greenstorm (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greenstorm) wrote2024-06-04 11:23 am
greenstorm) wrote2024-06-04 11:23 am
(no subject)
Finally getting decompression time. Walking in the garden, eating 3-4 smallish meals a day, lying around with the cats watching America's Got Talent highlights, bringing water to the chicks.
Something down in the back garden really wants my chickens. It's tried digging into the chicken coop from multiple sides, basically tearing the insulation off the sides of the quail shed until there's only plywood left. Not sure why the dogs aren't disincentivizing it, but it might just be that it's so close to the fence and down in the back. I haven't found the tracks of whatever is doing it so I'm guessing it might be smaller than I think -- no coyote or fox trails in the grass that I can see? But who knows. The bears are awake now so it could be anyone.
I'm very glad we made that quail shed with a solid floor rather than a dirt one. It means no one can dig into it. As part of the general moving (baby chicks into quail shed, quail shed chickens into chicken coop) a couple chickens tried to sleep under the quail shed instead of being shut up in the coop for the night. I didn't see them around this morning, it being light so early, but I'm hoping they made it. Otherwise whatever it is can eat chickens whole or take them whole without much feather scatter, which is another data point.
Solly is super interested in me moving the animals. She comes and watches as I'm kneeling next to the quail shed at midnight with a broomstick trying to get the chickens out or as I'm walking the pigs around. She knows she's not allowed to chase animals so I think she's trying to figure it out. It would be nice to have a trained herding dog about one hour out of every week, but those dogs need a sense of their own presence and Solly doesn't have that very well. The other dogs know how to walk past any animal without disturbing it, she's less good at that.
It's been too wet to till even if I had the wherewithal to fix the tiller (I left gas in it over winter, it needs to be drained and refilled) but yesterday I planted a couple sour cherries and sea buckthorn and burr oaks in the upper fields. My seedling apples have almost all survived except the ones that drowned in the clay/water seep that goes down the hill across my property. I will likely start putting my tomatoes in by hand today and just deep mulching instead of tilling, though I sill need to till to get the corn in.
Ok, enough thinking. Naptime.
Something down in the back garden really wants my chickens. It's tried digging into the chicken coop from multiple sides, basically tearing the insulation off the sides of the quail shed until there's only plywood left. Not sure why the dogs aren't disincentivizing it, but it might just be that it's so close to the fence and down in the back. I haven't found the tracks of whatever is doing it so I'm guessing it might be smaller than I think -- no coyote or fox trails in the grass that I can see? But who knows. The bears are awake now so it could be anyone.
I'm very glad we made that quail shed with a solid floor rather than a dirt one. It means no one can dig into it. As part of the general moving (baby chicks into quail shed, quail shed chickens into chicken coop) a couple chickens tried to sleep under the quail shed instead of being shut up in the coop for the night. I didn't see them around this morning, it being light so early, but I'm hoping they made it. Otherwise whatever it is can eat chickens whole or take them whole without much feather scatter, which is another data point.
Solly is super interested in me moving the animals. She comes and watches as I'm kneeling next to the quail shed at midnight with a broomstick trying to get the chickens out or as I'm walking the pigs around. She knows she's not allowed to chase animals so I think she's trying to figure it out. It would be nice to have a trained herding dog about one hour out of every week, but those dogs need a sense of their own presence and Solly doesn't have that very well. The other dogs know how to walk past any animal without disturbing it, she's less good at that.
It's been too wet to till even if I had the wherewithal to fix the tiller (I left gas in it over winter, it needs to be drained and refilled) but yesterday I planted a couple sour cherries and sea buckthorn and burr oaks in the upper fields. My seedling apples have almost all survived except the ones that drowned in the clay/water seep that goes down the hill across my property. I will likely start putting my tomatoes in by hand today and just deep mulching instead of tilling, though I sill need to till to get the corn in.
Ok, enough thinking. Naptime.