Wednesday, June 29

From the Brew House

Mick bottled 13 gallons of homebrew today!

That's 10 gallons of cider and 3 gallons of blackcap wine.

Testing the leftovers that didn't fit into bottles
is an important aspect of quality control.

Bottoms up!

Saturday, June 25

We got our green room back!!!!

When last seen, this room was populated by a handful of geese and an unlucky number of ducklings. But since all the birds have moved up to the hill, this week we cleaned up the green room! It is so much bigger than we remember. :) Considerably quieter, cleaner, and better-smelling too. We are so happy to have our room back, and CLEAN!

Feeding and Digging and Caulking

As a follow-up to the last post, here is a video of feeding time for the birds, so you can see and hear a bit of the circus! This particular feeding time followed a very rainy afternoon, which is why the chickens are conspicuously absent (mostly) -- they had holed themselves up in the tractor. The rain doesn't faze the waterfowl at all though!


Mick snapped back from his sickbed and dug all three post holes for the second fence corner. I can't believe how deep he is able to dig these holes! The ground seems to have stages of "easy-to-dig" and "hard-to-dig", and once he works past a "hard-to-dig" part, he likes to keep going for a couple of inches. I believe this particular corner post hole he dug over 4' deep!

The picture doesn't even show you the bottom of the hole. Wouldn't want to fall into that! But it is neat to see all the different layers of soil and rock. This corner post was particularly tall -- 9.5' feet or so, I believe.

That's your before picture. Then Mickey drops the post into the hole...


And here's your after picture.

This will be quite a sturdy fence, don't you think?!

Mick has also been busy at the trailer. He cut out the rotting front of our tub (we'll never know why someone thought it was a good idea to put a non-waterproof material in front of a bathtub!) and replaced it with some actual backsplash that we found on clearance at Valu Home Center.

He recaulked the whole thing, and we even bought a new shower head!

So Martha, if you visit again, it won't feel quite as much like being at camp... :)

Friday, June 17

Chickens and Goslings and Ducks, oh my!

This week we set our birds up with a larger pen in a new location (on the east side of the food forest). Our Khaki Campbell ducklings are scheduled to move up tomorrow, but in the meantime, our chickens, goslings, and older flock of ducks seem to be settling into their new home.

The ducks wash up after supper, while the goslings clean up after them.

And if you lift up the corner of the plastic that serves as the temporary roof for the chicken tractor...

Surprise! The hens love it under there, made themselves a nest -- and saved (or at least delayed) us the trouble of fixing up a proper nest box for them!

Wednesday, June 15

Mid-June Update

We are amazed by our meadow this year. All of Mick's mowing last summer seems to have suppressed the goldenrod and allowed the flowers (not to mention the strawberries!!) to flourish.

Hawkeye / Devil's paintbrush

Red clover, complete with pollinator.

Also enjoying our meadow are the goslings, who have taken the big step and moved up to the hill! They are enjoying the great outdoors. (Actually, they are a little too adventurous and got away from their ma yesterday... talk about a wild goose chase!)

Our three flocks of birds seem to be co-existing more or less peacefully.

And happy chickens = eggs in an assortment of shapes, sizes, and colours (generally averaging about 2 a day) [My physics husband gives me an award for vaguery for typing "generally averaging about 2-3" - is that redundant or something?]

In other news, FedEx delivered us some esprit de corps tonight.

Wednesday, June 8

Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three lambs full! (and boy, do they baa!)

We brought home our three Shetland lambs on Tuesday. A black horned ram, and two polled ewes. They are beautiful! They handled the car ride well, (the car handled the sheep riding in it well), and the sheep seem to be adjusting to being part of our family.

Our other arrival this week: Mick is back home! He dived right into working on the cabin... without even changing his clothes (sort of).

Body armor and all, he cut and laid out...

caulked...

and screwed the first three courses of loft subflooring!

By the end of the day, he was two-thirds done! (more than is shown in this picture)

In other news this week, the goslings and ducklings graduated to grass and clover.

And the ducks enjoy their favorite watering hole (a puddle in our future yard).

Stay cool!

Thursday, June 2

A few of my favorite things

buttercups and clover

daisies

asparagus and rhubarb

thyme
[entered our lives 2 years ago as a twig from Cacie]

blackberry

blueberry

ducklings and goslings

ducks

...and a dog

blue skies

storm clouds

sunsets

headed home at the end of the day, in neutral, no traffic
[plenty of time to grab the camera and snap a picture]

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.