Savingdogs-Saving the chickens

[savingdogs]

Well Hubby returned the beater that did not work, and got me a Hitachi bread machine! Yay! That was one of the "winners" from my do you like your bread machine thread.

I'm baking bread already...and it took me all of about five minutes. We'll see how it comes out. I'm trying the recipe with eggs since we have so much and my boys will probably be the ones inhaling this.

I could have a fresh loaf every day! And I can bake it in the bread machine too.

My kitchen surely needs an expansion, but I just move stuff around. This is actually fairly good looking appliance.

I went to bed for a nap because I was feeling so icky. Still a little icky but having a bread machine took my mind off of it.

There is even a delay so I could set it to be ready with hot bread in the morning should I choose. There is also a pizza, cake and specialty bread recipes in the book.

It says to have bread flour and I just have "flour"....I hope that doesn't matter too much.

It says the sourdough recipe just uses "flour" so I'll perhaps have to make a lot of sourdough for awhile hee hee (I have several hugely large bags of flour).

 

[abifae]

that's great!!!

i miss fresh baked bread... at Panera, i'd toss in a fresh loaf of sour dough, bake it, slather it in butter....

*bounces* i finally posted my pics!

 

[savingdogs]

Well lots of progress around here. I am having a spinny day but just the vertigo "light" not the big spins so I'm trying to go about my day and ignore it.

The duck is acting broody again already! I have only gotten about six eggs since they started laying again. But this morning I see feathers pulled out, one is hovering over the nest and wouldn't let me check for eggs. I just decided to save duck eggs for incubating next, and here she is......

I was wondering if I could give her some rocks since she was so undependable last time and got bored,and then put the incubated ducklings under her when they hatch? I would rather not put them in my broody chicken pen as they are so stinky and sloppy, I would rather put them in my duck pen.

Would adult muscovy hurt ducklings that were not theirs?

 

[savingdogs]

Saturday dawns bright and clear? Bright and clear? weather report is "showers" so we'll see how long this lasts. Sometimes the top of this mountain is poking its head above the clouds and we get a clear day when it rains down below. Not usually though, usually they get a clear day and the cloud is stuck on the mountain. I think today may be the former, luckily.

I got my pumpkins transplanted. I went to plant my potatos, but see that Trouble filled my potato towers to the TOP with goat poo. So much for being all ready to roll. Yesterday I pulled off the second tire and poked everything around so it could dry out, but I think I'll have to remove some of that composting stuff to add plain dirt. I wanted to see what a day or two in the sun would do to reduce the height.

I also got a lot more of my fenced garden arranged and planted, I put all the seeds out that were supposed to be planted a month ago. But it could not be helped. So since I got it all arranged, Hubby brought home the stuff for the big expansion he planned on my little square.
My five little chicks brooder is right in my veggie garden, I am trying to tame these EEs and the sussex. My other EEs were purchased as started pullets and won't ever come near me, I wanted to see if these ones could be a little more friendly.

Hubby keeps saying he will fix the dryer and I'm really hoping that he can manage it today. I had pretty much refused to do his laundry on the line, and was only doing my own and the towels and dog blankets, so his laundry pile is this enormously funny HUGE stack of just about every piece of clothing he owns. It is getting hard to step around. I actually found myself offering to do all that laundry if he just fixes the dang dryer, hopefully that will be enough incentive.

I'm a little mad that he had the "stuff" to try to fix this and hasn't before now.

I'd actually like to get a few started seedlings of tomatos because I never got any of those starts to get going right.

 

[Wifezilla]

Ducks often fall for the duckling swap trick without issue. You just have to keep an eye on things.

As for Mr Fixit

Actually my not very handy husband has repaired several of our appliances using this place. www.repairclinic.com

Great tutorials, easy parts ordering.

 

[savingdogs]

I put a link to that on my facebook page with a comment for Hubby. Maybe that will get is arse in gear if he knows everyone thinks he is fixing my dryer.

 

[Denim Deb]

Several years ago, my dryer broke-right B4 I had my elbow operated on. I killed myself getting all the laundry done and dried on lines all over the basement-in February! I figured by the time I was able to do laundry again, he'd have my dryer fixed. Well, he didn't. So, I'm down there in my basement w/my arm still in a sling hanging up clothes. And, I hung all my clothes up for months. Finally, I got tired of it and told him I wasn't doing any more laundry until the dryer was fixed. Dryer wasn't fixable, so we ended up getting a new one. (But, at least we saved on our electric bill all those months!)

 

[savingdogs]

That is a good point, we have saved a lot of electricity. And we all learned to appreciate the dryer and soft towels and learned to not wash our clothes just for dropping them on the floor or whatever.

So guess what were 50 percent off at the feed store tonight? The same chicks I bought five of the other day, so of course I had to buy five more. Hubby is now talking about building a second coop, but I've just listed the older Buff Orpingtons on Craig's List tonight, I was hoping I could get enough for them to cover a chicken dinner apiece, just seven dollars. They would be old and stringy. I'd rather buy one already dead and tender and young. We'll see how that goes. I'll hang onto my other chickens from the first flock because they are all still laying really well. And I will still have one year-old Buff Orpington and I have about 10 in the incubator, we'll see what I get. I have one RIR/BO cross as well and she is laying really nicely. I will probably get rid of this rooster too once the new one is old enough to fertilize the eggs, especially if they don't get along.

I've certainly got "a few" chickens now! But the egg layers have supported my other animals, I need good egg laying chickens.

 

[framing fowl]

I think you should see an amazing difference with your new chicks that you're taming compared to your adult EE's. I can't believe what a difference this group of chickens I have now has been versus the ones I had a couple of years ago. With those, I let the broody raise them and didn't handle them much. All of the ones I have now have been handled daily and just follow me around. Much easier and nicer!

 

[framing fowl]

So... how many chickens do you have now???