Friday, February 1, 2008

Plans for the weekend

It's Friday already and the day to look at the weekend "to-do" list for any materials that we might need from town. It rained last night and a wee bit this morning so a good time to go in for groceries and bits. First on the list is to carefully, oh very carefully cut Frank's right horn tip back. The poor guy, his horn is growing right up against his face. I have to find something extremely thin but hard to slide between the horn and his eye to protect him and then we'll try using the dremel with a cutting disc. When we get that done I'll be ready for a strong cup of tea! Then on to much less stressful activities. I have put in the T-posts for the new bunny pad, so now with Bob's muscle power we can roll out and tension the welded wire to enclose a 15'x50' area. This area will then be divided in half because unfortunately most boy bunnies fight each other and certainly Ranger and Mr. Bunny are no exception! So each guy will have 15x25' of romping around space. But before they go in there I also will have to set in edging material to keep them from digging out - no matter the space this is what they'll do, especially Ranger. Ranger's current home will become the chick condo for the batch of chicks I'm ordering this month.
We won't be done fencing yet tho, the garden area still needs it's final and last side done and then a centre section so that the chickens will be in one area and those tempting veggies protected in the other. Normally we let the hens wander at will but occasionally I need an area that confines them so I can do seeding of the pastures. Clover seed would be awfully expensive chicken food at almost $2 a pound! To say nothing of the work discing and spreading it. So in this 40x50' area they'll have to stay for a couple of weeks until the clover comes up.
And more fencing! We also need to move the sheep over from their current field so that this clover can be spread, this means fencing in the front area. Last year we were able to use the electro netting but unfortunately Mr. Darcy and his sister Emma have discovered you don't get shocked if you go under the very bottom. It is amazing how narrow a spot these fat, woolly yearlings can wiggle under & thru. So it will be driving in more T-posts and setting up field fencing. Oh, yes building a gate too. I should do a piece on gate building since I've got it done to almost a science now. Well all of this sounds like a couple of weekends work but we'll plug along and see come Sunday evening how far we got. Certainly Bob is always happy to go back to work on Monday so he can rest! Here's hoping you have a productive and fun weekend too!

2 comments:

Breezy said...

I envy you working outside! Here, we've still got snow and freezing temps. It'll be April before the ground starts to thaw.

Hope your weekend went well!

Liese said...

Hi Breezy, The joys of the Piedmont in NC, clear, sunny days mostly 4-50* almost all winter long. We'll have a week now and then of less than and like this week temps will rise into the 50-60's. As a former Michigander I don't dread winters like I used to.