There's Never Any Shortage of Things To Do!

Unlike Saturday's LONG day of accomplishing very little, today has been a whirl wind of industriousness!

The day started with candling the duck eggs living in our incubator. We also checked three random chicken eggs in the incubator and we saw tell tale "spiders" inside all three eggs! (These resembled #3 in the illustration to the right.) We will candle all the eggs on Sunday and remove any that are not growing by then. Sean headed out the door to his work. That accomplished, I started the 2nd load of laundry and then, settled into the morning's animal chores. I fed the chickens and ducks, goats, & horse. Sean watered all the critters. 

In my egg collection round, I got 12 eggs this morning before 10am! When I checked later in the day, I found 4 more chicken eggs and several duck eggs. The duck egg production seems to have suffered since several of our ducks decided to live with the pigs instead of the chickens last week. I am worried that our porcine residents are enjoying an addition to their diets as a result. This means, that since the weather has truly broken here in Maine, our piggies are just about ready to move to their Spring/Summer/Fall home, down over the hill in the back yard. I am sure they will enjoy their new neighbor "Backyard Bunny" very much. Mental note to add that to our chore list for this weekend, if we get the other chores finished.

My long path to the wood stack.

After I washed the eggs and refrigerated them, I headed back outside to start mowing the front lawn. In an effort to be more efficient, I mowed in a very large pattern. My trail allowed me to load the lawn mower trailer full of cut fire wood from the front of the house and mow all the way to the back yard. I stopped briefly to unload the trailer cargo of wood near its new home before mowing down through the rows of grapes beginning to come alive for the season at the far side of the house and around to the front wood pile again. I took 3 trips total this morning before I cut the lawn far enough that getting wood was out of my mowing path. It is not much, but I added another 100 pieces of wood to the wood shed in this manner. Then, I finished mowing the front yard and returned to finish the back forty. The front lawn is looking very nice, with the exception of the bits needing the weed-whackers attention around the edges. The back lawn is looking a bit ragged, since this is the first time through with the mower. After my next round in a couple of days, it will start to green up more and look much better. The black flies were not biting while I was mowing; I was very pleased with that.

Pig pen partially fenced. Bunny yard in background.
Lawn NEEDING to be mowed!

When Sean returned from work today, he checked the fresh water for the animals, adjusted a fence in the goat pasture, moved Jasmine to a new fenced in area to help with my mowing responsibilities around the pond, and then, started working on the chicken coop roof. It looks hopeful that the roof will be finished by tomorrow morning at this rate, which is good news for everyone. The hens will enjoy their water-tight home and we will enjoy not needing to change muddy, soggy litter after each small shower that passes through.

Since Sean did not require my help with the roof, I decided to make myself busy by attempting to mow the fruit tree area. I may start calling it our orchard in future writings. In truth, we planted a variety of seven fruit trees 2 years ago in a nice area near the horse paddock, but as the largest of these is only 5 feet tall, having a real orchard is still very much in the dreaming phase. I was able to get about half way through this task before I was reprieved with the untimely breaking of the lawn mower drive belt (again!). Even mowing slowly and carefully, cutting grass that is already growing a foot tall is hard on the equipment. Once, we initially tame the areas, though, we should have no trouble keeping them to a manageable height.

It is my hope that we will be able to add to our fruit trees this year. At present we have 2 pear trees, 2 plum trees, 2 cherry trees, and 1 peach tree planted. I would like to add another peach tree and 2 apple trees to the mix. It is nice to think of the future day when we will be able to pick and eat the fruits of our plantings. I can easily picture the making of various pies, jams, and other goodies future Sonja will bake. If that dream is to become a reality, we are going to need to replant 2 of our existing trees to a higher level and add a top coat of compost to each tree base. More work for another day.

For today, it is enough. What this tired couple needs is food, snuggle time, and a good night's rest. Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to sign in on our member page or drop us a note; we love hearing from you!

Goodnight friends,

Sonja ♥