For those of you not familiar with life in the rural South, or at least around these parts of Georgia, your water comes from not just a well, but one with an exposed (to the weather) tank in the yard somewhere.
A brief history lesson on the well for this farm. 15 or so years ago, not long after Neta and I were married, we came down for a family visit. The first night I became very ill, from both ends to put it mildly. The next trip it happened again. I wasn't eating or drinking anything different than anyone else in the family. Why was I the only one getting sick?
After we left Neta's dad decided to have the water tested. If this was CSI, this would be a bloody fingerprint with the killer's DNA and a flashing neon sign saying "THE WATER DID IT!!!" The test came back showing the well water contained fecal coliform...because the well and the septic were separated by less than 50 feet. Did you know that you can build up an immunity to fecal coliform? I didn't. Neta's family was immune and my tender little tummy wasn't. Safe to say the well was soon moved across the yard.
Fast forward to the present. We had a couple of minor freezes the second year we lived here and had to thaw a couple of pipe joints with a hair dryer. Along with that, in the summer time our "cold" water is pretty warm coming from the tap because the tank is baking in the sun. We needed a pump house.
The basic frame with a slanted roof
Construction was scheduled for early 2019, but as you know we decided to get chickens/guineas and build a coop with the lumber we bought. Priorities! Finally this past November, a week before Thanksgiving, construction began.
All of the studs are in place on the sides.
The ends won't have any studs.
The main framing didn't take long, just a couple of days over two weekend's time. Once the framing was in place, it was only a couple of hours to put the siding on.
Both sides and the back end are covered.
I added basic rafters to the roof and crossed them with additional lumber to support the overhang of the roof. We needed roof material and as we always say around here, "the farm will provide". It did. We grabbed some metal roofing that was siding on our picnic shelter down by the big pond, cut it to size and screwed it in place.
It's pretty simple construction because if we ever have to have work done on the well, we need quick and easy access, both from the ends and the roof. The roof is screwed down just enough to hold it in a high wind, but can easily be removed. The ends are built to slide in/out from either side.
We're pretty happy to have this project marked off of our 2019 list. It will get painted and trim will be added once warmer weather comes back. We'll also install a hose bib to the outside so we can run the hose to plants/shrubs/trees that are further afield in the Goat Garden.
On to the next project...whatever that ends up being.
CHRISTMAS BONUS...
This morning I went out to the chicken coop to put some "decoy eggs" in the nesting boxes. This was to give the chickens a signal of where they should be nesting when the time comes. I placed two eggs in each of the two nesting boxes. As I turned around to leave...lo and behold...a Christmas miracle! There was a clutch of 9 light blue eggs in the opposite corner of the coop. I ran into the house and brought Neta out to show her. I should have taken a picture of them while still in the coop, but didn't. You'll have to settle for the "after" picture.
Our Easter Egger chickens have started...
A little early for Easter. It's our Christmas eggs!
A little over 5 weeks ago we acquired a baby quail chick. Not unsurprising since we live next door to a quail farm. It found its way into the chicken/guinea run. It was the tiniest chick we'd ever seen. We did some reading and found out that quail mature around 5 weeks old. This one was only a few days at most. We quickly put together a brooder container (heat, food, water and some bedding material) that we kept in the coop and did what we could to raise it around the other birds for as long as we could.
Each day we'd "walk" it outside so it could get some fresh air, sunshine and socialize with the other birds so it wouldn't get lonely.
Sometime during the third week apparently a guinea or chicken must have knocked the top off the brooder and the chick escaped (they can fly at 2 weeks old). We discovered it walking around the yard with the guineas, like it was one of them. It escaped a couple more times during that week.
A slightly blurry picture of the quail around 3 weeks old.
By week 4 we were letting it out for a few hours, unsupervised and it stayed around the coop/run or followed the guineas. It seemed to be imprinted on the farm. The moment of truth happened last Sunday (Oct 27) when the chick walked up to me, looked up at me and promptly flew up and landed on my shoulder. WOW! I was so surprised. Sadly, it was our last day with the quail.
The next day, I walked out to discover the top off the brooder and the quail gone again. Normally no worries, but the guineas were gone too. They'd found their way down to the quail farm. When they saw me looking for them they ran to me and followed me home, but the quail wasn't in sight. No idea where it went. We'd like to think it heard the other quail and found a way to sneak into one of the quail houses and was adopted by a quail family. It was a fun adventure while it lasted.
Building Bigger Bridges
Last year around this time I rebuilt one of the bridges from the island to the "mainland". Another bridge, one that goes into the woods from the island was also in need of repair.
It was tilted and the right support (underneath) was rotted and breaking.
First I had to lift the old bridge and shore up the foundations on each side.
Lifting the far end of the old bridge to shore up the underneath foundations on each end.
The span was between 22 and 24 feet and my replacement pole was too heavy to lift and drag across. On top of that there was no way to get the tractor to the other side. I decided to leave the top boards in place as a "guide" while I pushed the new pole across the span with the tractor. It actually worked! Once I had it all the way across the span and the foundations shored up, I could disassemble the old bridge and remove the old (right side) support.
