Cleaning Up

I did a little cleaning up this past weekend. At first, I didn't think I did anything fun or homestead-y. Well, I did. I cleaned the chicken coop and yard. That takes about an hour or so. I have one hen that likes to take a walk outside to pick the lawn when I do this. She's my last yard chicken. By that, I mean that she knows what to do when let out into the yard. And she herds back when I say 'chickens go nite-nite'. Sometimes she gives me a fit, but usually she heads straight for the coop. I deposited all of the pinestraw from the coop and chicken manure into the compost heap. Then I turned the heap.

Then, I decided to do a bit of painting to freshen up the yard. I mentioned this in a previous post, so this isn't much of anything new. First, I needed to wash the mold off of the doors to the pump house and repaint them. Then I painted a post that holds a length of water hose. Then I painted all of the pickets around the compost heap. Then I painted the step going into the chicken coop / potting shed. All of this was painted white with exterior latex. Now all of that part of the yard looks nice and fresh.

The only major thing left to do is finish pulling weeds in my flower gardens. I must do that this weekend. My daylilies are starting to come up and I need to give them light and room. I found a mystery plant yesterday. I think it is a Jewel of Opar plant. They are so pretty and delicate looking. However, they take a beating from the sun every year and come back the next year.

I hope you had a great day today.

Take care.

No More Poopy Coop!

Today is the funnest day of the month! Not really!

Coop cleaning is one of the messiest, stinkiest and dirtiest things I do. Top that off with an escapee chicken and nosy dogs, then you have a day of learning how to do many things at one time. Mainly, watching lots of animals at one time so no one gets hurt or eats stuff they shouldn't. (Yuk!)

However, it's a very quiet job. Raise hands to show how many would want to do this job? Thought so. These are my babies and I take care of them.

Lola

 Around the house, if you want something, you do it. This has been my job for about the past 10 years. They are so cute! All of my pet chickens have gone to the great farmyard in the sky. I used to be able to hold them or let them ride on my shoulder. Lola was the last pet chicken to go. She was really funny and a holding chicken. She liked jewelry and always pecked at my earrings and rings. That was the easiest way to catch her. Flash her some bling, and she'd come running!

Well. I have to go for the day.

Take care.

New Coop!

Well, it's not really new. It was actually a storage shed we made into a coop / potting shed. I like to call my side my 'Mama Cave'. : ) We've lost a few hens and all of our roos so we're only going to keep a dozen or so instead of the 40+ we had. Downsizing is everywhere!

Front View

Back View

We do have wire over the top because of hawks. A hawk got one of them last year and it wasn't pretty. Funny thing is, we had chicken wire on top of the last one and the darned hawk pulled up a loose end and crawled in, we think. This one is tied in really well. I have the muscles to prove it!

Perches



New Nest Boxes

Yes, that's linoleum on the floor. I wanted to make it easy to clean so we went out and got remnants.

BTW, I found the setting to make more than one pic fit into a post.

I spoke too soon. I may need a better ethernet card. I replaced a blown one and didn't realize 'good price' meant 'slow moving'. I'll need GBs instead of mbps.

Anyhow, I've cleaned it and it works like a dream!