The Big Storm

Last night, the midwest was hit with big storms, thunder and lightening, and ultimately, tornados in February.  Keith was called out on vacation to go to Harveyville, a small town of 275 about 40 miles south of Topeka, which was hit hard by a tornado.  As he said this evening, it was incredible how an F2 tornado could make such a narrow swath of destruction through the little town. 

People automatically think that the federal government steps in and provides low-cost aid and loans to the people who are injured in these disasters, but that is not true at all.  In fact, since there were no municipal buildings hurt in the little town, they are not going to qualify for federal aid at all, and that is part of Keith's (unfortunate) job to tell them.  He did help coordinate disaster aid to them, however, and will be back down there tomorrow doing the same.  Debris removal will start right away, and hopefully, many of those whose houses were destroyed will prove to have insurance.

One man, unfortunately, was injured grievously, and may not make it.  Please pray for his family, who has been so devastated by this natural disaster.  Already in the next town over, though, are 1000 volunteers who are waiting for the word to come in and help, Red Cross, Methodist churchpeople, the Mennonites, and all those other folks who come in behind these terrible events, and try to get people back on an even keel.  They need our prayers, too.

Since Keith left so very early in the morning, I did chores here alone. 

This was how the big henhouse looked this morning... the door had blown open in the terrible winds we had last night.

If you look closely, you can see the dry interior of the coop just beyond the door.  This was slick, shoe sucking mud, about six inches deep, and if you look hard, you'll see my footprints.  This was the accumulation of feed, etc. from the winter on the feed room side, where Butch, Reddy, and Fancy and April live.  UGH.

Pile I dug out so I could get back and forth without falling on my tush.

I had to spread straw to do so, it was so slick.  We've never had this much rain inside the henhouse.  I unplugged the last heater that was plugged in, the llama tank.  It's done for the winter. 

Unfortunately, this was wating for me on the dry side.  It was Ruby, our oldest hen.  Ruby, Rosy, Helen and Rambo (Big Rambo, father of our Rambo now) were all adopted from the Olathe Animal Control office 8 years ago.  Ruby was still laying an egg every three days or so, and was a smart, smart girl who taught the other hens.  She regularly came over to the feed room side to lay, and hang out with Butch.  My guess is it was her time, and she must have falled off the rafters during the storm last night.  She was a great old girl.

Here is proof of Keith's engineering expertise... the hoop house stood through the 80 mile an hour winds last night, and is none the worse for wear!  And, in case you can't tell... that's a red-winged blackbird on the flat feeder, the first I've seen this year... Spring is really HERE!

A Long Wednesday

A long day at work today, and wore me out for the evening, I'm afraid.  I walked through the remainder of the chores after Keith did the majority... we got 8 nice eggs.  If we had clean nest boxes, we think it would increase a lot, so that's what we are heading for in the new henhouse. 

Keith worked more on getting things level with the first two footings, and cementing them in.  He's missing prime golfing weather to do this, so I know he's serious about it!

Today was a balmy day in the 70's, but tomorrow we are expecting rain, some severe storming.  We called the pond man several times, and finally got a call back tonight... he wants to come tomorrow.  If he can get here before the rain starts in late afternoon, the pasture where he pulled the pond out is nearly dry.

We would love to see it started, so that the rains of this month and next could start filling it.

In the little henhouse, three (four, counting the one dead chick) of the nearly 20 eggs under the three mamas have hatched.  All three chicks appear to be viable, and so far, none of the roosters, etc. have bothered them. The two younger mamas are up and down off their eggs to eat and drink regularly, so I am not sure that any more will hatch.  I will give them another week or so. 

If you look closely, you can see the three little ones between the two mamas.  That's Silka on the right, my most broody silkie, and one of her daughters to her left.  The other is ducking under the roost to get a drink.

As you can see, they are moving around fine. The good old Frisbie is in the doorway, and we pour chick starter into it twice a day, but everyone is eating it.  As you can see, the bedding of the little henhouse is FEED... poured in there in their feeder for three years.  I have put straw in there, but we can't get the eggs when we have straw.  The feed turns to dust, and we can get the eggs easily.  Once the layers are moved to the new henhouse, this won't be an issue.  The roosters will be living here.

