Moving Day

I went about my normal routine that I do every weekend.   I am always up by 630am if not earlier, the product of having to get up at 4am every day during the week.  I do my thing and head out to the chickens.  I give both the old hens and the babies scratch grains and we all chat about what is new and the latest gossip.

I got around to the babies nursery building and I peeked in and what do you know....way in the back of the  nursery I spied this:

Well this sparked  a whole laundry list of things to do!  I had to call the U-Haul company, call the phone, water, and TV companies to have service stopped.  So much to do!  I had to scramble eggs!  So much to do so little time.  Not to mention it is hotter than all get out.

I finished chatting with the chickens and hand feeding them some grass and then headed inside to start things rolling.

I  cooked up a little more than a dozen eggs.  Why you may ask?  There is a good reason.  I gave the older hens the scrambled eggs to fill their bellies (ok ok their gizzards) with protein.  This will discourage pecking when we integrate the babies into the big coop with them.  The eggs and protein also  seem to make the hens a little more docile and easier going.  This will help the introduction go smoother.

I woke up my hubby, and son and had a good breakfast, while we talked about how to move the babies with as little trauma  as possible.  We devised and plan and out the door we went.  First we had to get all the babies into their nursery.  Then we had to keep them there while we closed off their pop door.  To do this we just stapled some chicken wire over the pop door opening.  Then I picked up all the bricks holding down the big blue tarp and took out all the stuff from inside their nursery.

Together the three of us slowly picked up the nursery and we walked it to a new location out of the mud and chicken poo.  The babies were not too cooperative so we decided not to try to walk them around to the big coop door as we had planed.  Instead we took off the top of the nursery and I started grabbing birds.  I would quickly grab a chicken and hand her off to my Son who would carry her over to the coop where Hubby was manning the door.  We did this over and over, one by one, chicken by chicken for all 25.  It took some time and I only got pooped on once, and bit once.  Not too bad considering I was really scaring them.  No chickens (or people) were harmed during this process.  Although, I was wing slapped in the face a few times.  Thankfully I did not loose my glasses!

Once we had them all in the main run, I filled their waters while the boys mixed their feed.  Just like changing a dog's food you want to mix the old with the new  - we had to mix the chick feed with the layer feed.  I then slowly corralled all the birds from the run into the coop, and we shut the pop door for about an hour.  Since our babies were used to using a pop door they knew how it worked and knew that beyond the pop door was either shelter or a yard depending which way they were going.

They were hot and they duked it out a little bit but all in all the hour they were locked in together with the old hens seemed to go well.  While they were locked up, we quickly dismantled the nursery and set the pieces behind the coop to wash off in the rain - should we get any- and to get it out of the site of the babies.  Out of site out of mind.  They will forget they had a different home and will only know their new home as their only home.  We left the fencing up for now.  It was too hot by this time and I was melting into a gross puddle in my insulated boots.

We also found out that our one mystery chick in indeed a roo.  He has been crowing for a few weeks now.  He is aggressive when I had feed them grass but he has not tried to attack - yet.  He seemed pretty docile when I grabbed him to move him.  Maybe he will be a nice roo.....hey a girl can hope!

Now I have to find some of the golf balls we have laying around to put in the nest boxes.  Why golf balls you ask?  Well the golf balls with look like eggs to the chickens and it will teach the babies where to lay their eggs - in the nest boxes.  It works quite well.  This way using golf balls I can keep collecting the eggs several times a day so they don't get trampled but still leave a visual learning aid for the new hens.

 I only have one new hen laying so far but the rest will start soon.  This is kinda early for them.  We got these peeps April 4, 2011, and today July 31, 2011, 3.5 months later, they are starting to lay.  The new eggs will be pretty tiny bit totally whole.  Soon they will start laying huge eggs and double and triple yolks while their bodies figure things out and they settle into a laying routine.  Now a new issue starts for me - soon I will be getting up to 32 eggs A DAY!  I need to order some egg cartons....and make a sign for the road.....and buy a bigger fridge...make more cookies, cakes, and goodies.  oh my.

Tutorial: How to make a quick and easy Party Favor

Head on over to the Craft Corner section of my blog to get the complete direction on how to make this super easy and cost effective party favor!  This party favor would work for any occasion - wedding, bridal shower, baby shower, birthday, anniversary party - any gathering that you would want to have a party favor on hand for the guests.  Check it out!

Garden in Full Swing

We have been in a serious heat wave dry spell here in these parts.  We have been having to water the gardens every night to keep them going.  It takes about an hour to water every garden that we have.  That is a lot of water.  I am afraid to open my water bill when it comes!  But the up side to it all is that the gardens are doing well and we are getting 2 squash/zucchini a day....a all new problem!

The onions are shouldered up and out of the dirt and starting to die off.  Soon it will be time to pull them and let them dry before bagging them up in net bags.

The cabbages have seen better days.  I started manually inspecting them and picking the worms off of them.  That has seemed to help.  I have spray for them but I am not too keen on using it.  If the cabbage does not work out the chickens will get a wonderful treat.  The LOVE cabbage and a cabbage infested with bugs is even all the better for them.

