Friday, March 28, 2014

Portable Fence


Whenever I can, I let my cows graze.
Luckily I have some wonderful  neighbors to the west of my yard and another sweet woman across the road.

Both of these neighbors have given me permission to let my cows graze in their yards... I used to tie them to graze which was OK but they would get tangled up in their leads.

So last year I invested in a portable electric fence,
It's wonderful! I am able to both set the fence up and take it down by myself and easily control how much time they spend in one spot, which is important because I don't want to over graze  my neighbors'  properties.

OK so here's what I have, it's a nifty little fence called the "Smart Fence". It has 4 wires that can be unwound and wound back up together.

I decide where I want to put them for a few hours, and pull the wires out....
Then I push in the stakes as I unroll the wires and "build" my fence
After I get my fence set up I pound my grounding rod in the ground, ( I just use a piece of rebarb)
Next I set out my energizer by the fence and connect the grounding stake wire to energizer, ( the energizer
is important because it controls the power flow so
when the animal touches the wire the shock is just a pulse)
and of course I need a power source, I use a small battery from a lawn mower.... I use wooden clothes pens to connect the terminals
Finally I connect the electricity to the fence itself.

and it's ready to go!

The cows love it, they see me get the fence out and follow me to watch me set it up... then they run over to their little "room"...



Any questions?






Saturday, March 22, 2014

Weird Egg



Last  fall we got new hens.

My husband decided the smart thing to do would be to rehome the old birds and start with young hens all of the same breed.
That way we will know which hens are the oldest, youngest etc.

So I started with new layer chicks last fall.
Now they have started laying eggs. When hens first start to lay eggs they seem to go through a period where the "kinks" get worked out.

Sometimes they will lay an egg without a shell or they just kind of lay them in the wrong place, like when they are sitting in a tree.

The other day I found the most unusual egg yet.
It was tiny.

 Initially I thought it was a large acorn. I don't know if you can tell how small it was from the photo.

Any way when I cracked it open there was a tiny yolk!

This is just a passing phase, soon they will be good to go and I'll be getting my needed dozen a day!






Friday, March 14, 2014

Twin Chicks

Every so often we have a chicken who lays double yolked eggs.

I have never gotten a double yolked egg from store bought eggs. Not sure why...

Anyway here is what a double yolked hard boiled egg looks like, kind of neat don't you think?

I am sure you know that the DNA that messages the formation of the chick is in the yolk, so what I have always wondered is whether double yolked eggs would develop into 2 chicks....

I looked it up and yes! double yolked eggs can produce 2 chicks, it is rare but it can happen.
Pretty cool, twin chicks.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

POA Troubles

Here it is...
 I have been silent for so long.

Here's what happened... I got served papers from my POA.
Yes, ...we are being sued.

When I first found out about the law suit I really freaked out. I mean I was depressed. You know what I mean? I felt like a criminal! Then I started thinking about the reality. The reality is this:

Neither my husband or I have ever lived in a place where there was a HOA or POA, so when we signed the paper work at the closing of our current home we knew there was a POA, but we really had no way to conceive of what that meant.

they actually ran off copies of my blog!
Here's what it means.. for us anyway...we pay the mortgage, the taxes and the insurance. Every January we get a letter telling us to send a check to a PO Box and to make the check out to our POA.
Then that money will be used to sue you if you break any rules, although these same rules may not be enforced on other residents unless someone complains or if one of the board members has a beef with the resident.


Jerry and I were guilty of these 3 offenses.
Our driveway was messy,
I was having kids out and being paid,
Our house was taking too long to complete.
(I would say more, but as you can see from the photo, the board members are reading my blog and I don't want to add fuel to the fire so to speak )

This whole thing got me reading and learning more about POAs. Man, how is it that we even allow them in this country? I mean are they even American? The whole thing stinks...

 So... , we are working hard to finish the house. We have cleaned our driveway and I am no longer having kids out here, although I think I can have kids out for free (?) So I may have a few open play days in the spring.
Oh, and we are definitely moving, to a place without an HOA!