This Weekend’s Chores
This is the list we started out with:
- Reseed backyard
- Finish Hoop Coop
- Fence flower garden
- Trim goat hooves
- Pick-up vegetable garden
This what we got accomplished:
Repaired rat hole in main coop: Yea, this wasn’t on the list… I got distracted. Last year we had a severe infestation of mice/rats in our garage. We had a pest guy out to help us get the situation under control, but during the worst of it the mice had climbed the electric cord of the chicken’s panel heater and then chewed away at the cedar siding around the opening it came through until it was large enough for them to get in to the nice warm coop. While taking care of the garden I got distracted with fixing the hole. The problem has been that the back of the coop is about 6 inches from the house so there’s no room to swing a hammer and the panels needed to be tacked down about 4 feet in from the edges (in the middle). I was able to get creative and managed to hammer the panel in using a wrench (since it was smaller). I also climbed on the roof and was able to reach down and get the panel tacked down in the middle. I have bruises all over my upper arms from the escapade.
Washed all the laundry (even the towels and bath mats!): This just needed to get done. I have an ongoing frustration with laundry though. Bengt generates much more laundry than I do so when I do laundry it’s easily 2/3 to 3/4 his, but when it’s all clean and on the bed he tends to be in too much of a hurry (or too lazy?) to put his clothes away and they end up piled up on the table in the closet. This drives me batty. So when it gets bad I just don’t do his laundry because I know he’ll be in short supply for things like… oh… underwear, a whole lot quicker than I am. I know, it’s passive aggressive nonesense, but he’s been better about putting his clothes away and thanking me for my efforts after I did this the first time.
Visited nearby farmer friends: I ended up chatting with another coworker that has land and livestock here in Duvall. He proposed we meet up to visit and we quickly made arrangements. Bengt and I headed down the road around 3:45pm on Saturday and met Gordon and his wife, Jeni. I was hoping that they’d have goat milk they’d be interested in sharing so I brought along one of our last remaining broiler chickens from last year to help win my case. They have the most adorable Kinder goats, and a surly Buff Orpington rooster that sounds alot like our Bucket was. We ended up settled inside with tea and scones, talking until the sun went down. The time just flew and when we headed out I was shocked to see it was nearly 8pm! I came home with a gallon of frozen goat’s milk and two big bags of fresh cheese! I put the milk back in to the freezer so I can use it to try to make feta when the girls are here next weekend. Celeste and Eva helped Lauren, Bengt, and I make mozzarella last time they were here and I think they are eager to do it again.
Finished Hoop Coop
Trimmed goat hooves: Normally this is a two man job because we don’t have our goat stanchion, but I was able to bribe Molly with some grain to stand still for me. Unfortunately Obi wasn’t nearly as cooperative and after inspecting her’s, she needs a trim worse than Molly. So we’ll have to try this again when I have another set of hands or a good rope.
Picked-up vegetable garden: We had housed the “pink” laying flock in the garden for a few weeks while we got everything ready for them to move up the hill near the goats. After they had moved their range house and shelter were still strewn about so we finally got that moved back to it’s storage spot so we can start prepping the garden.
Fenced flower garden: I have only one “flower bed” in the front of the house that I even bother planting non-edibles in. I’ve mostly planted perennials because I can’t bare the idea of replanting ever year. Well normally the chickens mostly leave the plants alone until the gladiolis bloom. Once they bloom they do a wonderful job at eating every last bloom off of them. I’m often seen running out the front door to try to shoo them away or banging on the living room windows yelling, ’stupid chickens, get out of my flowers!’. This fall my mother asked if she could spread some chicken shavings on the garden in the hopes of snuffing out the weeds (I think). I told her to go ahead, but since then the chickens have just gone crazy digging up the garden. Daffodils are shooting up everywhere else but mine can’t get a foot hold at all. So I decided to throw down some u-posts and pull some poultry fencing around the garden. I’d hestiated before because it’s right in front of our living room windows, but it’s actually not the eye sore I was concerned it would be. Maybe I’ll stand a chance at getting some flowers for myself this year. I often use the statement that we fence our chickens OUT instead of fencing them IN which is becoming more and more true.
Filled the wood pile: It’s an endless task during the cooler months, but one that’s far more miserable to do when it’s raining and cold out (this weekend was mild and dry). It wasn’t on our list but needed to get done anyway.
We didn’t get around to fencing and reseeding the backyard so it’s back on the chore/project list for this coming weekend and week (since we’ll be off work with the girls visiting).
crossposted from Little Pink Monkeys
| 
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
verygeeky's Friends Page