We also separated the big batch of chicks, and took the Partridge Rocks and Welsummers out of the trough with the littler birds.  They are now in the old aluminum horse trough, the seven bigger birds by themselves.  They chirped to their old buddies, trying in vain to see them.  They have a light devoted to them now, as it's still chilly at night, and the smaller birds now have room to move around their smaller trough, and eat and drink without being stepped on.

I'll try to get pictures of them tomorrow, as they are all feathering out nicely.

I want to thank everyone who commented on the new blog header last night.  I still have some tweaking to do, but I will get it fixed sometime this week so the color is not so jarring.  I'll also post a link to the nice lady who created it, because she has done a good job. 

I appreciate all your comments.  I especially like that she kept the Victorian flavor of the first blog header, while taking it into the "next generation". 

A Satisfying Saturday

Today, the temps got to 80 degrees here in Tonganoxie, a far cry from last Saturday when we had to bundle up to go to the Home Show, and then walked around in biting wind and blowing snow.

Monday we had an inch of snow, which quickly melted.

Today, the sun shone all day.  We expect rain tomorrow, but for one beautiful day, it was all right. 

Keith decided to start digging the post holes for the new henhouse.  He went out and began to dig, and our neighbor, Mr. Spehar, of the Big Ponds at the Bottom of the Pasture, drove his Bobcat by, he was loaning it to someone for some work around the corner from us.  He stopped to ask Keith what he was doing, and when he found out Keith was digging the post holes, he told him to stop, that he would come back this afternoon and do it for him with the auger.

So, at 2, this is what happened:

Within ten minutes, the holes were dug, which would have taken Keith hours.

So, we are a huge step towards a new home for these:

Remember, these are a mix of bantams and Welsummer pullets and Partridge Rock pullets.  However, I SEE A COCKEREL in there, do you? Bantams are almost always sold straight run.  I knew I would have a few, but so far, he is the only one I have seen out of the 22! I suspect it's a mille fleur, but we'll see soon. 

Here is some rock cress blooming in the garden... it was a brilliant purple in the sun!  I am going to spend some time tomorrow cleaning up the beds, and transplanting some flowers out of a bed in the middle of the yard that we are dismantling. 

I found this in the henhouse this evening!  The first of the chicks under the three mamas have hatched... at least three that I saw.  There were 17-20 eggs under the three.  These are the chicks meant for a friend who moved to a farm, so will go at midsummer.

Sadly, I also found this:

Every year we lose a few, but it's sad to see a perfectly formed chick that doesn't last a day.  Sometimes the big birds get them, and sometimes there is just something wrong with them, and they don't make it.  This little one was perfect, but just didn't make it. 

We do expect some rain tomorrow, but I have promised Keith I'll get those flowers moved since I went to church this afternoon... so I have my work cut out for me!  Of course, we're moving the dirt from the bed into the big garden beds, so it won't be wasted.

We also found a source of cut grass from a gentleman who bags his, and told me tonight that I could have any that I saw in front of his house.  Yippee!

Little Hens

Our little hens have kept us laughing this week. 

This one, Rosewitha, some of you may recall... was one of the three mamas that hatched out the last clutch, born in September in the little henhouse.  Once those babies were able to go outside and fend for themselves, Rosewitha went back to the big henhouse where she had lived all her life.

Why is she in the rafters? 

Because Tuesday night, after I hadn't seen her for a couple of days... I had Keith climb a ladder to look above this:

This is the last piece of ceiling hanging in the big henhouse on the feed room side.  In the previous picture, Rosewitha is about 3 feet from it in the rafters.

Tuesday night, Keith got on a short ladder, and looked above the tile.  There was Rosewitha, on five or six big chicken eggs.  She was NOT pleased that Keith found her.  He lifted the eggs down to me... and gently gave me Rosewitha.  I put her in the little henhouse so that she could help incubate the (now 17) eggs under the little hens in there. 

