Good Morning

[Shnookie]

I'm feeding my aging chickens and buying eggs for the winter. It's cheaper to buy the eggs than to pay for the electricity I would use to have a light on enough for my hens to lay. They are back talking about putting in a wind farm down the road from me. The energy company has to get a contract with the provincial power company before they can go ahead with the wind farm. Besides the fact that I don't want to live near a bunch of windmills, I am wondering what it will do to property values out here. A lot of the farmers don't live on their land, so I doubt they care, but acreage owners could be at a disadvantage. I am seriously considering moving before they get put in. The city is too expensive, and I don't want to live there anyway. If I buy a smaller acreage, my taxes will probably be more. I get a bit of a discount on my property taxes because they have assessed 10 (pasture) of my 13 acres as agricultural (even though I have no livestock on it) instead of rural/residential like most small acreages. I have been looking at real estate ads for acreages and houses in small towns just to see what's out there and to try to figure out where I'd like to go.

[Farrier]

Just read Happy's last about being an adult. Look both ways then get hit by a plane.

In 2008, an exchange student from Kenya came to Cranbrook BC. He was walking down the sidewalk and a helicopter crashed on top of him. He never had the chance to gete to adulthood. Just wasnt his day. He came half way around the world for a really strange death.

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Pedestrian ... h_Columbia

[Farrier]

And talking about adults, my mother has taken over the chicken duties. She was quite intrigued by the fairy egg. It had some deformed yolk, she had never seen that before.

And also, disciplining the goats as required. I remember that hand on my ear when I was younger. Just look at the rancid look on her face. You best not cross the old bat, but all in all, its going pretty good for her extended visit.

[Farrier]

They are back talking about putting in a wind farm down the road from me.

I live quite close to to several windmills. I find them not to be an issue. If you like where you are, maybe stay and see what you think after they are in, would be my advice. Not that you axed.

[Killerbunny]

Well we went to get eggs from the local lady (retiree chcikens and moutling) to discover she will be giving up the egg part of the farm business. I think it started when she had youngsters as a sideline project for them, it's very successful but it looks like they are off to college.

[SusanH]

Hello everyone! I miss this forum! I still have a mini flock of three chickens and three ducks but have gotten into a routine where I don’t need as much advice as I used to.

I wanted to report that after eight years of using ground walnut shell in my chicken coop - and I mean the same two bags!!- I have finally decided that I will replace it this year after giving the coop a good scouring.

What’s happened is that my neat coop which housed ducks in the bottom and chickens in the top has had a change. The female ducks suddenly decided they would rather bunk in with the chickens. So now the drake sleeps alone downstairs and all the females sleep upstairs. Those of you who keep ducks probably can guess what this means. Ducks are sloppy. They squirt sh*t everywhere including the walls and in the next boxes. So I will be emptying the coop out and giving it a thorough scrubbing. I may try to alter the ramp somehow to deter the ducks from going up. Or I might try to create a “bedroom” in the downstairs that would give the ducks a more enclosed space. Right now it is mesh on three sides, whereas the upstairs coop is all solid walls. What do you think? Or maybe I need to line the walls with plastic.

Anyway, when it was only chickens, my coop was permanently clean and dry and sweet-smelling. A couple of times a year, when I needed the chicken manure, I would sift it out and put the walnut shell back. It stays dry as a bone. Now that there are sloppy ducks in there, I don’t know. It appears to be still dry. I will sift it as usual, so I can use the manure, but I will do a trial now with the old walnut shell as a base for a path where I hope to grow creeping thyme between the stepping stones. Thyme grows ok in sand, I am thinking, so I’m keen to see how that works.

So they are getting fresh new litter this week. Princess Auto no longer sells the 50lb bags of ground walnut shell. If you want ground walnut shell to clean your guns, they sell small bags for $12… What they sell in 50lb bags now is “ground nut shell” which is a mix of almond, apricot and walnut shell. (English walnut - someone on PTO was worried that there would be some issue with juglones if it was black walnut). This is still sold as a sandblasting product, so I am hoping it will have the same desirable properties as a chicken coop bedding. As a bonus, it’s cheaper! I will let you know!

Has anyone else tried it?

All the best to Killerbunny and kbr42 and TomK and all the rest.
Susan

[Killerbunny]

Hi there @SusanH

[Ontario Chick]

Hi there again :)
anybody who can keep ducks clean , has my undying admiration.

[Bayvistafarm]

Good evening everyone. It has been awhile since I've been here as well.

Got the garden in, and done, just cleaned up the last bit of broccoli... some still had good heads on them!! The coldest it got was -6C. AND there were a few freaking green cabbage moth worms!!!! Also some aphids on it too. Glad they got a bath... dead now.

Brought some lettuce seedling plants inside, in a window box, in the basement,under grow lights to grow them to eatable size... went down there, and noticed something flying? Ugh!! White flies... we were literally swarming in them in ALL the garden produce this summer. Also... aphids were on the lettuce too. I put the box back outside.. it got a hard frost.. but lettuce doesn't mind cold weather, I brushed the snow off of it, washed it, and put it in tupperware fridge smarts... and Gary's eating it now. Got more lettuce seedlings started.. there IS a miniature romaine lettuce I'm growing, got 2 new longer window boxes, filled with soiless mix, waiting for the seedlings to get a bit bigger.