Our green beans are not looking too hot.  They are supposed to be bush beans but they seem to be falling all over themselves.  I doubt we will get enough for a meal let alone can, but the bunny gets them as a treat.  Not much goes to waste even the low output veggies.

We have a total of 6 garden tanks, 2 veggie plots, and the berry patch.  The tanks are old fuel oil tanks that have been cut in half and put up on cinder blocks.  We use a mixture of mushroom mulch, compost, top soil, peat, and cow manure to fill the tanks.  Things generally do really well in them.  This year things are really dry so the tanks dry out quicker and it takes its toll on the plants.

In the ground plots we have yellow and green zucchinis, green peppers, butternut squash, corn, pumpkins, and a variety of tomatoes.  They are doing fairly well given the lack of water and sweltering temperatures.  I picked 2 grape tomatoes the other day and they were a yummy tease of what is to come!  I can't wait until they really get rolling.

The corn is kinda goofy.  We planted 2 different kinds of corn.  1 kind came up really well and the other stuff did a sporadic growth pattern.  We did not expect much out of this garden plot, as we are still trying to fortify the lack of dirt in our yard with litter from the chicken coop.

We have tied aluminum pie tins in the corners of the garden plots to keep the critters out.  It seems to be working pretty good so far.

Although this one was looking for a way into the garden!

The chickens are not happy with us.  We have not let them out to free range in a while.  We have to get the tomatoes fenced in so they do not eat them all.  If we were to let them out now they would go straight to the garden and eat everything there!  I have read about painting rocks the colors of the veggies and placing them around the garden.  That way the chickens will peck at the rocks - get bored with the garden as soon as they figure out there is nothing but painted rocks in it.  I have not tried this - I may, we have a rock or 2 laying around.

The fruit trees are not fairing too well in the hot dry weather either.  We had all kinds of fruit in the spring but most of it has dried up.  We have some apples.

Some Peaches:

And some Pears yet on the trees.

We water them as well but it does not look like they will amount to anything.  Maybe next year.

While I was in Omaha...

We have this thing with Cabelas Stores.  We really like them.  Cabelas is a huge sporting goods store that has something for everyone.....shoes, clothes, camping gear, housewares, dog stuff, bullets, guns, bows, on and on.  We have 2 that are fairly close to us - within a 3 hour drive, and we visit them at least once a year. We have decided that we want to try to visit all the Cabelas stores we can and get a coffee mug from each place.  Each store carries the same style of coffee mug but their location is printed on the inside upper ridge of the mug.  So we obviously have one from Hamburg, PA and also Wheeling, WV, the stores closes to us.

I was told there was one right handy Omaha and I had to check it out.  I googled it after work one day while I was out there and sure enough it was a 15 minute drive from where I was.  I decided to go for it and away I went.  I have to say I have driven on all kinds of roads and crammed interstates, but I have to say this short stretch of I-80 to get from Omaha to La Vista was totally INSANE!  I just held on tight to the wheel and dove right in to the crazy traffic and tried to not stay in an exit lane...which there were a lot of.  I managed to make it to Cabelas in one piece and without too much difficulty.  From the time I parked I started taking pictures.

Each Cabelas has their own sculpture that is unique to that store.  The La Vista store had a small sculpture of 2 deer.  Very nice I thought but not as big as I was expecting.  I went inside the store and was shocked at how small this store was.  The Hamgurg, PA store is one of the largest stores.  It was nice and easy to get around.

Each Cabelas also has the 4 seasons mountain in the middle of the store.  On this mountain you can find all kinds of critters and as you walk around it the seasons change as do the animals depicted.  Sorry animal rights folks - this is a hunting store and yes the animals all through the store are stuffed real animals that were killed one way or another.

I made a loop through the store and located the housewares department and picked up the coveted mug.  My boys at home will be happy.  I continued through the store and finally checked out.  Back into my rental car and away I zoomed to jump back into the crazy traffic back into the big city of Omaha.

I think I was gone a total of about an hour.  That is a pretty short time to get to a Cabelas, walk all the way through it, and get back 'home'.  I think my grocery store at home is bigger than this place was.  I will not  complain though - I was there, got picture and a mug to prove it and that is all that counts in our book!

If I get the chance to get back out to Nebraska again I may have time to get out to another of their Cabelas stores.  I think Nebraska has 3 different Cabelas stores.  MAybe someday we will have complete set of mugs from each store....someday. :o)

Business trip to Omaha, NE

I had to go on a business trip for week.  My work sent me to Omaha, Nebraska for a week.  I was so apprehensive about going.  See, I am not a good lone traveler.  Had I been going with someone else I would be fine, but that is not how my day job works.  I had to go alone.  So I stared at a map for 3 days before I had to leave and made lists of lists of stuff I had to pack, etc.  One thing I did pack was the GPS out of my car.  I thought I would be smart and take it to help me get around the big unknown city of Omaha.  Little did I know, my GPS gets confused very easily!  It tried to get me to turn left directly into a stadium wall.  It had me going in circles.  Turns out it does not work so well when it is laying on the passenger's seat or sitting on my knee.  No.....  I had to actually hold the stupid thing at the steering wheel for it to work correctly.  It finally got me where I needed to go and that is all that mattered.

