2010 - Day Three Hundred Eighteen...

Another day, another half-dozen eggs! Speaking of chickens...it was a pretty gloomy day here in the country, and the sun was trying to break through, but never quite made it. The girls were not very active, and they stayed inside their coop most of the morning. We did let them out about 2 o'clock, and I gathered six more eggs from them. That made thirty-nine eggs for this calendar week. I know you are all most likely bored to tears with chicken stories, but chickens are going mainstream, and there is nothing you can do about it. There was even an article about chickens in the Parade Magazine that was delivered this morning. So, get over it!

Early this morning I went out and fed the cattle and took them a fresh bale of hay. All is well on the cattle front. I need to shred the very back pasture, the grass is so high the sun (when it is out) cannot get to the ground so the grazing grass can grow. I think I will put that on my schedule for next week. Otherwise, all is well. I will need to go into Taylor as well next week, and get them some more feed; and they will get some of the winter feed that has molasses and cotton seed in it. It helps them keep warmer in the winter weather. They may even go to getting fed twice per week, it just depends on how bad the winter is.

Nature Happens! I think this is an opossum (it looks to have a tail like an opossum). I passed by this this morning when I was finished feeding the cattle, and turned around. I did not see the skeletal remains to begin with, I saw what I thought was a bunch of feathers, and it turned out to the the fur of this whatever-it-is. Just part of the life out here in the country. We have all been seeing some really big coyotes, and every now and then we will see a fox. So far we have been pretty lucky; nothing has messed with the cattle, and so far the chickens have done okay. We know things will happen, we just hate it when things do go wrong.

Okay, here is another photo of the morning glories. They have really done well this year, and this is the fourth or fifth year I have tried to get morning glories to grow. It all started with the farm in Red Rock, and the bunnies would eat the tender shoots before they would get started well. I tried that for two years before we moved here. I had a good start of morning glories going, and then one of the gardener guys could not tell the difference between a weed and morning glories, and that was the end of that. This year I have been very conscientious with these morning glories, and it has paid off nicely. I hope you like them as much as I do.

FINALLY, this is what the equipment looks like to extract honey from the comb, and to bottle it. Jody and I headed off to Konrad's warehouse this afternoon, and we bottled another thirty bottles of honey. That makes thirty-three bottles (a half-pound each) of honey from our hives. We only took about 10% of the combs from each hive, so they will have plenty of food to get them through the winter. We will probably do another pull in January, and then another later in the spring. We expect to get about two-hundred-pounds of honey out of the hives before May of next year, and then we should get more in the fall. Incredible!

Deeds, Actions, Changes, NATURE, Kindnesses, Whirled Peas, FUN!