Category: Peacocks

Snow on the Mountains! Peachick!

I am sat down with a hot cappucino at hand and lip, and am reflecting on the day I had today. It was a good one! I have nothing to complain about. But there are comments.

First, I managed to keep the snooze button on any anxieties pressed till 6:00AM, then got up and got a good start after getting well rested. That made a nice change from the normal routine I follow! Then I took the girls to their school bust stop. After I came back, I got ready to face the day in the firewood yard down at the dump in the city. It was sprinkling a bit before I left, and on the way down that picked up to a decent rain. Breakfast at McDonald’s did not give it enough time to clear, and before I knew it, I had my snacks and drinks picked up and was sat in the woodyard, dreaming of those sunny summer days. Well, let’s be fair! I hate those sunny summer days for their heat, so I got out and got to it.

The first two logs I picked up were of a yellowish wood with white bark, and a decent smell of honey. I cannot identify it for sure, so I won’t try to say. I also got some willow, I think. It had the right type of bark and white wood, but there were no sprouts of any kind, so it may have been different. After loading some 3,000 pounds of wood I decided that was enough for the day and took off. I was not too sure of the weight till I hit the scales on the way out, so I decided to leave before I overloaded the trailer. Turned out I had a bit of room to spare. Not much, but some!

While loading wood I tried out the little device I made to fit over the top of the trailer’s front, top rail, and has a hook under it to hold the snatch block that the winch rope goes through. I built it because the chain never stays in the right position. This device worked perfectly, and made the whole job a lot easier because I was nto spending so much time preventing the rope from dragging through the second rail. That wears the rope severely. I have already broke one.

Happy with my device, and with my wood haul for today, I came home to help Missus with several things she had going on, then unloaded the trailer. That is a process that does not go perfectly, and I am still working out some kinks, especially to do with getting the log tongs to grab hold and let go when I want them to, as they are not mechanically driven.

I helped with a couple of short jobs while Missus was making a shepherd’s pie for supper, then went and got the girls from their bus stop. It was on the way there that I noticed that there was snow on the mountains! This is the first I have seen any for this year, and it sure made me want to go get more wood and get it all cut and split!

After a lovely meal, I went out to feed the chickens that I remembered were out of food. That’s when I found that another peachick has hatched, and the poor bird was getting tumbled by the chickens. I grabbed it up right away, and brought it in to Missus, as the peafowl are her project. It is now sat across the room from me under a heat lamp in a wash tub with a bit of wire mesh over top of it. It sure is noisey, and I think, quite healthy. We did not have luck with the lest couple that had hatched, so we are really hoping and trying to get this one off to a good start.

Now it is about an hour till bedtime, and I still have to get the rubbish out to the curb for pick-up tomorrow. Apart from that, I would like to relax a spell. It has been a busy, and really quite exciting day!

Back to School

We have been so busy getting so little done lately. Sometimes that’s how things seem to go. There is a lot that needs to be done, and there is a lot that we are doing. But does it feel like we are getting caught up? No. I guess that’s just the way things go.

We got the girls registered for their respective schools yesterday. Our youngest has not been in public school before, and the oldest has not been in for the last five years or so. Hopefully this is a good choice for them. We got them into a district next to our catchment area where the classes will be smaller and they should have the opportunity to know everyone well, and for their teachers to give them the attention they should be getting in an educational setting.

So that is the close of an era for me. I have had a kid at home for homeschooling every year since 2006. Seventeen years! Now, at 52, I have to get things together and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I have till a week from next Monday.

Also yesterday, I went out to check the feed in the chicken coop, and saw there was a dead peachick on the floor. The mamma bird was not sitting on eggs anymore by the door. Why she had to nest right in front of the door escapes me. I saw her in the back corner of the run, and walked over. Every bird scattered but her. She stayed sat. I hated to do it, but I got her to get up and reveal a day-old chick. The other appeared to be three or four days old, at least. So, to prevent another loss, I gathered the chick and took it into the house where we set up a box and put it in for the night. It will have to be caged separately to prevent it being run down like the other one appeared to have been. I can see it going out again in a couple of months, when it is big enough to stand up to a flock of chickens. It only needs to be as big as a hen. The hens usually don’t bother with the peafowl the way they will do bullying another chicken. As much as I hated to separate the mother and chick, there is no better way.

My latest shop project has been a simple one. I have assembled a stitch pony so I can do some leatherworking at the work bench. It is a simple one, designed to clamp under the force of the bench vise. All I have left to do is get some tacks and put some leather pads into the jaws of the pony, then I can use it freely.