I flew from Pennsylvania to Detroit, Michigan, then on to Omaha, Nebraska.  I can say it was a pleasant set of flights.  My seat partners were very nice and we chatted the time away.  When I landed at Detroit I was at the complete opposite end of the airport as my connecting flight.  Ugh...I hurried up and hoofed it for miles and miles as I made my way through this really cool tunnel.  There is 2 sets of moving walkways and whole thing is has this really cool lighting.

As I was making my way through the tunnel it suddenly starting playing music and the lights changed colors!  I was impressed with the whole thing.  I wanted to stay there and watch it more but I had a connection to get to.  Yes I am easily amused.

I kept making my way through the airport and finally found my next gate.  I only had about 20 minutes to wait until I was being herded onto my next flight.  Off to Omaha I went.  The flight was pleasant and soon we were landed and confusion set in trying to figure out where to pick up the luggage.  They never did say what carousel we were to go to.  Eventually I found my bag and off I went to get my car.  More walking and walking and walking.  It was a lot hotter in Omaha than it was back in PA that is for sure!  I got my car squared away and off I went with my confused GPS.

In my misdirected drive I managed to pass some really cool statues and hoped to get back down to see them some time during my stay.  The only problem was, I had no clue where these statues were in order to find them again!

I managed to finally get turned in the right direction and eventually found my hotel at 10:00 at night.  I was tired and hungry and wanted to get to my room and collapse, however my room key did not work and back down I had to go to get new keys.  I could not crash right away as I had to help my son with some last minute homework.  It ended up I was still awake at 2am helping him!

I was up surprising early considering how I did not get much sleep.  I was ready to start my work and get  going.  I found the work building and my point of contact and dove right in!  It was a very busy week and I put in a lot more than my required 9 hrs doing my job.  That is ok, I love what I do now, and it was to help that site in the long run.  My point of contact was very nice and we hit it off very well.  It really helped me feel at ease there and really do a my job well.

It was so very hot on Omaha!  While I was there it was something like 105 or more.  There was a breeze, and that really helped.  I decided after work - on the hottest day - to go wandering around in the city.

I drove into the city and found a 24 hour parking garage.  I took my ticket and parked, and left - leaving my parking ticket in my car.  I set out on foot to explore the city and find those statues again and meander around the 'Old Market' area.  I walked and walked and walked, and walked some more!  Good thing I changed into my sneakers!  I found what I was looking for finally.

The first thing I found was pioneer courage.  This is a set of sculptures depicting a wagon train going west.  Some are smiles and happy.

Others were facing challenges, such as dealing with ornery animals.

Or dealing with a stuck wagon in the mud.

As the story goes the wagon train spooks a heard of buffalo and they charge through the city.

I followed the buffalo up the street and took some really cool pictures.

The detail is amazing.

The buffalo then in turn spook a flock of geese on a pond.

The 'pond' has fountains under the wings of the geese to make it look like they are disturbing the water as they take off.

I then made my way back down to where I started and seen a cool building.  I made my way down to it and also found the Baseball stadium.  This is the home of the college world series.

The other building was after was called the Quest.  This was some sort of entertainment arena where they have concerts and whatnot.

I found the really cool statues and a really big clock!

I did not realize that was a clock until I stared at it for a while.  Yep I was wondering around a city at 7:30 at night.

At this point I decided I was really hot and needed to make my way back up to the 'old Market' area and find something for dinner.

I found my way to the old market area and was amused *again* to see carriage rides in the city.

The brick streets reminded me of my husband's home town.  At this point I was melting and found a place to eat.  I returned to the parking garage where I parked my car and I could not figure out how to get in to it!  I finally read the sign and started to panic when I read that you were to take your parking ticket with you in order to scan into the main lobby to get to your car.  If you did not take your ticket with you - you need to call some transit authority - but they did not give you a number to call!  I was a complete mess at this point.

I had no way to get to my car....no number to call anyone....and it was going on 930 at night.  I was just about ready to curl up into the fetal position and cry myself into a coma when I seen a lady heading to the door.  Praise the Lord!!  I was saved!  I groveled to her to let me piggy back into the garage with her.  Thankfully she let me.  I was paying my parking bill and along came 2 other people who did the same thing I did and they were locked out.  I let them in so they did not panic.

I got back to my hotel room and wrung out my clothes from sweat, showered and passed out.  What a day!  The next day I was equally as adventurous but on foot this time.  Seems Omaha has all kinds of random sculptures all over the place.

I walked around a place called Askerben Village.  It has a serious Harry Potter sound to it but definitely was nicer than that prison in the movie :o)  There was even a movie theater.  It would have been funnier if a Harry Potter movie was showing....oh well.

This was in front of the Blue Cross Blue Shield building.  Can you see the swimmers in it?

These were random sculptures around the college of St. Mary.

I have to say I don't think I have seen some many college/universities in one place as Omaha has.