The next day, I couldn't see Rosewitha anywhere.  I kind of freaked out, as I lost her twin, Dovey, a few weeks ago.

Finally, I asked Keith to climb the ladder again (he is tall enough to see into the ceiling, and there was Rosewitha AGAIN. 

She had gone over this:

It's the door that separates the little henyard from the big, we don't allow the two flocks to mingle any more.

Obviously, it didn't keep Rosewitha in. 

Because that evening, I found her where you see her in the first picture, in the rafters. 

Tonight, Keith did chores.... we don't know WHERE she is, but there were two big beautiful brown eggs up on the ceiling tile. 

They keep us laughing!

Here are two more... this little pullet has not come into lay yet, she was in the September hatch:

Her daddy, Ratchett, is the frizzle cochin right behind her.  Then again, she is shaped more like one of the half-Japs we have.

Here, we think, is her mama:

This little cochin hen, Lady, is two, and carries the frizzle gene.

And here, last night, are part of the little flock:

I try to give them treats every other night - and as you can see, they LOVED the dog food leftovers and old sour cream they got last night!

I'm linking this to Farm Friend Friday!

A Two-Post Sunday

 It was a glorious winter day here in Tongie, got up to mid-fifties after the last three weeks that wore us out.  We had a peaceful morning, and I read the paper after chores, at leisure.  Then into my brother's to drop off some groceries, and to get the car washed finally, and to stop at Wally World for some things.  I had intended to broil two small steaks in the oven, but left the oven cleaner at Wal Mart!  It's time to clean, it doesn't look dirty, but we can tell when we broil that it needs cleaning.  Anyway, that will be a project for one night this week, now.  So we are having chili dogs, and though I love to bake on Sunday, the only thing that got baked today were some Cinnabon Pillsbury rolls (and delicious they were!).

Normally I would not do a second post in a day, but there were so many things happening, that I want to talk about them.  First, I came home and let the little girls out to run around in the nice weather for a while.  They were so glad to get out and stretch their legs!

Then, I tackled this:

LLamas are unique in that they normally poop in the same place all the time.  They don't spread it around the whole pasture.  This was in the back of the llama barn, where they have been spending a lot of time in the cold weather.

And after much pitchforking, loading into the big yard cart,  it ended up here:

In my new garden bed (one of them).

Then I tackled the big henhouse, which was horrible from the starlings this week.  In fact, as I walked towards it, numerous of the foul birds flew out the eaves. 

Here is the front of it, showing Beau's old yard stall plainly, now a catch-all:

The big yard cart is there on the right, and if you click on the picture and make it big, you can just see the heated llama trough which I also dumped and cleaned, on the left behind the walnut tree.  On the right is Butch's little four x four pen in the henyard, with it's blue tarp cover.  Out of sight just to the right is the little henhouse.  I had to spread some bad hay there just to be able to get back and forth, as the mud was slick.

I started digging out the nasty wet dirt in the henhouse with a large shovel we keep in there for that purpose.  I only did half of the big room, as it was backbreaking dragging the cart through the snow just outside the camera view behind me. 

Inside the henhouse, I found this:

The bucket on the right is a "nest" that Birdy likes to lay in.  It's a feed bucket.  She was in there early this morning when I went out to feed and let the birds out.  My guess is he found her egg, because he had a lump in him, and I found him draped over the bucket, sleepy.  After I started shoveling, he started into the hole in the wall.  I nudged him and he turned his head around to look out and see what was bothering him.  He was a big one, if it was Mr. T, we have never seen him this early... February 12th... more like March, or mid-March. 

About then, Keith got home and filled the llama trough for me, and we watched hundreds of geese flying overhead. 

So here is Lil inspecting the loads of chicken-cleanings I dumped on my new garden bed.  I had to trundle the carts through the snow, and it was hard work, so I'm pooped out tonight.  Our steak dinner became chili dogs.  Keith will take the pitchfork to the pile of llama poop straw on the right this week, and spread it out better, I was tuckered out when I got that far. 

Spring, I think at last, is in the air!