Chicks and Roses

I finally put these 4 week old chicks in the Big House or the adult coop. These were late hatch of chickens and guinea chicks that were left behind or abandoned by their new moms. I call them orphan chicks. Since I have the time, space and set up to raise them, I go ahead and raise them in the house. Since they are 5 total, they will form a gang and look out for each other in the adults coop.They are in a bigger cage inside my adult coop. They will stay in that until they are about half the size of an adult. Their 3 month old older siblings (30) are now free range with the adult poultry (56). I bought 30 chicks to replace the ones the foxes got last summer. However, this summer has been less foxy. So I have some over abundance this summer. I will cull the roosters (dinner)and keep the hens. It is going to be a busy fall. We give the eggs to our church since we simply do not eat that many. And selling eggs is more work than I have time for on the farm.

These are the only red roses on my farm as the rest are pinks and yellows. These climb all summer and bloom all summer. I keep them since they are a good filler when nothing else is blooming. And it is a sturdy rose even under the snow and ice. It is always nice to come home and see these red roses waiting by the front of the walkway.

Tree Down

 This past week we had a night storm and I drove up my drive to have my path blocked by one of our trees. It was a nice shade tree for the driveway and will be missed. So this weekend we worked on clearing the driveway and chopping up the tree. We saved the big logs for firewood and used a loaner chipper for the smaller branches. It was hard work but we got it mostly cleaned up before the next storm came.

  

 

This was a nice shade tree and it will be missed. 

We will put in a blue spruce in its place this fall.

Husband clearing the branches

Chipper lessons on the PTO

Good news is that no animals were harmed under/in the tree.No birds and no squirrels in this tree.

But a ton of ticks, ants and beetles. I saved 2 tree truck slabs for counting the age of this tree.

Our tree was in full leaf and full of sap. It weighed a ton and then some. The root ball could barely be moved by our tractor even after the limbs were removed.