can be moved outside with no lights they go in the "Chick-Mobile". Bedded with sawdust over the tarp, they are easily fed and watered by simply opening the rear window of the camper shell. When they get big enough I add an electric poultry netting fence and the solar charger, drop the tailgate and add a chicken ladder. Temps are easily controlled inside via location of trailer, the three operable windows (camper shell front access windows, and two rear windows in the shell) and some old roll up shades on the outside of the windows that are adjusted as needed for shade. This set up will handle up to 30 broilers at a time (full sized bed), especially with the added run. I have little problems with predators, they just stay away from the trailer, I guess it is too tall to reach. When I need to clean it out just pull out the tarp with dirty litter, tip it tail gate down and hit it with a sprayer! This has worked GREAT for me for about 5 years now. Raising my broilers in small batches (when necessary to raise more than 30) even helps me by making it easier to monitor my birds. Since broilers only take a few months to raise, I can simply park the trailer out of the way when I am finished for the year. It moves well enough to drag around the farm, but it would need fixing to travel the roads again.

Try it out!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

CHICK MOBILE!! Holy Chicken Man I need one of those!

Farmfresh, you have some of the coolest ideas for recycling stuff!!!

 

[2dream]

FF - Glad you posted that because I was reading away and thinking Chicken Tractor for Bees old trailer. LOL

Bee - congrats on the new job. For some reason I have not read your journal in a while. Don't ask me how that happened because I usually read journals first and yours always has so much info. So it took me a while to catch up. I skipped a few pages so I probably still missed some great stuff.

With your luck you will run across a used trailer. Just don't rush it. I always seem to mess up the most when I am trying to rush through a major purchase because "I NEED IT NOW".

I raised my kids without using gender roles. They both learned to shoot, hunt, kill chickens, cook, clean, play with dolls, Tonka trucks and sew. The funny part is my son can still use ALL his skills. My DD seems to have forgotten that cook, clean, sew thing. LOL

 

[Farmfresh]

I just have cool ideas for recycling because I am so VERY GREEN(... read that cheap)!

Thanks for the compliment!

 

[Beekissed]

Yep, FF, sounds like a good transition for Bessie, for sure. As I am trying to scale down and my property is so small, and, of course, I don't need a chicken wagon, I'll probably sell. If I lived on a larger place, the trailer would be here until it disintegrated into the ground!

If I can't get any good price from it at all, it may become a good place to keep lumber off the ground...then I can move my scrap lumber to wherever my project is for that day, if needed. My whole place is very visible from the road, so I try to keep the clutter down as much as possible. As a rental place, I'm not really at liberty to relax and have a junk(read necessary) pile, though I have several small stashes of things out of sight in the buildings.

 

[Farmfresh]

A lumber wagon is also a great use! How many times have I wished for a safe, out of the weather place to store some lumber till I am ready to use it. If you made some shelf/racks you could sort your lumber by size and access it more easily. I tend to store lumber in the attic of my garage which makes it very difficult to see what I have and what I need, as well as actually getting a board to use. It seems the one I need is always on the bottom!:/

I totally understand the small site problem. I live it everyday.

Good luck selling if that is the final decision.