- Thread starter
- #151
lupinfarm
Almost Self-Reliant
Gosh, it was a balmy 6 degrees celcius today! And tomorrow is slated to be yet another beautiful day at 9 degrees celcius! Hopefully the driveway will melt off more. We were able to get the truck up it this afternoon with a little effort. A few points on the driveway though the truck kind of wavered and almost went off the edge but I did it all in 2 wheel drive! Woot! No 4x4!
This morning the last 3 of the Red hens went to their new home. I was so happy when I found out which farm it was near me that wanted them, oh my gosh my mum covets their house. Its this cute little place with a long driveway, and a stone clad victorian farmhouse like ours. They have this little log garage type barn near the house with a tiny paddock out the front of it that contains a small pony, a couple of llamas, some emus, pot bellied pigs, and an assortment of chickens and roosters. When we pulled up a gorgeous EE rooster greeted us with his little flock of hens running along the fenceline, and then a bunch of Guineas made their way over to inspect us. As we stood with the very kind lady talking and letting out the hens, a gaggle of geese came honking by and a couple of ducks waded in the puddles. The place was just fantastic, like something out of Charlotte's web! The hens went off to meet the other Red hens they had, and they had thier first encounter with a rooster! Oh boy were they NOT impressed. This gorgeous big EE rooster came over to tell our ladies how it was and they were not at all happy with him.
You couldn't ask for a better home for these gals. So, all we have left is Supermario and the Muffies (5 easter eggers) and Baldy hen who is probably going to meet her end in a month or so. Mum'll stew her up and feed her to the cats.
Tomorrow we're kicking the hens out of the henhouse and we're going to clean it out, remove the nestboxes and roosts, take down the partition wall, and give the place a very good cleaning with some Virkon, and hopefully build the little deck over the bunker for the goats to sleep on. We've also got to cut the chicken pop door a bit bigger to make our goat door, and put up a somewhat temporary gate on the current pen for the goats and they'll move in hopefully tomorrow evening. The little goat house (future dog house lol) will be cleaned out, scrubbed with virkon, and loaded back up with a mix of pine bedding pellets and shavings and the chickens will move into their until their chicken palace is completed late this spring. It already has a run on the back, but the chickens probably won't use it at all since they free range.
This afternoon after getting back from buying the Virkon and getting some prices on wood and dog crate mats I decided I needed something to do (after feeding and haying the horses of course!) and grabbed some scrap wood from the barn, and some old baseboard we're taking out of the house and made a raised bed for the garden this year. I have about 13 of them left to make, this one is 4x4ft and made out of 2x10 rough cut pine. I'm not concerned really about its lifespan, eventually I'll replace them with cedar when I can afford it but after reading a bit of the SFG book at Lowes today he mentioned that you can use pine, and it should be just fine for a year or two... There is a lady outside Madoc who uses pine for hers and she's had them going for a good 3 or 4 years with no rot issues at all. I may seal them though before filling them up.
Pretty sweet, eh? The corner supports are pieces of baseboard from the house, and the rest is wood that was in the barn. I've put it in place with the help of my brother and we're starting to layer it with newspaper underneath. We'll fill it about 3/4 of the way up, plant, and mulch once spring gets going. I can't believe TSC already has onion sets and seed potatoes and yet there is still about 6 inches of snow on the ground! Crazy!
And yeah yeah Pat, I know.. wood rots but I think I can live with that since all of that was free..
This morning the last 3 of the Red hens went to their new home. I was so happy when I found out which farm it was near me that wanted them, oh my gosh my mum covets their house. Its this cute little place with a long driveway, and a stone clad victorian farmhouse like ours. They have this little log garage type barn near the house with a tiny paddock out the front of it that contains a small pony, a couple of llamas, some emus, pot bellied pigs, and an assortment of chickens and roosters. When we pulled up a gorgeous EE rooster greeted us with his little flock of hens running along the fenceline, and then a bunch of Guineas made their way over to inspect us. As we stood with the very kind lady talking and letting out the hens, a gaggle of geese came honking by and a couple of ducks waded in the puddles. The place was just fantastic, like something out of Charlotte's web! The hens went off to meet the other Red hens they had, and they had thier first encounter with a rooster! Oh boy were they NOT impressed. This gorgeous big EE rooster came over to tell our ladies how it was and they were not at all happy with him.
You couldn't ask for a better home for these gals. So, all we have left is Supermario and the Muffies (5 easter eggers) and Baldy hen who is probably going to meet her end in a month or so. Mum'll stew her up and feed her to the cats.
Tomorrow we're kicking the hens out of the henhouse and we're going to clean it out, remove the nestboxes and roosts, take down the partition wall, and give the place a very good cleaning with some Virkon, and hopefully build the little deck over the bunker for the goats to sleep on. We've also got to cut the chicken pop door a bit bigger to make our goat door, and put up a somewhat temporary gate on the current pen for the goats and they'll move in hopefully tomorrow evening. The little goat house (future dog house lol) will be cleaned out, scrubbed with virkon, and loaded back up with a mix of pine bedding pellets and shavings and the chickens will move into their until their chicken palace is completed late this spring. It already has a run on the back, but the chickens probably won't use it at all since they free range.
This afternoon after getting back from buying the Virkon and getting some prices on wood and dog crate mats I decided I needed something to do (after feeding and haying the horses of course!) and grabbed some scrap wood from the barn, and some old baseboard we're taking out of the house and made a raised bed for the garden this year. I have about 13 of them left to make, this one is 4x4ft and made out of 2x10 rough cut pine. I'm not concerned really about its lifespan, eventually I'll replace them with cedar when I can afford it but after reading a bit of the SFG book at Lowes today he mentioned that you can use pine, and it should be just fine for a year or two... There is a lady outside Madoc who uses pine for hers and she's had them going for a good 3 or 4 years with no rot issues at all. I may seal them though before filling them up.
Pretty sweet, eh? The corner supports are pieces of baseboard from the house, and the rest is wood that was in the barn. I've put it in place with the help of my brother and we're starting to layer it with newspaper underneath. We'll fill it about 3/4 of the way up, plant, and mulch once spring gets going. I can't believe TSC already has onion sets and seed potatoes and yet there is still about 6 inches of snow on the ground! Crazy!
And yeah yeah Pat, I know.. wood rots but I think I can live with that since all of that was free..
( Unfortunately most of our papers have lots of colour in them, but I think I read somewhere it was vegetable dye our guys use...), some with the nylon bug screen, and perhaps some with burlap. We'll see what works the best! Last year I had a big one with cheapo landscape fabric under it and it didn't work so hot, but better than the plot garden.
