Preparing the barn

Five days until DD-Day (Donkey Delivery Day) and there's so much to do!

The barn really needed to be cleaned up, swept out, the hay storage area raked of old stuff and prepped for new, stalls needed to be cleaned and filled with new pellet bedding, gates needed securing, etc.

First things first, though. Water is a necessity, but we hadn't been able to figure out how to turn the barn water back on after it had been shut off for the winter. We had been given rather conflicting instructions from the previous owner that had us walking in circles, but, finally, after convincing myself that it was entirely possible that a water valve COULD be right next to a major electrical box, I took a deep breath, reached my hand into some sketchy looking insulation, and exposed a yellow lever!

This bad boy needed merely to be twisted and....

Voila! Water!

Feeling ever so clever, I moved on to the barn entry:

This gate can be pushed inward into the pasture or pulled outward toward the barn wall:

but there was no way to secure it against the barn wall to keep it from swinging back toward the pasture and allowing donkeys past it and into the driveway.

So, I drilled a hole, inserted an eye hook into the wall and now the gate can be secured with a clasp:

Roxy, my pup, did her part in the overall barn preparation by keeping a vigilant watch from this box:

Next, I tackled the hay storage area. It has had very old hay, dried leaves, unused pallets, and miscellaneous barn junk stored there for some time now:

I'm not sure if you can tell the difference in this picture, but I raked it out thoroughly, got rid of some junk and cut the pallets in half to store the new hay on. It's all ready for new grass hay now:

At the end of the afternoon, while I was sweeping out the barn...

I heard this high pitched chirping and thought it was a nest of mice in the walls. Walking around, the noises led me to the barn attic. Imagine my surprise when I found my head being "buzzed" by small, silent, flying things. Roxy and I quickly retreated to the stairs where we could then discern their shadows as they flew around. I couldn't see them well at all, so I just started taking flash pictures. This is what I got:

Can you see the little brown flying thing to the left of the blue tarp?

Now you can see it:

Here's a close-up of that last shot. He's smiling for the camera:

Poor Pecked Pip

Two of my twelve chickens are White-Crested Black Polish chickens. When I first saw them at farm store back in March, I was fascinated with how they looked.

I picked them from the straight-run bin, meaning they had not been sexed, and I knew this meant I had a 50%/50% chance of getting a rooster.

They were absolutely adorable when they were babies and were always visiting children's favorites because of their funny, little puff-ball heads (Dot is on the roost, Pip is below the roost):

As they have gotten older, they have been healthy and, for the most part, seemed to fit in well with the others, although, in the picture below, you can see that Dot's wall-staring began quite early:

It became clear a few weeks ago, when bright red wattles started to grow from the sides of Pippi's face that Pippi is a rooster:

I used to think that Dot was a roo, due to her odd behavior and rapid feather growth, but it's pretty clear that Pippi now needs to be called Pip.

Pip is a very hardy bird and isn't easily frightened (unlike Dot), but when I'm not looking, someone is pecking the crap out of poor Pip. I'm growing very concerned. I spend a LOT of time with my chickens and haven't been able to see anyone looking even sideways at him, so I can't figure out who is doing it. And I can't figure out why he doesn't run away.

Warning: If you are easily disturbed by chicken-on-chicken brutality, look away for this next photo:

At first it was just a few feathers, but now the damage is starting to go down the back side of his itty-bitty bird head. The purple tinge to the outlying feathers that you see in the picture above is from the Blu-Kote antiseptic and the "Pick-No-More" solution I have been daubing him with, both of which are supposed to dissuade the pecking. Neither appears to be doing any good.

Pip needs a helmet.

If you recall the book Runaway Ralph, by Beverly Cleary, you'll remember how Ralph fashioned himself a motorcycle helmet from an old ping-pong ball. Something like this is what I have in mind for my Pip:

But until I figure out how to make a chicken helmet, he's going to have to continue to run around with a smelly, purple head:

Poor guy. It'll be hard for him to get anywhere with the ladies looking like this.

On my mind today...

Donkeys...

(Thanks for the cute pic, FrugalMom!)


Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue called on Friday to tell me that they will be delivering the donkeys for our new Satellite Adoption Center next Sunday, May 25th. One week from today, I will have six donkeys living in my barn:

It's funny how different my life is now from just a year ago. A year ago, I was leading late night IT project calls with team members in India. My health was poor, I suffered a lot of anxiety, and I was not a happy person.

Today, I am thinking about...
salt blocks:

hoof protection:

thrush medicine:

stock panels:

grooming brushes:



and the different protein contents in the local grass hay in my area (donkeys need a very low protein diet and will get sick on rich grasses):

And I'm having a wonderful time.

My goal for today is to figure out how to get 12 bales of Orchard Grass hay delivered to the storage area of my barn.

I won't be doing it this way:

And since we don't have a trailer yet and I don't want to pay a $65 delivery fee, I will most likely be making multiple trips with my truck.