Got about 450 lbs of potatoes from 5----25 ft rows... and the fruit cellar is filled with 4 different kinds, LOTS of huge cooking onions, about 65 butternut squash down there, 60 bulbs garlic, and I just bought a box of waxed turnips.... 50lbs in Bruce County (up to see my parents).. for $20. A steal!! Those veggies, tons of eggs....and tomato everything done down in jars... applesauce and pickles left over from last year, I have tons of food!

Since bird flu shut down the auctions... AGAIN.... I didn't get rid of the older girls.. they are 3 this coming spring... and I found somewhere that will process spent hens. I AM getting about 8 eggs a day from 15 of them, but with the newer spring hatched chicks.. I am now getting 12 or more eggs a day from them. Too many eggs, not enough buyers (I think everyone has chickens now)... so I will get these older girls processed, and use them for soup/stew/stock. Cheap cheap to have them done. Elora area.

I fell thru a hole in the barn floor July 29th. Basically lost a whole 6 weeks.. never been so freaking sore. I stepped over a 2 ft wide, 4 foot long hole.. cut to throw small square bales down, and if you don't hit the hole flush, the bale wedges. Well, I stepped over, (there was a small wire grate over it... it travelled down with me, and jabbed a hole in my leg.. which is still discoloured, AND swollen STILL) or thought I stepped over, but stepped right down the hole. My face hit the edge, and my ass/hip hit the other side, and I just crumpled down 9 feet into the cow pen, where April (23.. living and wandering the farm at will, comes and goes) was (thank god I didn't land on her bony body) and darn... pen was cleaned out not long before I fell, so there was a fresh layer of clean straw there, but NOT a nice cushy manure pack... and all I could do was catterwall (sp) my head off... because I KNEW I was hurt bad. I couldn't get up, only crawl, clawing my way along actually... my legs didn't work good... April was sniffing my hair... probably scarred the crap out of her....and hoped someone would hear me. It was hot in the barn, it was about 8:30pm, chores done, barn lights off (I was upstairs doing my birds), and big ass fan running down there. Thank god it was Whiskey night in the shed... family and a friend of course, were there... and Heather could faintly hear me screaming/crying, the fat cattle got spooked, and started running in and out of the barn, and finally they found me. They brought the golf cart right inside the barn, helped me on it, and up to my house to wait for the ambulance. I was bleeding from my hose/mouth... and couldn't walk. I was in shock, I guess.

Long story short, I didn't break anything (had a CT scan), except my orbital bone (didn't even know WHAT that was), and they told me I had gallstones.

Well, osteo appointments, and being a useless tit (but I did force myself to garden/do stuff however painful) I gradually came around. I ate ALOT of drugs, and had to go on Oxycotin for a couple weeks, I could NOT sleep.. the pain was to the point I was thinking of death. Those pills are GREAT!! And I took them only to sleep. I sure knew when I needed more.. 4 hours later.

My face hurts to this day, especially when I lay on that cheek... and just had a took extracted, a molar.. and I am sure he twisted/pried that crack in my cheek. I do know after the stitches came out of the tooth hole... when I brushed/spit, toothpaste, and a day later... red spaghetti sauce came out my nose. Went back in (was very painful for 3 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!), I had a tear in my sinus, so any liquid in my mouth, with my head tipped forward, came out my nose.

Pleasant.

So... Cleaning out the hen house last Sunday, I was backing into the horse barn with a bag cart with 2 blue boxes full of crap from the over yonder chicken house.. and fell completely backwards, like a bag of feed dropped, and thank god the post and my head of a standing stall didn't connect.

I think I'm done being old.

I helped WLLady by farm sitting a couple times while she dealt with her dads affairs.... and it WAS nice just to get the hell out of here. (the first time I drove out was a little painful...but the second time, I was mostly healed up from the fall, lol).

So, back to the bus now.... 6.15 hours of driving, and 245km a day and instead of getting home at 8:15am, its now 9:15am. We need to make more money. And so short of drivers, again. I hear on the bus radio.. every single day, dispatch wanting to see if other drivers are cleared of their runs, to possibly help on other runs. I don't know where the driver went that drives my grandkids here (I did call and ask, out of curiousity, they didn't tell me, lol) but his run is late every day, waiting for someone to clear theirs, and help.

Thats about all for now... its WAY past my bed time, Gary is out playing poker with the guys.. and its nice to have the house to myself. DID start the yellowstone episode... latest season, latest episode.. but then started this here. Gary's family christmas party is Saturday. NONE of my kids want to go. Especially me. I wear a mask EVERYWHERE, especially on the bus.. I do NOT want to NOT be able to go see my mom in the home, or take it to my dad, who can't breathe good anyhow. Can't really believe how close christmas is actually.

So, hope everyone has a great holiday season!!

[Killerbunny]

Geez girl, you make me feel like a wimp! Hoping you're well on the final recovery road now.