Guineas, Chicks and Lock-Ins

I feel like I'm caught up in a whirlwind!  A few nights ago our Boy Scout troop had their quarterly Court of Honor.  That's when each scout is recognized for their accomplishments for the past several months; they're awarded merit badges for the work they've completed and rank advancement as they climb the proficiency ladder towards earning the highest honor of Eagle Scout (of which only 3 percent of all boys involved in scouting ever achieve). The ceremony is always a fun family night as the young men are honored - we've become a close knit group of families with our troop, some of us having been involved for as many as seven years. After the awards ceremony we enjoy food and fellowship, so before driving into town I had to make Friendship Bread - it was long overdue - thankfully the starter is quite forgiving. You're supposed to make the bread on Day 10 and I think I was pushing 14! While I was at it I made two loaves of Zucchini Bread as well.

There are 12 precepts in the Scout Law:
A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent.  We understand that there is an unwritten 13th rule: A Scout is Hungry!

                                             And sometimes pretty silly!

This was also the last day of school for the year so a Lock-In was planned at the Scout hut following the Court of Honor to celebrate. Bob volunteered to chaperone overnight so after the ceremony I was on my own.
Earlier that day, besides making bread, on my way out to milk I was greeted by a multitude of chickens and a brand new Mama Chickie with 16 baby chicks!  I had Joel catch 13 peeps and bring them inside for safe keeping.  Too many chicks and the mama can't protect them. In our area there are many hawks, foxes, feral cats, possums and other predators that would eat baby chicks in a heartbeat.  My hope is to raise these hens and hopefully re-ignight the setting instinct in my chickens.

And then there are these - 13 brand new guinea keets.

Both of which are in the house right now and stink to high Heaven and their bedding has to be changed every day!  But they are darlin' aren't they?!

I'm finding myself so exhausted these days and I'm caught in a Catch 22: We're working hard getting many needed projects done, but we're so tired that we're not enjoying the farm. We'll never be as young and strong as we are today, so I feel a push to get the work done while we're able and get the farm set up and working the way we'd like.  These are some of the plans we'd like to see accomplished:

* Hydroponics system in the greenhouse using our tilapia tank
* Grey water system to water the "downstairs orchard"
* Finish the horse paddock and round pen
* Clean out and organize the three barns and semi to use the space more efficiently
* Year round gardening
* Hydroelectric system - power production to help become more self sufficient using the creek.
* Sheltered workspace and other maintenance and building projects: Honey House, Reloading Room, Outside Kitchen
...and on and on and on.

And then of course there's the daily maintenance
* watering
* keeping fences tight
* mowing orchards
* honey bee upkeep
* feeding, watering and milking of livestock
....and on and on and on.

There has to be balance. There's no sense working every spare minute and not taking time to enjoy what we have, so here's what we've decided - it's time to get Back To the Basics.

 “On the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made”  (Genesis 2:2-3)

So from Friday night until Saturday night - (...and there was evening, and there was morning - the seventh day,") we will rest. We will relax, we will do our necessary chores ie feeding, milking, watering ..., but we will take some time to enjoy THE HOMESTEAD LIFE.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God”  (Exodus 20:8-10)

Maybe now I'll get to enjoy Lucy and Dixie!

SHABBAT SHALOM!

One Thing After Another - Continued

I'm having Blogger Block. Actually, everything block. You see, I've misplaced a memory card and I'm flipping out trying to find it! I took my camera to be cleaned and made a point of taking out the memory card before I left the house but now I can't find it anywhere. I've cleaned counters, mopped floors, dumped and cleaned out my purse and camera bags, checked in nooks and crannies and my dear husband even sifted through the nasty trash bag that I had him retrieve from the dumpster - poor thing, of course it was the day I chose to clean out the fridge. My memory card is my mind. Seriously. I can't remember a thing without it!  If not for photos I'd have no memory. I can't tell you how many times I've thought, "What did I do yesterday?" and then looked through my pictures to remember.  But this specific card had Blog posts! Fun, exciting, colorful blog pictures, and I'm having a hard time moving on.

But here goes. Where was I? Oh, yes, I was continuing THIS story...

We have guineas

They are an African bird that nest on the ground but roost in the trees. They eat seeds and insects - acclaimed of late as efficient tick control. They travel in groups looking somewhat like a school of fish as they wander about, and they are VERY noisy!! Some say that they are watchdogs that sound the alarm at any sign of danger. I say they just randomly make noise all the time! LOUD noise! One makes a "CHUCK-CHUCK, CHUCK-CHUCK" sound, and the other an "EH- EH -EH -EH- EH- EH", and when they all start screaming at once it can be almost deafening!

This is what I heard the other day around noon. Generally they quiet down pretty quickly, but this uproar continued until I went out to investigate. From the porch I looked out across the wooded yard to where the flock of guineas were and caught a movement with my eyes. It was a raccoon, about 40 feet away heading towards me. If you haven't had a chance yet, read THIS!  Thankfully it stopped, looked hard at me, turned and headed off  to what we refer to as "Home Depot" - an area on our farm where we store all sorts of used building materials: pvc piping, lumber, window units, wire, bricks, culvert pipe, toilets, fencing and parts and pieces of various assorted junk that we might use for something some day.  My husband worked as a home remodeler for years and kept anything that might one day come in handy on a homestead.

  Guineas lay eggs in a community nest. All the hens will lay in one nest until there are between 20 and 30 eggs at which time one of the hens will sit the eggs for the next 28 days. I had recently come across a nest with 16 eggs out in "Home Depot" that I had been watching. I hadn't quite decided whether I'd take the eggs and incubate them or let the hen hatch her own eggs. I knew it would only be a matter of days until there were enough for her to begin sitting so I wanted to know the start date for incubation were I to allow her to set. I've found that the hatching rate is better if she does the sitting, but there are risks in allowing her to incubate her own eggs as well.  For one thing, our three Rottweillers are curious and will nose her off her nest. There are also foxes and coyotes in our area. I once watched a guinea nest for the entire incubation period. Two days before the eggs were due to hatch I went out to find feathers everywhere and the eggs destroyed. You see, when eggs begin to hatch, the chick inside begins to peep. They call to one another encouraging each other to keep pecking their way out. I believe that this peeping alerted a predator who then came and killed the hen and ate the eggs. Another nest we watched had commotion at the site one day and when we went to investigate we found a snake hocking down one egg after another - no hen in sight. So there are disadvantages to having a guinea hen on the ground for 3 weeks sitting her eggs. Another consideration is that guineas make terrible mothers! They have no maternal instinct and will walk off and leave their babies in the woods, a literal candy store for hawks. We've had guineas for years and we've never had a keet raised to adulthood with a flock. If we allow the mother to hatch a clutch naturally, we time it so as to gather and raise the chicks immediately after they hatch.

I became concerned that the raccoon might mess with my guinea nest so I decided that I would go gather the eggs before they were eaten or destroyed and incubate them myself.  Having spotted a raccoon outside during daylight hours I have to wonder... Will this need to be part of my dress code as I go about my daily chores now?

In the infamous words of Roseann Roseannadanna, "Well, Jane, it  just goes to show you, it's always something! If it's not one thing, it's another!"