The tractor is running low on hydraulic fluid. It has a leak in one of the pistons on the loader. Honestly, it is a little depressing. Who wants to have to put it in for service. How long will they keep it for? But at least I know why the bucket has been drooping or reacting a little slow, I think. I think I know. I don’t know for sure, but when I tightened the hose to the piston, it acted a bit better. It just continues to leak, and I think I may be a bit tight on the crush washer and want to have a tech service it correctly. Maybe they can do it onsite. Or maybe they can just take the loader, if they have to. Then I can continue to use the rest of the tractor here for some jobs. I think I am a bit spoiled having had that tractor to do my heavy lifting for me!

Well, it is nearly 3AM, and I need to get back to sleep. Or at least try.

Masks: A Cautionary Tale

I have always been the one who has not masked up for a bit of sanding, cleaning with bleach, or running the leaf blower. Who can be bothered? Besides, it does not bother me that much. But now, I actually do own a decent quality mask, and when I went to clean out the chicken coop two days ago, I brought it along with, and I put it on. Then I went crazy with the leaf blower and cleared out loads of loose feathers and lots of dust and debris. After a session of that, I took off my mask when everything had settled and cleaned up some of the larger things in the adjacent tool shed. More dust! I ran the leaf blower again for a short bit and did not bother to put on the mask.

I was barely out of that end of the barn before I knew I had given myself a sinus infection. I could feel it on the right side, and soon my eye felt that corresponding irritation that comes along with. I gave it that night and the next day to see if it would feel any better, and it did. But now that the overlying sinus infection pain has settled a day on from that, I feel pain that resembles that sharp hurt one gets with a sore throat. Only it is above my throat, and below the sinuses.

Lesson learned; wear the mask! Always wear the mask! I watched my stepdad nearly die when I was younger because of a sinus infection that exploded into his brain cavity. It is not something I want to replicate. And now, with kids of my own, I don’t want them to have to see their father go through something like that, either.

It’s early in the morning on that third day from the cleaning. It is abundantly clear I could have avoided this situation. It is also abundantly clear to me that I am not young and impervious to the things I once was. I also have little people looking up to me to set them a good example, and to treat things like masks as though they are serious, not silly.

Blending Birds

The chicken flock is back in with the Peafowl, in the proper egg coop, rather than the pen to the side of it. They have been where everyone could see one another, and be used to each other. Putting them back together was a decision based on the water that would hit the chickens during watering, and the size of the Peachicks, which are getting fairly big. Also, the disposition of the birds, and how protective the larger Peas are of the little ones.

I have checked on them repeatedly today, and happily, have found quite a few eggs in the coop, to the tune of half a dozen. The chickens are adapting well, and getting along fine in the coop, despite the Peafowl pecking at them and keeping them at a distance. Apart from one egg, the chickens have laid all their eggs in the nesting boxes.

Missus nor I have been feeling well today. She got some wrapping done, and I helped along with packing. She also worked on fiber and her art. I have rested mostly, apart from my runs out to the chicken coop to check the state of the birds, and a couple of other runs to get air and see how things are outside.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but hopefully we will both feel better!

Missus just reminded me she picked half a crate of llama fiber, and reminded me that she wove her first basket today, which she did really good at!

We Are Out Of Eggs

We are out of eggs, but we have chickens. Can’t beat that!

Remember the other day when I said I would take the deck off the mower and cut the weeds in the vacant llama pen? I did that today. Now I just need to take the deck off again to get the mower out again. I finished the empty pen, then opened the fence between the pens and cleared all the weeds from the pen Mystique is in. With both pens nice and clean, they look a lot better from the road, and from my point of view! Also, they are ready to take in llamas should the land over the road sell soon.

Our farmer friend forgot to come by yesterday to help me put in the water monitoring pipe I need for keeping the records on our water level under our place for the septic system. It was my fault for forgetting to put in in when we filled the test hole the other day. I will have to see if he can come by this weekend or early next week to help out, at his convenience, of course.

Walking the yard and having the stumps removed has been amazing! The yard looks so much better now! Especially where Old Blue was out front. That was a 65 foot Colorado Blue Spruce that left a large stump out front. Now it is just a bad memory. It was too big a tree to have that close to the house!

The young peacocks are growing just fine so far. They are about seven or eight inches long, and learning to do a little flying now. I cannot tell the gender yet, but they both have crest feathers sticking up on their heads. They are still too small for me to put the chickens back in with them. Who knows, maybe the chicks would leave them alone just as they do the partridge, but I cannot risk it. I don’t want to end up with one being pecked to death! When they are about the size of the chickens, I will probably give it a go. I want the chickens back in their coop by Autumn, or mid Autumn, well before winter. It’d be nice to have the new flock laying in their laying boxes, rather than on the ground.

That’s about all for now. See you again real soon!