Unless I can figure out a way to stack it all on the roof rack and make it in just one trip.
:-)

Trying to keep chickens cool

Statement from the National Weather Service, 5/15/08:
...UNSEASONABLY HOT WEATHER IN SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON THROUGH MUCH OF THE WEEKEND..AFTER A VERY PROLONGED PERIOD OF ABNORMALLY COOL SPRING WEATHER... THE HOTTEST WEATHER OF THE YEAR... MORE LIKE MID SUMMER... WAS BURSTING INTO SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON AND NORTHWEST OREGON TODAY.. AND WILL CONTINUE OVER THE REGION INTO THE WEEKEND. THIS WILL BE THE HOTTEST WEATHER SINCE LATE LAST SUMMER.

I had a bit of a scare yesterday. My chickens got way too hot. It would appear that our new chicken coop provides only minimal protection from the sun.

I was just about to leave for my son's track meet and wanted to check the chickens one more time. When I went into the coop, it was so stuffy and hot...I looked at their thermometer: 90 degrees! The outside temp was hovering between 93 and 96 degrees. I looked at the birds...they looked listless and a bit stunned. There was virtually no air movement in the coop. Not good.

I spent the next 2 1/2 hours trying to cool the girls down.

Chickens are able to acclimate to heat - as long as it doesn't go from 55ish to 90 degrees in 24 hours. They also need to have good ventilation and consistent airflow (as well as lots of water).

Physically, they have certain techniques for trying to keep themselves cool...

They hold their wings down and away from their bodies. All those feathers tend to be excellent for keeping the heat in, but not so helpful for staying cool:

They pant. This allows them to draw lots of air into their bodies to cool off from the inside out:

They stretch out to get as much air as possible on exposed surfaces of their bodies:

They position themselves in the shade with specific body parts elevated to better cool them:

And, in the case of Dot, they dance:

While they were busy doing all this, I propped open the front doors (fortunately on the shady side) and hung a small fan so some airflow could begin to circulate. I also tacked up a dark towel across the window on the sunny side:

Then I pulled the hose down from the house and sprayed off the top of the coop to try to cool it a bit:


Because it has been unusually cold around here this season, Jim and I had not gotten around to installing predator-proof screens on the windows, meaning I have not been opening the windows -at all- unless I was right there to guard and ward off any bad guys.

So....guess what Jim did when he got home last night:

Look at all those screws he used to keep my girls (and guys) safe:

We got the second secure window screen in place just as the sun was going down:

Funny thing, even though it was still over 80 degrees in the coop at dusk, the girls still insisted on huddling together on their roosts:

The difference was, now there was a nice breeze blowing through.

The forecast says it's supposed to hit 96 degrees today and break temperature records. I'm ready.

While I was away

Our little farm was in excellent hands.

It's a much different event to go on vacation now than it used to be. Since January, we no longer live on an 11,000 square foot lot, with neighbors 20 feet away on all sides, in an urban neighborhood only ten minutes from the heart of downtown, with only a small dog and a rabbit to care for. We now live on 7.5 acres, with a dog, a rabbit, 12 chickens, a newly planted garden, and many, many new things to pay attention to.

My Jim and I were concerned about how we could manage this, even considering that it perhaps wasn't a possibility to leave for a week so soon after moving in with so many new things to attend to.

Yet without a moment's hesitation, my mom and step dad volunteered for farm duty, not just willingly but excitedly...anxious to give farm life a try (and ease their daughter's worried mind in the process).

I always thought the two of them would do "ok" out here, but, still, I worried, wrote pages of detailed directions, left yellow post-it notes stuck to walls and cupboards with various instructions, and, of course, called as often as a could. In the end, I don't think any of it was necessary.

I came home and found:

Thriving, happy chickens:

A garden completely redesigned by my step dad...

...the shelling peas were thinned and staked:

...the radishes were thinned:

...the snow peas were planted and this beautiful handmade trellis in place:

...a huge new planting bed was dug and prepared with compost and chicken manure:

This is clearly a lovingly tended new garden:

While Bill tended to the green, growing things (and when the two of them weren't chasing chickens around), my mom was incredibly busy in my kitchen. Two loaves of wonderful EARTH BREAD were baked, a huge batch of homemade chocolate-chip cookies was made, and a wonderful pot of beef soup was waiting...each with its own little yellow post-it note attached:

They left us so many wonderful surprises. I'm worried they didn't sit down once the whole week they were here!

I wish I had pictures to post of the two of them doing all this, but I only have the signs they left behind to use as proof that they were really here.

Shortly before the trip, I was thinking about people's reactions to our whole changing-up-our-lives events these last few months. Beyond anyone else, it has been my parents who have been the most supportive and excited for us. Now that we're here, they delight in coming out as often as possible.

Our lives together have not always been easy. In fact, there have been many painful, scary years, but we seem to have gotten beyond these. I am relishing the now. And I delight daily in my mom and Bill's presence and support in my life.

How lucky can a girl be?
Thanks for taking such loving care of the farm, Mom and Bill!