I cannot believe how hot it is already today....it is only April 3rd and I'm thinking about leaving some potatoes on  counter to bake themselves in this heat. I look at the thermostat and it is 86 degrees in this house. I have become so pig headed and frugal I won't turn on the air just yet. Have the windows open airing out the house while I still can.
Its the time of year that most things get a new coat of paint. I have two storage bldg.'s to paint and two decks that didn't make the cut last year. Fences need to be mended and there's always cleaning and clearing to do after winter has run its course.  I'm kinda anal about organization and keeping things looking nice. I knew when we bought this place that would drive me crazy cos this many acres simply can't be done that way. Not to mention snake season has started and that's always an adventure when cleaning stuff up....which reminds me.....
The first couple of years we lived out here snakes were quite a problem due to the fact it was an old dairy and not too much activity on this land. So the snakes pretty well did what they wanted to do. We saw rattle snakes, copper heads and water moccasins. I'm not real fond of snakes so I began to do some research on how to control the snake population. I found three workable solutions...cats, guineas, and chickens. So the first year I ordered 100 baby chickens. :~O
They came out of California in a box....in the transit only 1 died. They generally are sent through the Post Office and they include a couple extra to compensate for that. As it turned out we had an unexpected cold snap when they arrived and couldn't put em in the chicken coup cos we weren't prepared. Drafts and cold kill baby chicks. So I set up 4 boxes in my kitchen and divided em up.
Naturally they were going to need food and water so I had to improvise and put a "bowl" in the boxes for the chicks. Can u say rookie?? Next thing I knew I had 100 baby chicks all taking baths in the water! Naturally being wet they began to shiver and fall over. I thought "oh my God, I've killed em"! I ran to my bathroom and got out my blow dryer as my husband scratched his head and gave me "that look". I began blow drying my baby chicks one by one and putting em in a dry box. I then put a lamp in each one to ensure they got enough heat. I am proud to tell you I only lost "1" chicken!!! Bwahahahaha Who woulda thunk it lol
I honestly felt akin to that Lucy show when she has all those chickens get loose in her house while trying to figure out how to tell Ricky she bought em.
About a week later I moved em into the chicken shack we had built. We went every day and checked on em feeding em and checking their water. You wouldn't believe how much feed 100 chickens go through...so I decided to "range feed em". Meaning I would let em loose (I wanted that anyway for the snake control) daily then put em back up. I only had one problem....how do I get em all to go back in the coop everyday? So I decided I would "train em". ;)
We let em out every morning to roam the farm. Then every evening I would go find em....start sprinkling feed little at a time to get em to follow me back to the chicken coup. As I was doing that I called em "here chick chick chick". It took about 2 weeks but finally all I had to do was to call chick chick chick and sprinkle a little feed and they fell right into line behind me marching back to the chicken coup. Then about two weeks after that I had to do nothing, come sun down they knew where to go to roost....and put themselves up.
Every morning we would go to let em out and to gather eggs. It got to be kinda crazy...we were getting several dozen a day! We were giving em away to the family and friends at work. We had others saving egg crates that wanted eggs from us for transport. It was quite an experience.....then the raccoons found em.....that story to follow tomorrow. We traded one problem for another......