Clearing Blackberries

On By stefrobrtsIn Uncategorized3 Comments

This has been a particularly wet and cool spring, which has been perfect for blackberry vines. They have been growing up everywhere around the yard. Over by the trailer, next to the chicken coop, and a massive wall of them towering across the backyard, threatening to creep over the deck and moving ever closer to the house.

I should have taken a ‘before’ picture – this was after we’d already spent a couple hours cutting them back a good five feet from where they had been. To cut them back required several tools, including my new Stihl electric weed trimmer (which I LOVE), loppers, hedge trimmers, and my scythe! Last year I used the scythe on grass and I wasn’t too impressed with it. I knew it was a brush scythe, but I thought, if it can’t do grass well, how can it do anything else? Turns out I was wrong, it cuts through blackberry vines like butter! But it’s tiring to use, and extremely sharp and dangerous, so I’m very careful with it. But it certainly has a place in clearing vines.

And after a couple more hours of work (over a couple days) we had beaten them away entirely, and we could see the rest of the backyard again!

 It seems like everything in our backyard is out to hurt us. The Blackberry vines are covered in these awful little thorns, and of course you can’t cut them down without a few whipping around and hitting you.

And the trees are Thorny Locusts, which have these terrible stiff thorns on them which will go through anything – pants, leather gloves, lawnmower tires. And the locusts send up little baby trees all over the yard so there are lots of tiny saplings mixed in with the blackberry vines, just waiting to jab you!

The chicken coop/shed was about to be swallowed up again by vines, even though I had beaten them down just a few weeks ago.

After an hour of lopping, scything, and raking back the debris, it’s looking good. Nothing to do but figure out where to haul the debris to.

Winning the blackberry war is just one of the projects I am using my new-found energy on (yay for weight loss). Another is reclaiming the planting beds around the house.

When we moved here there were planting beds extending out from the foundation for about 4 feet, but the grass has invaded and taken them over. I sprayed roundup today to try and reclaim them.

The other project is refinishing the decks, but I’ll save that for another post.
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Dogs and the wheelbarrow

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi3 Comments

So the other day I heard some barking, looked out the office window, and grabbed my camera – because I saw this…

I had left a wheelbarrow full of planting soil on the front deck after I finished repotting my tomato plants, and Navi was in it, and Barclay wanted in on that action, but she was hogging it! I went to the front door to watch.

Yup, nothing unusual here. No sir-ee, just business as usual.

Barclay tried some barking…

A little bitey-face…

Then he tried his passive stare-down technique…

That did the trick, Navi jumped out and the went back to racing around the yard!

Crazy dogs!

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All out of chickens

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens4 Comments

Well, this has been a miserable week, going out and finding mutilated chickens every morning, and not having my favorite, Beautiful, clucking around under foot. I think the predator was sneaking into the coop while it was open during the day, bedding down under the nest boxes (there’s a hidden area under there) and then coming out at night to terrorize the chickens. It ate one of the little chicks right before we left for Memorial weekend, and left two dead in the coop for me to find. Then it ate the other two while we were gone. Then it seemed to take a break before coming back for the massacre the last few days.

Unfortunately, I am in no position to spend a bunch of money on materials to build a secure chicken coop. I couldn’t continue watching the monster pick the little guys off one by one. So I put out a call for help to the local chicken group, and people swooped in and took the chickens home. One lady took most of them – including the older hens who need a retirement home), a couple others went here and there. All nice homes, and I know the chickens are safe now. Hopefully the predator will move on once it realizes it’s food source is gone.

I’ll miss having chickens, but I wasn’t interested in finding any more of my little feathered buddies torn apart in the coop. After the last kill some of the chickens didn’t even want to go in the coop! But we got them put away and checked every corner with flashlights for any lurking predators, and then left them locked inside the secure coop until they left for their new homes. So that is the end of chickens for now…

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Another one down

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens1 Comment

I lost another pullet last night from my rapidly dwindling chicken flock. I locked the chickens up last night, and when I let them out this morning there was a bunch of feathers on the floor of the coop, and a depression in the bedding with one wing in it – ugh! One more pullet gone 😦 I don’t know what is going into the coop and eating an entire pullet at a time (they are pretty big), but I don’t want it hanging around and moving on to the dogs and cats. I’m considering getting rid of all the chickens. I don’t want to keep opening the doors to find one more chicken torn to pieces every morning!

