The Weekend Agenda

Saturday

1.  Move the Chickens - we do this once a month to keep things fresh for the girls and dudes. I try to keep the set up mostly the same so their isn't too much interruption with the egg layers, but sometimes they just get excited about a new space. Also, since I don't really get to hang out with Lenny & Shelly during the week I'll get to take care of them during the day and let them out to forage and get into their pool now and then throughout the weekend. Yay!!

Their current location

2.  Replenish the layer feed. There is a great warehouse that is around 4 miles from our house and they have reasonable prices and almost everything that we need to grow healthy chickens and other feathered creatures. Once we get the meat chickens and the guinea hogs we'll be stocking up feed from their warehouse. 

3.  Bake Bread. I have finally found a easy bread recipe that I have made a couple of times. It is Easy Egg Bread from the Red Star Yeast website. It's a reason to get my Kitchenaid out and make a little bit of a mess in the kitchen! I think this time I'll make regular loave instead of braiding the dough. I would like bread that is more sandwich bread shaped. This is seriously good...if you ever wanted to make bread try it! We haven't tried french toast yet, but I think it would be fantastic! 

 

4.  Game night at our friend's house. A little fellowship with our core group and hoping for a win...

Sunday

Worship in the morning and then lounging around in the afternoon and then small group in the evening. I love our church family...and I really appreciate our small group people. I couldn't do life with any other people. We are Blessed.

Monday - It's Martin Luther King Jr. day!! Woo hoo!!!

It's Cascade Meadows Farm visit day!! It looks like it will be a wet day, but maybe we'll get lucky and we'll get to tour their farm without getting too wet. We will be ready with a list of questions about American Guinea Hogs! 

I. Cannot. Wait.

Throwback Thursday

Going back to almost a year ago...

https://ciclogardener.blogspot.com/2017/01/oh-nosnow.html

I'm happy to say that we are in our regular rainy winter season this year. We did get some snow on Christmas eve, but it was short-lived and was gone a couple of days later.

Anyway...enjoy!

#TBT

Escape Artists

These little girls are the BEST egg layers...with a record of 364 eggs in a year by some random Australorp way back when. 

The other thing that these girls are...

ESCAPE ARTISTS!

I don't really know what it is that they are looking to do - besides aggravate us. Every now and then (twice in the last 5 days) they like to escape the confines of their chicken arena. Which means one or both of us need to try to coax them back to the rest of the flock. 

From the time they were just a few weeks old and even now they still escape the chicken run. When it's just one of us it can get tiring and/or frustrating trying to get them to go back in with the rest of the flock. Try getting a little chicken to go INTO the chicken area is bad enough. Imagine the duck and goose who get to free range trying to get out! 

Today this happened to Tom while he was home....alone. When the little girl made her escape Tom had to let the boys out because well, they like to get out too. Then to "help" Tom out, they chased the little girl around the fence while the rest of the flock followed along from inside the fence. I would have loved to see that! In the end, with no help from the hooligan waterfowl, Tom was able to get the girl back in...for now.

They are nice girls though and I'm sure that they aren't trying to be a sneaky...or maybe they are. 

Ducks

Handsome waterfowl

Or Duck...just one. Actually we have a young drake...at one point is a duck mature?

ANYWAY - once these dudes turned 6 or 7 months old I have noticed that Sheldon (duck) has gotten to be a little more assertive and has been bullying Leonard (goose) during their pool time. I didn't think much of it at the time, he's a duck....maybe he has something to prove.

Well, he hasn't let up and he continues to "wrestle" Lenny while they are in the pool. Enough is enough, so I did a little research. According to some forums that I landed on it seems that maybe Mr. Shelly has reached duck puberty. Oh great. Just what we need a duck who needs a cold shower.

I started looking at the Livestock Conservancy to get some information on our little Romeo and among other breed information here is what I found:
   
                                                   "The drakes have high libido"

Oh Fine...looks like we will add a few little girl ducklings for him so he'll leave Lenny alone.

Oh well, I want duck eggs anyway.