What did you do in the garden today?

[Abdul94]

No, that’s way too far away, my mother is from Iraq, my father is Jewish and we all live in Israel.

I give all respect to you. Big respect. You come later if you want come

 

[Paz]

I give all respect to you. Big respect. You come later if you want come

Thanks mate

 

[littledog]

@littledog - that is so great they offer that service! I've been wanting to raise meat birds, that would be such a great help.

Your county or state conservation district might offer the same, or at least point you to a local farm that rents out equipment, or allows you to bring birds to their place for a fee?
If not, maybe you could ask around at "farm-to-table" restaurants who could locate the equipment and get a co-op together?

 

[littledog]

Unfortunately, Loki the old rooster is also destined for the crock-pot. Last month Charles the young rooster beat him up bad, to the point he was shrinking in a corner waiting for death, and after I saved him, his former hens had transferred their allegiance to young Charles and were ganging up and pecking poor Loki.
So if somebody is going to eat him, it may as well be us.

I know, I'm sad about his fate too, he was a great rooster in his younger years, nice to us and gentle to his hens, fathered many chicks. But our only choice at this point, is let him be tortured and pecked to death by the flock (so cruel) let him free-range and get airlifted by hawks or attacked by coyotes (a bit less cruel) or dispatch him as humanely as we are able - hopefully less cruel than hawks or coyotes, and after all, we are the ones who fed him and gave him the happiness of his own flock for the past 6 years.

 

[littledog]

I use regular house fans because they are generally cheap to buy. However after replacing no less than 8 - 10 of them, I was going to upgrade to actual barn fans that are used in poultry houses around here. Just haven't bought it yet.

I've heard of regular house fans used in horse barns around here, that started barn fires. One resulted in tragedy a couple years ago (some horses died, and the family lost their home.). You should definitely upgrade - house fans collect a lot of dust on the motor and cause it to heat up, while fans made for barns have shields that keep the barn dust from collecting on the motor.

 

[Sally PB]

I always find it interesting to read about what coop litter method works or does not work often times dependent on where you live.

Yes, me too. Climate really plays a big part in each system, doesn't it?

I went out and picked up the acorns from the oak trees. My dad makes roti flour with them

How does he get rid of the tannins? Actually, what is the entire process, and does it work with any acorn? I have gobs (and gob, and GOBS!) of acorns.

Today I’m spraying the garden against mites and lice, and burning down the coop.

Wow, sorry you had to go to that extreme. But that should take care of the pests! Are you going to rebuild?

 

[Dadanga]

Thanks for the link. Looks like a lot of interesting stuff to watch.

I started carrying down some of my gardening supplies into the basement yesterday. I might put a couple work benches down there as well with the idea that I can get something setup to grow food this winter. I built some nice 2X4 foot modular work benches out of pallet wood that I think might be perfect for the job.

Yeah there's lots of fun builds to do. I still have yet to try DWC and flood/drain. I do better at hydroponics than I do in soil for sure. I still need to setup my little system along the fence but gotta lay it all out first for the measurements.

Today I didn't do a whole lot but shop and pickup new seeds but I did get around to installing a T in the pump. Now I can water the glade without having to use the bore. Chooks appear amused and a little excited about the action. Getting excited to try some different kale and watermelon. I think I might just direct sow the watermelon instead of in the tray. The crimson sweet variety seem to be doing alright.

Tomorrow I'll have to install the same kind of piping but to another shed and a whole lot more of it. Gotta bury it under limestone so I even bought a pick when I got the hose for the glade. Also got a buyer for 16 of my quail which makes me happy. Pays for a new incubator.

I don't know what to do with my old incubator. Everytime it starts up the fan shudders as if it's not aligned and I wonder if the dogs have warped the plastic too much. I think next incubator I'll get will be this green top variety that looks alright and something that's capable of around 40-60 chicken eggs which means lots of quail! I miss hatching out the babies. Thankfully it's Friday tomorrow and it's sorrowdrowning time.

 

[littledog]

Most of the critters I see are bobtail lizards which means worse is yet to come. One summer we got a Mulga and then a Dugite. I can only imagine what's lurking down there amidst the stacks of steel.

I lived in Australia (Adelaide) as a child in the early 70's, at 9--13-y-o. I miss it so much, I would move back in a minute if they would take me, at my old age and non-moneyed clas
As kids, we caught blue tail lizards, really beautiful and graceful. If we handled them too roughly, they would discard their tails, escaping and leaving their tails by themselves, wriggling. So disgusting - so we learned to handle them gently.
Also stumpy-tail lizards (some considered them skinks) they were so cute and puffy, with dark black/blue thick scales. Both of these were 1 foot long, but not dangerous as long as we handled them gently and then let them go.

