The new shed has been done for quite a while, but rehabbing of the old shed has ground to a halt. Lack of money tends to do that. We have the 2x4s needed to redo the roof, but haven't managed to get the tarpaper and roofing together yet. Also, Ray needs to get out to the new shed and do some rearranging so we can move the stuff that's been in the old shed since we moved in over to the new one to get it out of the way.
The old shed is 11x16 feet. I'm planning on building a divider down the middle, using the front half for storage of my gardening supplies and the back half for my chickens. That will give them 88 square feet, about 3 1/2 sq ft per bird if I get a 25 bird straight run order like I'm contemplating. A little tight, but since they will be free ranging during the day the coop will only be for sleeping in at night and we'll only have 25 until the cockerels are processed. I could do broilers in a separate chicken tractor, I suppose, but those things are just so darn ugly! And it seems a little cruel to deliberately breed a bird that can just keel over dead one day because their organs can't keep up with their growth. My current plan is to do a heavy assorted straight run of 25 chicks from McMurray. Since I know nothing about breeds it will give us exposure to different breeds. Ray says no roosters but at some point I am going to want one. Otherwise we will have to keep buying new chickens.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Too Darn HOT
My last day off I looked at our (bonus) cherry tree in the front yard and the cherries were looking great. I was anticipating making a cherry pie my next day off (today). Not to be - it's been so hot that the cherries ripened, peaked, and rotted in a couple days! I was SO looking forward to that pie!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The Garden
A while back Ray built a 4x12 foot raised garden bed for me. I filled it with a mix of topsoil, manure compost and peat moss. So far I haven't been able to plant much but there are a few tomato plants, some green beans and of course Destiny's sunflowers. For the first month the tomato plants just sat there and shivered in the cold and damp. Then suddenly at the beginning of June the weather decided to go from below normal to way above normal. The tomatoes are off and running. Not that I'm a big tomato fan, but I do like some on a sandwich now and then and Ray loves them. With the price of them in the store, and the salmonella scare, I can't see paying for the anemic looking ones the store offers.
We also discovered while we were clearing some of the weeds and brush that there was a tire flower bed out by the road. That now has geraniums, vinca and marigolds in it. We'll see if it survives the deer, although I haven't really seen many in our yard after the first couple weeks we were here. I guess they have figured out the place is occupied again.
We've come to the end of our money so any construction projects are on an as you go basis. Right now Ray is working on getting our fleet of lawn mowers working. We brought down with us the old green Bowen, and the trusty old Sears hand mower Ray bought in 1979 that still works like a champ. Then Jim mentioned to Ray he knew a guy with a larger riding mower for sale. We went to look, the guy said Ray could have both the 36 inch and the 30 inch for $20. Heck, who can turn down a deal like that? He threw in an extra engine he had laying around for extra measure. So now Ray has gotten new tires on the Bowen and got it back to electric start with a key again, and has the 30 inch Murray going. He's started working on the 36 inch Murray, although since it's just the two of us we only really need 2 of the riders working.
We also discovered while we were clearing some of the weeds and brush that there was a tire flower bed out by the road. That now has geraniums, vinca and marigolds in it. We'll see if it survives the deer, although I haven't really seen many in our yard after the first couple weeks we were here. I guess they have figured out the place is occupied again.
We've come to the end of our money so any construction projects are on an as you go basis. Right now Ray is working on getting our fleet of lawn mowers working. We brought down with us the old green Bowen, and the trusty old Sears hand mower Ray bought in 1979 that still works like a champ. Then Jim mentioned to Ray he knew a guy with a larger riding mower for sale. We went to look, the guy said Ray could have both the 36 inch and the 30 inch for $20. Heck, who can turn down a deal like that? He threw in an extra engine he had laying around for extra measure. So now Ray has gotten new tires on the Bowen and got it back to electric start with a key again, and has the 30 inch Murray going. He's started working on the 36 inch Murray, although since it's just the two of us we only really need 2 of the riders working.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Into summer
Time flies! Such a lot has happened since I posted last.
We flew to Las Vegas to see our son Drew get married. I took pictures of course but Shayna took the camera (more about that later) so I can't post them yet. I will as soon as I get the pictures back!
It was quite an interesting trip. First off, I forgot the paperwork for our tickets. We were already a half hour into the trip to the airport and had to turn around and go back home. Yes, we really didn't need the paperwork because we had e tickets but I couldn't remember when our return flight was and wouldn't have access to the internet to find out at Expedia. So back home we went, eating up the extra hour I had added for emergencies.
