Dec 31, 2013
Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Roo (who has not been named) was visiting with Blanche. She has gone through 2 series of molting this year and I was hoping/ thinking she may start laying again. I was pleased to see the two of them together because he seems not to have any interest in the girls who are not laying. Today, Mr. Bootsie came from the coop with a green egg in his hand, Blanche is laying.
The temperature is going down this week, cold for us here. Mr Bootsie spent this afternoon inside the coop stapling the feed bags on the walls. I am hoping this will help with frost bite on the chicken combs.
I crashed on the sofa before midnight and awoke to smell of wine, here comes Mr. Bootsie with the mop and paper towels. I start sniffing and he shakes his head yes, He explains, "I was going to open the wine you made so we could toast the new year, it spewed out of the bottle and went everywhere but I am cleaning it up." I had to laugh because I had told him to cover the bottle when you open, I have cleaned the ceiling a couple of times many years ago when I was making wine. He has got to learn my wine is a little different to Boone's Farm. About 12:15 a.m. and a new day, he had finished his cleaning and there were 2 glasses of wine poured and really it tasted quite good, may be time for another batch to be started.
January 3, 2014
Cold, Cold, Cold is coming, I was hoping there would a change in the weather forecast and there was a daily change in how low the temperature would go. Because of the bitter cold I decided to put window blankets over the windows in the rooms we cannot close off. I needed to make a couple of blankets and we were able to cut blankets to fit some windows. Most of the day was spent adding extra cover in the tunnel, picking all of the greens which were ready, because I may as well pick the small ones as leave the plants for Mr. Mole/Vole to have and he is eating kale. I found a few more fed bags in the house I had cleaned to make things but they are now on the sides on the coop.
This is some of the kale growing in the tunnel, I added some beet greens to the mix. This is the first time I have picked beet greens from a growing plant, I wonder if more will grow or if I will loose the root.
This is the coop decoration Mr. Bootsie did to keep the wind off the girls and Mr. Roo. He placed this at the level of the roosting poles. We have no electric power at the barn lot, we must get creative when there are issues with the temperature. We buy most of our sugar in 25# bags and now I shall continue to do this as we can use the sugar bags as well as the feed bags.
The heat inside the house was reduced to 63 degrees, the wood stove was pushing plenty of heat and raised the temperature in the house to 65 degrees. This reduced the load on the heat pump and we were warm.
January 4, 2014
Morning Temperature was 8 or 9 degrees. This a picture of the inside of the greenhouse. I covered most of the tender plants and the temperature was lowered to 34 degrees. It appears everything did rather well. I will not open the tunnel, Monday will be a warmer day and I will check the tunnel. We fed warm oatmeal with eggs to the chickens and ducks, filled the water bowls with warm water and the goats had a treat of raspberry tea with a bowl of warm water. Back to the coop around noon to replenish warm water for everyone and the temperature is rising.
If this is a practice round for what is coming on Tuesday, I think we are ready.
We did prepare for the cold and I think we learned a little more about what to do in the future. It has been a rough week in the U.S. so many are dealing with extreme weather conditions. I do think about others and how they are dealing with the weather, share with us how you prepare, I love learning different ways of taking care of the greenhouses, tunnels and the animals.
Be Safe, Be Careful for this winter has only begun, personally I am hoping for a very early spring.
Until next time!!!
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