We decided to let our chickens free range for a bit, so we let them out of the chicken tractor for a couple of hours before dark. When we came back to check on them, all 17 were dead. Hard lesson on country living. Something appeared to have shaken them enough to break their necks and left them there...no blood or anything. Sad day. While we weren't as attached to these chickens as we were to our KC chickens, we feel like bad shepherds, we didn't do enough to protect them. Lucy took great care of the chickens early every morning before school and she is ready to go to chick days this Saturday to try out a few more...stay tuned... |
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We have had our cistern plumbed to the house and it is awesome to have running water. All was going well on the cistern front, until one night when we had a bit of a mud slide behind our house. We have a slope behind our house from when they excavated to create a level space in the hill for our home. There must be some big roots or rocks in the area of the slope behind the cistern because it holds water and it constantly a mosh pit. Well one night during a rain, it slid down and some of the mucky water went into our cistern via the overflow hole that we hadn't done anything with yet. It created 4,000 gallons of murky water. Dave pulled out a pitcher of water and set it on the counter so we could watch it and see when the water was settling in the cistern. After a week or 10 days, the water in our pitcher (and in the cistern) hadn't begun to settle out yet. With rain in the forecast for the following day, we decided to empty 4,000 gallons of water. The pump ran most of the day - and eventually broke...but the great folks at Patchen, they fixed it, still under warranty. We had to empty the last several hundred gallons of water by hand (since the pump is designed not to get too close to the bottom). Dave was 10 feet under ground in the cistern and would pass a bucket of water up to Erin standing on the extension ladder, and she would pass the bucket up to Lucy on the top of the cistern who would throw it off the side...whew...it was a lot of work. But by 10:30 pm, Dave was using the shop vac to sweep out all the last bit of murky water. A big shout out to our very strong girl, Lucy! We could have never done it without her help. And you might be wondering about Oscar, well that evening was the most studious we have ever seen that child...homework, you know, was his priority.
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AuthorErin and Lucy Schmidt Archives
June 2016
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