Now for a New Chicken House!!!

Class is for the most part done!!!  There may be some final edits to the technology plan, but that is it!

Now for a chicken coop.  I vowed not to use the 30 year old tool shed for a coop.  I'd like to use strawbales if I can make a strong enough fortress.  I found a link that is pretty nice.  Recycle the straw bales from year to year for garden mulch.  Great idea. What ever it is, it needs to be raccoon proof.  I think I will evaluate all the crap laying around.  I think I can use the old laundry poles for the frame and to support the roof.  I'd love to have an egg box so I don't really have to crawl in there, but it is good to know how it is inside the coop!!!  I guess I've already made friends with the black snakes this year. 

Look at this site.  I think this is the best idea so far.  Kinda ugly, but I like the idea of mulching each year's straw in July when things get hot. 


Here's a dream strawbale house. 

Watering

Moving on up....

To the top
to a deluxe
Apartment in the skyy yy yy yy!!!!

I've had a new fridge for several months, I just did not hook up the water in fear of creating a huge leak!  I recently have been able to stay home and fix things. 

This is the cheap tubing that may have been $14.00

You simply attach the connector and screw it in.  It makes the hole all on its own.

My first information literacy tutorial video!

These are the xtranormal bears.  They use minimal points on your account.  For an assignment in class, here's my first tutorial.  I hope to make more for college library websites.  Click on the link to learn how to create a Gmail account.

Now Can I get on the Facebook?

Silver Vibe 35

You can learn anything on YouTube!!!! 

I've been studying how to change the motor mount.  I had to save some money from the car shop.  Sorry, Tom and Kris, I just gotta cut the fat.  I hope your JC Auto is still full of business!

I was teased about the vibrations in my Focus.  Thus, it was named the Silver Vibe 35!  Now, I need to find a new name.  It runs nice and smooth!!!!

100 Degrees Plus

Pop Can Fishing

A Visit to a Critter Farm

So the other day, I was lonely from working in the garden without my chickens when I ran out of straw for mulching.  I took a drive down the road to the self-service straw cart to pick up a few bales.  This is where I met Farmer Fred.  After some short critter talk, he asked, "Would you like to come up and see my farm?" I followed him up to a beautiful critter farm.  He was a real old time cowboy.

I first met the guineas in the trees outside the limestone stable.  Then the chickens.  One chicken was the tattle tail and spoiled rotten!

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This is the boss (the one with a big nose)

Relief, not Vengeance.

The Effects of a Nemotode

The sawyer beetle is named for the sound of it eating the wood.  I heard it last night walking past a scotch pine in the front yard. It sounds like tiny saws echoing through the pine.

Inside its guts lives a nematode who gets excreted then travel through the tree.  It lives in the roots and cuts off the water.supply killing the scotch or Scots pine.  It has now killed two libraries pines which were not supposed to be suseptable. 

The front yard has 7 more trees to remove.  Slowly and surely they go to the burn pile.

When asked how I work out, I do so by carrying tree after tree, twice. The first time is to the trailer.  The second time is to the burn pile.

Someday, when you drive into the yard, you will only see healthy beautiful trees.

Westar's Green Team Flowers

I enjoyed the gardens while walking the other day at Lake Shawnee.

In early May, Barb texted saying the Green Team needed volunteers!  Off on a mission!  It was a chance to plant with the professionals.

Barb carries flats to be separated and planted.  

This is my sister, Barb, who always has great ideas!

Westar's Green Team members get dirty.

Shawnee Lake has three botanists who oversee greenhouses and the gardens.

I didn't get to help for long, but I sure had fun.

They are a wall of flowers now!

Just a Crack

It was just a crack that a possom  came in and attacked my flock of friends.

They kept me company doing all kinds of duties around the house.  

They were funny

and beautiful.

Just coming of age

I was left with one, which is not a flock.

I had to find her a new flock next door.

Cleve and Bambi

Poor Man's Entertainment Center

I was in my study room when I had a visitor.  It was the little boy finch.  He didn't say anything, but he came closer and closer.  Then he came closer still. 


The finches don't come and visit at the other windows.  A cardinal used to.  Dad used to have a cardinal that came to the big kitchen window years ago.  The window was dirty from Pretty Bird trying to get close to him.  Dad used to call outside the door, "Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird." The male cardinal would come around.  Soon, it would hover at the window swiping the glass with its feet and wings.  Then, it would follow his voice to all the rooms that had a phone outlet. The cardinal stayed a couple years. 

I still feed the birds. My dad called the bird feeders a Poor Man's Entertainment Center. I have baking pans on stands outside the windows.

I checked the finch feeder and it was low.  I guess the little boy was the messenger letting me know the seed was low.  I love to hear their, "tweet, tweeeeeeeeeeeeet!" So I am off to find their bag of seed.

Hoping for next year's poppies

I started my seed sorting this morning.  I brought in hollyhocks, cone flower, snow peas, and poppy seeds pods.  Each week, something new is in bloom.  In late April & early May, the poppies are glorious! So beautiful and proud!  The poppies bloom right before Mother's Day/Haskell Graduation Powwow Weekend.  My mom started these beauties decades ago.  I know the whole family loved seeing them bloom. 

Poppies, May 

This year, I took naps by them as I read homework and enjoyed picnics near them.






Today I collected their seeds and spread some throughout the poppy bed in hopes of next year's batch.

Tiny seeds.  I'd love to have a microscope.