Wednesday, May 4, 2011

What Wood You Have Done?

I've tried to keep a list of the little wood things I have been making.I think I had made 6 projects last week. That was my goal, but with so much going on around Good Enuf Acres(that's still in the refining stage),I'll need to do a little catch up this week.
We had a trip to the doctor yesterday morning.Pop was due his regular blood test.I had mine a few days ago,since I needed to be there that day anyway. Naturally,after we finished there, we had to eat breakfast out. That is what we generally do,if we have business away from home on any given day.Our plan was to go on to the next town and pick up a bearing for our Amish friend,John Miller's, sawmill. We called and they could not have it until Thursday,but that'll work,too,since we will be going by the doctor's office to have our tests read that day.Nevertheless, this day was nearly shot.,by the time we returned home. Pop and I stayed and chatted with the locals for awhile,which is normal for him,but I don't go with him that much for that very reason. I need to get home and get some things done.He usually stays out till noon or 1:00 chatting and visiting(he's retired,you know).Later in the day the coffee drinkers came by.One of them had a cow trying to calve and she was having some problems, so we ran back up to their place in hopes of helping.That was another chunk out of my day.But......


(7) I did work on a wood project late yesterday,but it was out of sheer necessity.
We've placed the 21 quail and 5 small chicks in their new home for awhile.That was another post that didn't get posted YET,but they have been scratching their feed out on the ground really bad. I hurried up and grabbed a few pieces of scrap lumber, and headed to the saw to make a tray to hold their feed. We have a larger tray out in the hen house for the regular chickens.I think I made mine a bit too small,and hopefully I will find time to try again today.The picture is of some wood I salvaged from my yard bench. It was one of those circular benches you see around trees.A neighbor had given it to me last year,since they no longer needed it,and you probably remember Pop mowing for me this last week while I was recuperating? He ran over the bench with the mower.But all was not lost. I have dismantled the bench and am finding lots of neat projects in which to use it.I do love wood.



It turns out the pine pieces from the bench would not work out. I tried using my handy air staple gun,but the staples I had were too short,so I tried nails(without predrilling my holes) and split the pine pieces.
Plan B...I headed to my pile of hidden barn lumber and found a few scraps to make the side boards. It worked out better. Pop ended up using his heavy duty air nailer to nail them together.Oak is really hard,you know!It'll be a nice tray for the new chicks coming on.We have a set of banties that are hatching their babies as we speak. Also, we have one of those fuzzy headed chickens setting,and is she mean,but then she is mean when she's not setting.She lays the colored eggs.Both sets of chicks will need a feeding tray..
The banties are Pop's project. He loves to mess with them a bit.We don't really need any more chickens,but I suppose there is a lot of things we don't need around here,but we'll not go there.We are getting about 8  eggs a day, and they accumulate pretty fast with only two of us, and we don't use that many.I take a few to the family on occasion. I took Mom 18 here lately. She divided them up for the my brothers and sisters that drop by for a visit,just like she use to do the Easter candy when we were young. Us married kids would usually drop by on Easter,years ago,and she'd still have little baskets of candies,divided up for each of us(and us grown and married)I guess that's a "Mom" and "Hard To Let Go" thing. Keeping chickens, for us, is more or less, a hobby.The eggs are a bonus,although he does complain about the price of feed,since they are not free range chickens.I built them a large pen so they could get to the grass,but it is now bare.I would love to move it to another location on the property,but that's not happening for awhile.



Not a very good picture,but this is my feed tray that turned out to be too small. I'll try making a bigger one today,not that they seem to care. The quail are really gentle now. I can't wait to see what they do when the weather warms up and we can take all the covers off of them. They are in a tightly mesh wired dog run They seem to enjoy it in there. They eat,drink, wallow, and sleep.Sometimes they'll get to jumping and flapping their wings,I guess wanting to fly. What else is there for a quail to do?

5 comments:

  1. You are a very busy lady. I was given some Button Quail once as a gift, they were soooo small and fragile looking.

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  2. Isn't it funny how errands can consume a whole day?
    You need a chicken mobile, I think that's what it's called or is it an egg mobile?

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  3. http://fulloflifefarm.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-eggmobile-chapter-1.html


    http://www.polyfacefarms.com/products.aspx

    Here are a few links.

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  4. I mentioned this idea to my sister a few weeks ago, and she is estatic about it. She has no husband to tell her "No,we can't do that",so I'm hoping to see hers in operation before long.

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  5. Sounds like you will have a lot of birds on your hands!

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