We get to Lambert in St Louis about and hour before flight time. The first leg of the trip was uneventful after that. We actually got into Dallas early. We checked the board for our connecting flight and it was listed as being at gate D30, on time. Great! I don't know if you are familiar with Dallas International, but it has a tram that connects the different terminals. In the time between getting on the tram at our arriving terminal and getting off at D terminal, our flight disappeared from the board. There was a flight going to London at gate D30. No info from the airport or airline at all. We sat down next to a man who turned out to be from England and had arrived on the plane sitting at the gate. He was also waiting for the connecting flight to Vegas. They called him up to the counter (because he was an international travelor? Don't know) and told him that the flight to Vegas WOULD be leaving from this gate but would delayed at least an hour, they had to get the plane to London off first. Another woman had booked through Orbitz, they had sent a text message that the flight would be delayed but would be leaving from gate D10. Good thing for her that she overheard us talking or she would have been sitting at the wrong gate! So much for notifications from online booking services.
There was a group of young women who spent the delay in one of the airport bars. They were already loud and rowdy before even boarding the plane. We figured they were going to be obnoxious during the flight, and they were. One in particular spent the whole flight standing up leaning over the back of her seat talking to the others behind her, even though she was repeatedly told to sit down. The seatbelt light was on the whole trip because of rough weather conditions. Then she wanted to go to the bathroom (need to get rid of all that alcohol eventually, you know) and gave the flight attendant a hard time because she couldn't get past the drink cart. When we got to Las Vegas we had to wait while the cops came on board and hauled her off.
The wedding was nice. We stayed at Circus Circus and there is a wedding chapel right in the hotel (most of the hotels in Vegas have one, I would think) so they got married there. Drew wore a white tux and Andrea had a knee length white strapless wedding gown. Afterward we walked through the casino and they got a LOT of attention. You would think people would be used to couples getting married - it was Vegas, after all.
We flew to Las Vegas to see our son Drew get married. I took pictures of course but Shayna took the camera (more about that later) so I can't post them yet. I will as soon as I get the pictures back!
It was quite an interesting trip. First off, I forgot the paperwork for our tickets. We were already a half hour into the trip to the airport and had to turn around and go back home. Yes, we really didn't need the paperwork because we had e tickets but I couldn't remember when our return flight was and wouldn't have access to the internet to find out at Expedia. So back home we went, eating up the extra hour I had added for emergencies.
We get to Lambert in St Louis about and hour before flight time. The first leg of the trip was uneventful after that. We actually got into Dallas early. We checked the board for our connecting flight and it was listed as being at gate D30, on time. Great! I don't know if you are familiar with Dallas International, but it has a tram that connects the different terminals. In the time between getting on the tram at our arriving terminal and getting off at D terminal, our flight disappeared from the board. There was a flight going to London at gate D30. No info from the airport or airline at all. We sat down next to a man who turned out to be from England and had arrived on the plane sitting at the gate. He was also waiting for the connecting flight to Vegas. They called him up to the counter (because he was an international travelor? Don't know) and told him that the flight to Vegas WOULD be leaving from this gate but would delayed at least an hour, they had to get the plane to London off first. Another woman had booked through Orbitz, they had sent a text message that the flight would be delayed but would be leaving from gate D10. Good thing for her that she overheard us talking or she would have been sitting at the wrong gate! So much for notifications from online booking services.
There was a group of young women who spent the delay in one of the airport bars. They were already loud and rowdy before even boarding the plane. We figured they were going to be obnoxious during the flight, and they were. One in particular spent the whole flight standing up leaning over the back of her seat talking to the others behind her, even though she was repeatedly told to sit down. The seatbelt light was on the whole trip because of rough weather conditions. Then she wanted to go to the bathroom (need to get rid of all that alcohol eventually, you know) and gave the flight attendant a hard time because she couldn't get past the drink cart. When we got to Las Vegas we had to wait while the cops came on board and hauled her off.
The wedding was nice. We stayed at Circus Circus and there is a wedding chapel right in the hotel (most of the hotels in Vegas have one, I would think) so they got married there. Drew wore a white tux and Andrea had a knee length white strapless wedding gown. Afterward we walked through the casino and they got a LOT of attention. You would think people would be used to couples getting married - it was Vegas, after all.
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