March

Time sure has a way of just flying by. It is now the first part of March. Soon it will be a whole year since Connie passed. And so much has changed. Sometime maybe I will grow philosophical and spill feelings, but not today.

A couple of stray dogs came thru on Sunday while no one was here and killed a half dozen of my chickens. Hens at that, not any of the extra roosters I seem to have. They also tore into my old Red Tom. Ripped all his tail feathers off and tore up his back some. I thought he would recover, but he didn’t. Monday I watched over him and thought he was doing ok. When I came to let the birds out Tuesday morning he was dead in the coop. Honestly I think there was some fighting going on in the coop during the night among the toms, and he lost. Literally. When everyone is healthy they all seemed to get along just fine. Even the new toms got along with the old one. But injure one of them and they all seem to want to eliminate the weakness. The Red tom came out of the coop the next day and they had him penned under the porch, so I put him in the garden away from everyone else. And there were issues when I put them away, but thought I’d separated them enough. Or hoped that out of sight would be out of mind once they each went to their own spots for the night. Well, I’ll know better next time. Just not sure where I could have put him and kept him secure from the coons too.

Had a big cold front blow thru the other day. It was 70 degrees during the day, then that night a cold front came ripping thru. Winds up to 70mph And large hail and the temp dropped to the mid 20's. There were reports of funnel clouds but no confirmed tornadoes on the ground. We didn’t get any damage luckily. The strange part was that the next morning it appeared to be raining mud. The NWS said it was dust from west Texas and New Mexico caused by a drought there and the winds aloft carried it here. Made the cars and windows nasty.

On 28 Feb put the 2 turkey eggs and the 2 goose eggs I had in the incubator along with about 25 chicken eggs. The geese eggs are a week or so old and the turkey eggs are probably older than that. Wasn’t sure what else to do with them, and if they develop they do, and if not, no real loss. Most of them I plan to sell. This year we are going to attend some poultry swap meets and try to sell chicks, mostly the turkeys. I’ll hatch as many as I can, and then sell as many of those as I can. Less money invested in chicks, less risk of injury or loss to predators and I think a higher return on my investment. More so because I’ll be hatching my own eggs. I sold some poults in December for $7.50 each. And only got $20 each for grown birds that I had fed all summer, so do the math and figure it out. At least that is the plan. We’ll see how it goes. And even if I get less for them, still coming out ahead. And I’ll keep enough to eat and sell a few this fall. Also plan to get a few Broad Breasted Bronze birds for canning. We really like the turkey and dumplings. And there are other uses for it. And we’ll share some with family, too.

I also put seeds to sprout. Have some in containers and others in wet paper towels to sprout, then I’ll plant them. Not sure exactly where the garden will be this year, but starting to get a jump on things early this year. Have a lot of marigolds started to plant around the garden, too. And herbs. Hoping to grow just a lot of herbs this year. Some of them I may try to sell fresh, see if there is a market for that. Other I’ll use fresh myself or dry to use later. I have cilantro, rosemary, thyme, sage and oregano, and 2 or 3 different types of Basil. And 2 or 3 types of tomatoes. Hoping to grow a lot of corn and more potatoes this year also. And with a little work should be able to get some strawberries, finally. Part of it is taking care of them, feeding and weeding them, the other part is keeping the birds and varmints out of them. Things like Raccoons and ground hogs. Had several ground hogs that moved in the last year or two. Got some of them, but haven’t been able to get all of them. Maybe this year. Had one pesky one last year ate all my tomatoes and pumkins and watermelons. In fact, he ate just about everything in the garden.

Drew and Frances have moved into their own place in Louisburg, and Jeanne and I are getting things moved in here and getting ready for us to move. And trying to go thru things in the process. We got the Washer and Dryer hooked up today and did the first loads of laundry here. Need to get a clothes line put up again, with more lines on it, for this summer. Help cut down on the dryer bill.

As we get moved out here and begin spending more time, I’ll be able to post on here more often.