New support on the right side. The left support was still in good shape.
The middle pole was rotten about 2/3 of the way across.
Once I had my left and right supports lined up, it was time to add the new treads.
Making progress...
Complete...and solid! Third and final bridge in the background.
Two bridges down and one to go. That will be another blog entry...someday.
The Garden - Wrapping up Spring/Summer
I'll make this brief:
Spring peas - Good crop. Delicious right off the vine
Tomatoes - Too much early rain, they didn't do well
Squash - Started well, tapered off quick
(Japanese) Sakata melons - Did well
Watermelons - Also did fairly well. Finally had success with our heirloom Bradfords
Cantaloupe - Good crop
Cucumbers - Good crop early, then tapered
Jalapenos - Tons early, rains killed them later
Eggplant - 5 or more varieties, still growing and producing like gangbusters
One of our Bradford watermelons
A couple of our Sakata melons. They were sweet and you could eat them right up to
and including the rind.
A bucket of cukes.
We grew at least 5 varieties. All successful.
We grew a variety of squash called the "Seminole Pumpkin" which is similar to a butternut squash. We not only had a good crop, we had a varied crop as some of them grew like butternut squash with long necks and others grew like small pumpkins.
We have an "orange" crop this year. We grow three varieties of Satsumas, which are similar to Mandarins or Halos. Three of our trees produced fruit this year.
This is the St. Ann variety. It produced the larger of our Satsumas.
This is our Owari variety. It produced a very juicy and sweet Satsuma.
We're also growing some "exotic" or experimental produce...
We're harvesting Roselle (aka Florida cranberry). It's used to make Hibiscus Tea and also "Florida Cranberry Sauce". It tastes remarkably similar to cranberry and it's a very pretty plant to grow as it's in the Hibiscus family.
These are the calyx (bud) of the plant that open to reveal the flower and seed pods.
This is about 10% of the buds that covered the flower stalks.
Fingers-crossed on this one, Passionfruit (yellow and purple). So far we've found 4 fruit on our massive vines. They're about the size of a tennis ball at the moment. The vine is blooming like crazy. We're going to try to protect it enough to harvest the fruit if we can, then cut it back, dig it up and put it in a pot in the greenhouse for the winter.
Chicken and Guinea update
The last time you saw our chickens they were much younger and we were still figuring who was who (and what). Well...we traded 5 of them back to the breeder as 6 of the 8 birds she gave us were roosters. We kept one rooster (a Lavender Orpington). We got 2 new Lavenders (hens) and 3 new Easter Eggers. Now our chicken yard looks like it should. One rooster and the rest hens.
Our guineas have grown quite a bit and their colors are very apparent now. They roam all over the farm and frequently come to the house squawking for sunflower seed treats. The chickens don't roam as far, but they all free range around the farm.
We lost a guinea a few weeks back. They wouldn't go into the coop one evening because a cat had inadvertently wandered in, then back out. The guineas scattered that night with several sleeping in the trees and the majority of them sleeping on the roof of the barn. The next morning we were missing one. Such is life with guineas.
All 8 of the chickens
Our rooster, proudly crowing
The guineas out on a rainy day
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It's been over a month for the chickens and almost a month for the guineas being released into the coop and run. They've taken to things pretty well. Though they stick with their own, they don't seem to mind each other as is evidenced by the current roosting arrangement.
Bigger chickens and "top" guineas sharing the top of the roost
You may have noticed that I said "bigger chickens" in the above caption. Well, another tie-in to my love of baseball involves a mid-season trade. Tomorrow (July 31) is the deadline for baseball teams to trade players for the remainder of the season. A couple of weeks ago we traded in a few chickens.
It seems that the lady who sold them to us wasn't as good at sexing them as she'd hoped. (Full disclaimer: She did say she wasn't 100% certain on how many roosters we might have gotten.) Out of 8 chickens (4 Orpingtons, 4 Easter Eggers), 6 of them were roosters. That's about 5 too many for that small of a flock. She'd previously agreed to switch out any roosters we wanted for hens.
Original Easter Eggers - Of the 4 pictured, only the bottom left chicken is a hen.
Original Lavender Orpingtons - Only the chicken on the right is a hen.
So we kept one Lavender rooster and switched out the remaining 5 roosters. When I arrived to meet her for the swap she told me she still wasn't sure if what she brought with her were all hens. It was still a best guess. Armed with some advice from my brother-in-law and advice I gleaned from the internet, I chose the ones that I thought were hens and brought them home.
The newbies. 3 Easter Eggers and 2 Lavender Orpingtons (with our original Easter Egger hen)
Their initial reaction to joining the flock, which I did while feeding the others mealworm treats as a distraction, was to hide in fear in a corner of the run. Pretty much what we expected. After a week or so of being "hazed" by the bigger chickens and learning their place, they have settled in and now seem to be accepted members of the flock. They do still get pecked at by the two bigger Lavender Orpingtons occasionally, but that's pretty normal for the new kids on the block. Here are the newbies:
This one looks like a Roadrunner
This one looks like an osprey (at certain angles)
This one sometimes looks like a hawk and other times like a Killdeer
These are the two new Lavender Orpingtons
We kept SideEye Bill - our only rooster
Our original Lavender hen
Our original Easter Egger hen
As for the guineas, they're doing fine as well. Here they are at the feeder.
