Chain Saw

While we were cutting down the trees, had a problem with the chain saw. Bent the bar tensioning nut. Went to the store to try to get a new one, and ordered the screw thinking it came as a set. Wrong. Got just the screw. The part I needed wasn't listed. So the called tech and they said they thought ti came as a unit. Duh! They didn't have a listing either, and seems the company that made this one, about 3-4 years ago, was bought out last year, and like good business people, they don't have any anything from before that. Way to go guys!
So I brought in the chain saw, and she said, OH I've got one like that. So we took a part from another chain saw type and it fit. $1.37 and I was good to go, no thanks to the manufacturer.
Now all I need to do is fix the extension cord I chewed up with the saw!!!

Wild turkeys.

Came home from working over nights the other day and was wandering around the yard when all of a sudden several turkeys flew up. One went one way and the others went the other way. My birds don't fly quite like that, so right off I'm thinking wild turkeys. Turned out there were about 5 of them. Young juveniles. Saw them out in the chicken yard clucking at the lost one. Then again this morning while I was out int the tomatoes, I heard turkey noises and looked over and sure enough, there were the wild ones again, trying to figure out how to get through the fence. Fly over is how, pretty sure that is how they got in.

More Babies!!!

Had 7 turkeys hatch on 23 July, 4 reddish ones and 3 blacks ones. Chickens are due to hatch today, and so far 5 have hatched.
Fred and company, the peafowl and 5 turkeys, have been going outside each day and back inside to the box each night. Trying to get the acclimated to the rest of the birds so I can out them in the coop at night. With the new babies here, I need to push them to the next level and getting them out of the house is that step. The big birds love to pick on Fred though, so not sure what to do about that until he gets bigger. And it could be 2 years before we know for sure if it is a he or she. Still better than Yaco, Had her for 16 years and still not sure. Not sure I want or need to know either at this point.
The garden is starting to do good. Getting tomatoes, and the beans are starting to come in. The pole beans are so much better than the bush beans. Need to remember that.
Also, was at Walmart the other day and they had a nice Rosemary plant for $10 so I got it. It is in a 2 gallon container it seems and turns out there are actually 3 plants in it, so I'll be dividing that soon. Plus I have several large leaf basil plants in the garden and sage that survived the winter. Was actually surprised it grew back. And Saturday I got me a German Oregano plant. I also put some more seeds out to sprout to start more plants for basil, oregano and rosemary. Need to start some cilantro also. Guess cilantro is more a cool weather crop, my tends to bolt and go to seed before I can use any of it, and then I end up buying some from the store. The whole point here is that a friend just opened a new pasts joint, and he likes my fresh herbs for cooking with. So in addition to the stuff I have been drying for my own use, I'm thinking of growing more of everything and seeing if I can't start a small scale fresh herb business. They are pretty easy to grow so far, and every one seems to love the fresh herbs in the cooking. Just an opportunity and want to see what happens with it. Not sure about pricing or any of that. Will have to research some of it.
Realized one of my chicken hens had swollen feet, and did some research and think they have some kind of leg mites. Did some checking and found some body mites also. So I need to get some kind of program going to control and eliminate them. The first step is cleaning the coop out. So last night and this morning, I did some of that. A Lot of stuff in the coop. Some of it is pretty good and spread it around int he garden. The rest of it I need to let sit and compost before I use it.
The chickens got into the garden this morning and had a feast on the tomatoes. Got almost all of the ripe ones. Think I got rid of the ground hog that was living in the garden. Time will tell.

Student Teaching

Today I got materials for student teaching in the mail. Packets that I need to give to the Host Teacher and the principal. 12 weeks of student teaching. Had a rough schedule listed for each week, telling me when my observations and reviews would happen. I’m actually excited about doing this. Yes, it is going to be a challenge and a lot of hard work. But it will also be a lot of fun and I will learn so much. I enjoy being in the school and the classroom with students. I know a lot of things about it, but being able to put it all together and do it myself will be great. The capstone event, if you will, will be that between weeks 8 and 11 some where, I will teach the entire thing for 2 weeks. I’m sure that during significant portions of that time she won’t even be in the classroom. And not just teach, but I have to some up with the lesson plans for each day. The good news is that if the schedule is the way she thought it would be, we will have 7th grade science all day, and not little of this and some of that. What that means is that there are 8 periods in each day, and one of them is planning period. So for the 7 periods I have to teach each day, I only need one lesson plan, because each class will be the same subject and get to follow the same schedule. And even if one get ahead or one falls behind some, they will still be the same plans, just on different days. But will work hard to make sure that they all are doing the same thing each day.
Secretaries come back the first of August, so that is when I’ll call and make an appointment to go see the principal, Mr. Nimmo and talk to him about plans and schedules. And try to get in touch with Mrs. Jackson and determine what she wants me to do and what she is willing to allow me to do. Part of me wants to jump right in and see if I can make a go of it. The more rational part of me wants to just watch and learn what I can first. But either way, at some point I’m going to have to swim on my own, right?

2 New turkeys

Had 3 eggs that were due to hatch the 18th. 2 slate turkey eggs and 1 goose egg. Looks like the Spanish Black was the dad. Both hatched with no problems and are looking pretty good. Put them in a box in the living room this morning. When I got home from work tonight, decided to crack open the goose egg and see what was going on there. Had a few eggs that got all the way there and then died before they could hatch. Wasn’t sure what I would find, but knew enough to know how to go about it and have an understanding of what I was looking at. Still wasn’t prepared for what I got. Looked like it had started to develop and that is why it candled and I kept it. But some where along the line it died and what was in it was a green soupy crap that stunk REALLY BAD!!! Gagged and thought I was gonna hurl! Had to light the incense to cover it up.
I have some more that are due to hatch next week. Each week until 2 August I have some due. There are 9 more turkey eggs and about 10 chickens all together. So we’ll see what happens.