Update:

And by evening we were one more down! At sunset the white chicken didn’t want to go into the coop. I got them all in and did a count:

7 chicks
3 buff hens
2 blue/gold hens
1 white hen

I came back later with a flashlight and found the missing chick dead in the coop, pulled back under the shelf behind the nest boxes. Dave helped me check all around and couldn’t find any critters lurking in the coop. We caught the chicks and put them in the big brooder box, since that will be more secure, and closed it all up. We’ll see if anyone else gets eaten before morning.

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Chicken count

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickensLeave a comment

Yesterday evening after Beautiful disappeared, one of the young chickens got out of the run area and the dogs chased and cornered it. I rescued it and it looked ok, but it was dead in the coop this morning 😦

I put an ad on CL to sell some of the extra chickens, and sold two adults, one buff and one blue/gold.

update: another lady showed up and bought two blue/gold hens and the baby rooster. Good day for selling chickens!

Current chicken count

9 March pullets
2 Blue/Gold Hens
3 Buff O Hens
1 Splash Hen

I think a coyote ate Beautiful :(

On By stefrobrtsIn 2011chicks, chickens3 Comments

So this year I’ve lost all 8 of the chicks that Mama hen hatched, I think one of the pullets has disappeared, and today I found LOTS of feathers in the orchard, and the only hen we couldn’t account for was Beautiful, who’s usually clucking around under my feet 😦 Not a good year!

As of tonight I have:

11 March chicks (10 girls and a boy)
5 Blue/Gold Hens
4 Buff O Hens
1 Splash Hen

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Dogs on the bed

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, navi, pets2 Comments

This morning the dogs were hogging the bed, trying to push us off. I got fed up and said in my most stern voice ‘Enough! Both of you OFF the bed right now!’ and Navi sat up real tall, with her ears back, and gave me the most shocked look! Then she squinted and bent over for a good look at me like ‘Are you ok? You never talk like that!’ then both her and Barclay pounced on me with waggy tails and tried to lick me to death! Then they settled right back where they were in the first place! Intimidation FAIL on my part! I’ve told people that alpha-dog BS doesn’t work on Eskimos 🙂

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Memorial Weekend Camping – Day 2

On By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, navi2 Comments

The next morning we all had a great breakfast together (I brought fresh eggs from our chickens) and afterwards someone had the brilliant idea to bring out a puzzle – which quickly became a community effort! I wasn’t too keen on puzzles, but I found a piece and then it was addictive, I had to hang around and find a few more.

The dogs spent most of the time with us on leash, but occasionally they had to hang out in the yard while we were at meals.

I distracted them by giving them chewies to work on while we were having meals.

After lunch Dave got into a card game.

Eventually the dogs got so comfortable in their yard they started wrestling and playing – it was nice they had enough room to run around a little bit off leash!

Our van, along with several other large tow vehicles, were recruited as ‘wind breaks’ to help shelter the gathering area from the chill winds that were blowing through pretty much all weekend. That actually worked pretty well, and when someone had to move a truck to drive into town, we really missed it!

This was Navi’s first camping trip, and she did great. We gave her dramamine before leaving, but she still threw up on the trip down. She was a bit nervous about all the attention, even though Barclay was setting a great example of how to schmooze people for treats and lovin’, so she went with a ‘bark first, ask questions later’ policy. She did pretty good though, she just needs to get out more. For the trip home we gave her extra dramamine, and she still threw up. Poor pup! But she was such a good sport about the whole thing.


Soon, another great long weekend in our Airstream was over. Everything in the trailer worked fine. It’s so nice that the trailer has finally gotten most of the bugs worked out. Once we got home it gave us a little trouble emptying the black tank, and the last night there we ran out of battery power, but all in all, it did really good, and like always, it was a comfortable place to call home base.

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