We were afraid of the brown snakes, they were poisonous and 6-8 ft long, we avoided them in the garden but a couple times they got into the house and hid where it was cool - we got out, turned up the heat until they decided to leave.

One time we had a goanna - really big, aggressive-acting and quick-moving. It escaped and we tried to not ever think about it again! Lots of large spiders, some poisonous and some not (the most dangerous, Redback was small, and we never had any of those.) We would gently catch them and put them outside.
There were also scorpions, small ones that were fun to watch, slow enough to step on if they came in the house.

There were wild Koalas in the trees around our property - I remember our parents yelling when my sister and I climbed the tree to pet the wild mother koala and her baby - what big, sharp claws!
We were good at imitating Koala talk - gshnurt, gnursht, shnurt, grunt, grunt.

Maybe it's better that Australia's immigration laws won't let me back - because maybe my wonderful memories would be ruined by yje way things are now. Koalas are now endangered, not living in every nearby tree.

 

[Dadanga]

I lived in Australia (Adelaide) as a child in the early 70's, at 9--13-y-o. I miss it so much, I would move back in a minute if they would take me, at my old age and non-moneyed clas
As kids, we caught blue tail lizards, really beautiful and graceful. If we handled them too roughly, they would discard their tails, escaping and leaving their tails by themselves, wriggling. So disgusting - so we learned to handle them gently.
Also stumpy-tail lizards (some considered them skinks) they were so cute and puffy, with dark black/blue thick scales. Both of these were 1 foot long, but not dangerous as long as we handled them gently and then let them go.

We were afraid of the brown snakes, they were poisonous and 6-8 ft long, we avoided them in the garden but a couple times they got into the house and hid where it was cool - we got out, turned up the heat until they decided to leave.

One time we had a goanna - really big, aggressive-acting and quick-moving. It escaped and we tried to not ever think about it again! Lots of large spiders, some poisonous and some not (the most dangerous, Redback was small, and we never had any of those.) We would gently catch them and put them outside.
There were also scorpions, small ones that were fun to watch, slow enough to step on if they came in the house.

There were wild Koalas in the trees around our property - I remember our parents yelling when my sister and I climbed the tree to pet the wild mother koala and her baby - what big, sharp claws!
We were good at imitating Koala talk - gshnurt, gnursht, shnurt, grunt, grunt.

Maybe it's better that Australia's immigration laws won't let me back - because maybe my wonderful memories would be ruined by yje way things are now. Koalas are now endangered, not living in every nearby tree.

LOL sadly, I have never seen Koalas but kangaroos and emus on the other hand. Also been with farmers that would rather save a bullet and use their animals to take down large roos but certain ones would get exempt like the big reds. The spotlight would shine on their silhouette for a brief second and they'd quickly flash it away.

Scorpions are fun. My friends and I would play with them behind the garden shed at our school. We would try to use bull ants as well to coax them. And the way you talk about snakes makes me not look forward to tomorrows task since I've gotta run some pipe between a fence and sea containers and I'm just imagining what hellish little scaled bastard is hiding under one of those containers.

You know, it never occurred to me about snakes harming chickens. I'm not worried about the quail since they are all cooped up good and protected but yeah. I do wonder how Diesel would tackle a dirty great big Dugite or Mulga. They're going to open a road nearby soon that'll increase the traffic so who knows, they'll have to cross more obstacles before getting on my property!

PS. If you could find a rental I'm sure Australia would have you. Which reminds me of another task and that's getting my guest bedrooms in ship shape. I'm going to try tiling for the first time but kinda iffy on painting.

 

[littledog]

FWIW, I have lived in many countries that were on the metric system. I wish we would drop our old Imperial system in the USA and just go with the metric system. In healthcare, it's all metric for medication dosages. That makes it easier to do the math.

Same here!
I have a theory about our USA education system, why typically our kids consider math and science to be hard, and our schools and teachers find it hard to teach, it's because we should be using the metric system! It's so much more sensible! One zero before the decimal point means 10 times bigger, one zero after the decimal point means one tenth smaller. Gets the math out of the way, so the concepts can be understood.
People who get out of high school and want to do healthcare or any kind of science, don't deserve to have to do a year's worth of remedial math just to catch up.