Face Book

Started a face book account the other day. Put this blog as a reference on it, so welcome to all those who have been directed to here from there. This is where I put things about my life and what goes on. Don't plan to put very much on the face book site or spend a lot of time keeping it up. So...

That said. I am trying to get in the habit of writing on here. Life has been pretty busy lately. It has been really hot. Mid 90's today with the heat index at 106.

Went out to put he chickens away the other night and found gimp dead. Think he got beat up by one of the adult turkeys. We had bound up his leg and he was learning to get around better on it. Was eating and seemed to be doing great. SO I was a little disappointed to find him dead.
Also found a few more of the babies in the bigger goose pool. Two days in a row I went out to check and found a baby red drowned in it. So I drained the pool. It was the larger of the pools, and I think what would happen is the little ones would get on the edge to drink and get knocked or scared into the pool by the geese or other big birds. Then they couldn't get out and probably suffered hypothermia before they drowned. I had a concrete block in it so they could get in and out easier, but doubt they could find it or they panicked or something. So now they have the two smaller pools, one inside their yard and one outside.
Today I opened the big door and the small door so they could all get out, but moistly so there was more air flow in the coop. With all this heat it gets way too hot in there. Need to figure out how to put a window in to for ventilation, but still be able to keep it secured so the coons can't get in it.
Speaking of which, Frances went to check last night and watched a coon walk across the yard and walk up on the deck out back. I put the grill up there over the weekend, so that could be it, or they smelled the babies that had been there or something. Didn't like her being there. Took the gun and shot at her, doubt I hit her, but scared her for sure. Hate killing them, but stay out of my yard!! And away from my birds.
Worked on the big pen I've been building since forever. Tomorrow I plan to take the peacock (Fred) and the 4 turkeys from the living room out side. It will be good for them to have the extra room and freedom, and good for us to get them out of the house. Trying to figure out how to introduce Fred to the flock. They all pick on him because he is different. He is yellow and makes a funny noise compared to them.

Well, this weekend we went and did another red-neck thing. We are planning to place the two trailers at the end of the house and make that into Drew's place. But before we could do that there was a tree at the end of the house that needed to come down. Called a tree place and they were going to charge $175 just to cut it down, $225 if we wanted him to do more. But wasn't sure he had insurance and the place we really wanted to come cut it down doesn't come this far north.


And I had the weekend off, so Drew brought a ladder home from work and we figured how to do it. Not sure which one of us did the most work, I did all the cutting, but it was pretty fun, no one got hurt and we didn't hit the house. Lol!!

We had gone out the week before and cut down some of the smaller trees and started clearing things out. Then on Friday we had quite the circus trying to tie a rope around the tree to use as leverage. Started by tying a stick to it, and then throwing it up in the tree. Didn't work well. So we got on the roof and tried throwing it from there. Drew threw and then I tried. Looks a lot easier than it is. Takes a lot of force to throw the stick very far. So we decided a brick might be better, and got a small brick and tied it instead of the stick. Eventually, Drew got it around a good enough place and we left it for the night and came back Saturday Morning to cut the tree.

Now this tree we estimated at about 70 years old, 3 feet in diameter and about 6 feet up it branched in two, and then a few feet above that one of them forked again. So there were three separate pieces we needed to cut down.

Last we moved all the vehicles and cut the last piece down. It fell next to the pile of wood chips and didn't hit any trees or any thing. Then we limbed them and dragged the trunks out to use as landscape timbers. Used a tow rope and chain to drag them and ripped the toe strap several times before we were done.


As you can see, some of the logs are pretty good sized.

We started with the one we had the rope tied around. I climbed the ladder and Drew pulled on the rope. Came down with no problems and even missed the house by a mere foot or so. That was by far the closest to the house and the one we were most worried about.

This is the tree as it looked to begin with. There are two main trunks that twist and you can see the third branch pointing almost at the camera.



We set the ladder, then I climbed up and tied it to the tree with a tow strap. They came in a package of 5 and sure come in handy for stuff like this, lol.

Then, I took the electric chain saw up with me and started making cuts.

Can't really tell in this picture, but this is the branch falling.

Me, after the cut, on my way down.

Yep, it came pretty close to the house. Closer than we had planned, but far enough away that it didn't touch anything. I mean, we hit the house several times trying to throw the brick up into it. So this was nothing!

I think we rolled it toward the house, but you get the idea here of how close it was. And this was the smallest of the branches we cut that day.

Then we cut off the piece that was toward the back of the house. It too fell with no problems and landed right about where we wanted it to.

Here you can see it starting to fall as I move away from it. Face it, they were big enough they deserved some respect, right?

You can see it laid out neatly here, away from the house and in the cleared spot we had created the week before. A lot of tree there. Then get ready for the final cut.

These last two cuts caused special problems because I needed to cut them so far above the ground, but really no way to climb up to it. So I stood on this ladder and used some wood pallets.

Here is a beautiful picture of the last one free-falling. What a bang it made! It made a near perfect fall also, missed the wood chip pile and went between it and the tree next to it. Could have gotten way with not moving any cars, but why push your luck.

No more shade, it was getting hot and there were lots of limbs on the ground. You can see how big the pile was getting.

King of the hill? Or drama King? Lastly, we cut this trunk a few inches from the ground. Couldn't quite get it free, so brought the truck around and pushed it over. Can you say RED NECK?? Now all we have to do it re-stack all the branches on the stump so we can burn them soon.