I asked everyone, chickens and guineas, to pose for a group photo
The guinea close-up you didn't know you needed. Nice eyelashes!
Our next experiment is allowing the guineas to free range. Recently we let two out and they were panicked the whole time pecking at the wire trying to get back in. The next day we let four out and they seemed much more calm. Pecking at bugs and grass. It was the guineas inside that were worried this time. We hope by the weekend we can let the whole flock out about a hour before "bedtime" and see how they do.
Of course we also have to teach Lulu that the guineas aren't quail or other game birds that she needs to retrieve. We'll see how that works out.
So the chickens are just a little over 6 weeks old (hatched on May 20th) and we've had them almost that long, getting them on the 24th. Needless to say they have grown considerably. They went from this size:
The day we brought them home
To this size:
In their run enjoying part of a cucumber.
Just some general observations of the chickens... They are much more social with us now that they've been moved to the coop/run. We call them as we get close and give them treats once or twice a day of discarded veggies or some sesame seeds. They always come running to the door of the run when they see us coming. They even greet me when I return on the lawn mower, though they don't like it when it first starts. We also think we might have 4 roosters (3 of the Lavenders and one of the Easter Eggers).
This is our (99% certain) rooster. Emily calls him "SideEye Bill" and the name has stuck. He's the first one to greet/challenge us when we walk up to and into the run. Right now he's pretty gentle and allows us to pick him up. He puts himself between us and the other chickens at first.
SideEye Bill
This one we call Jonathan Livingston because of her/his resemblance to a seagull.
Jonathan Livingston
Neta calls the one on the right "Cadbury" because he/she is an Easter Egger. Actually they're both Easter Eggers, but the dark one got the name. The other remains nameless for now.
Cadbury (right) and friend
Another of our Easter Eggers, but we have yet to name her/him. We're open to naming suggestions so feel free to email us, contact us on Facebook or stop by and offer up some names. And NO...we won't entertain Chicky McChick Face or the like.
Don't forget...we also have Guineas! We picked them up on June 15th from a Flint River Guinea in Thomaston, GA, about 3 hours from our house. We ordered 12, but...the breeder gave us 18 as she wanted us to have all of the colors she was offering:
Coral Blue
Cinnamon
Royal Purple
Bronze
Chocolate
Lavender
Pearl Gray Pied
Buff
Here they are on their first day home.
Sixteen of the keets were 2 weeks old and two of them were only a few days old. We don't have names for any of them yet. It's probably too many to give names to...plus we're not all that "close" with them yet.
The lady who sold them to us told us that at 2 weeks, guineas can pretty much fly wherever they want. She wasn't kidding! We had a 4 inch gap in the top of our container after raising the water bottles and not long after had an escapee.
HELP! I didn't know I didn't want to be out here all alone!
After two weeks of having them in the house we decided the time was right to move them to the coop/run as well. We figured they'd get along fine with the chickens. So we headed out to the coop.
There was lots of screeching and squawking involved.
After gently moving them from their over-crowded brooder container to the coop, they headed straight for the farthest corner of the coop and tried to get as far away from any living thing as they could.
If I get close enough to the wall, no one will see me!
So the guineas have been in the coop for about 4 days now. They're doing fine. They don't like it when the chickens come in and eat their food and drink their water, but they deal with it. They've gone outside in the run once only to discover there are...GASP!...chickens out there...and promptly hid in the corner. I had to wrangle them back inside. But today I went out there and opened the door and they were eating and drinking and didn't run for cover when they saw me (HUGE progress).
They have taken to the coop pretty well and will eventually work their way outside more once they realize that though the chickens might pick at them, they'll be able to pick back, as they'll eventually be bigger and badder than the chickens.
They love high places.
The two little ones seem to be keeping up with the others. Though having the first rung of the roost at 18 inches is just at their limit, but they manage.
One of the little ones is taking a breather from making it up two rungs.
So one final interesting note about the guineas. Yesterday I went out after dark to make sure the chickens and guineas were in the coop. Returning to the coop is something the chickens just learned a few day ago after trying to hunker down and sleep in the run for the first week or so.
As I came around the barn the run was empty. Good! Everyone was inside the coop. I opened the coop to see how they were all getting along. The chickens were nestled down in the pine shavings, but...NO GUINEAS!!! They were gone! They were not cowering in any of the corners. They were not up on the roost or in the windows or anywhere I could find them. Then I heard a couple of them make noise. And there they were...
Because...guineas!
At night they crawl up in the eaves of the coop to get away from the chickens...and to be higher than everyone else...because they're guineas.
They'll outgrow the small space soon, but for now it's whatever makes them safe and happy.
