A Soggy, Soggy Sunday

It's been raining since midnight, and all day long.  Yes, we needed rain after no snow all winter, but the ground is now soggy with moisture.

This was taken at the top of the pasture fence.  The pasture, if you remember, is tiered... this was a strawberry farm at one time... and it is terraced, going downhill to the (very full) Spehar ponds.

The ground is squelching as I walk across the yard.

Bitty was soaked to the skin...and had been out all day in the rain.

One thing that I hope to do when the new henhouse is "opened" is to move all the little hens from the little henhouse to the new one.  The only two roosters moving over are Butch and Fancy, the porcelain.  There is going to be a boy's club in the little henhouse.  Even though I really like Rocky and Brutus, the Welsummer and Rock roosters, they are very hard on the small hens.

I was talking to our feed store owner the other night, and mentioned the hatchery man who sets up there every two months or so from now through September.  I realized that I got 11 cockerels out of my batch I bought last spring. Of those little birds, two were put down by Keith because they started sneezing, coughing.... two were lost to the hawk.... and I still have the remainder.  I can't have any more roosters, and am seriously thinking of some going to my friend Roxanne, who can move them to her goat customers. I really like roosters, that's the problem, and have always kept too many here.  We still have two partridge cochins... the two young big ones, and the nameless cockerel who has never crowed in the little henhouse, and our three oldsters, Rambo, another partridge cockerel, and Boots, the Mille, in the big henhouse.  Too many!

Tony watching the little chickens in the pasture.  The white things are pieces of bread I had just thrown them.  That's Butch's pen from last summer behind them.  I found five eggs in it tonight!

Two of the aforementioned little old roosters are in this picture, One and Three.

See how wet it is!

As you see, the garden beds are coming along.  We are going to lay indoor/outdoor carpet between all of them... it keeps weeds down wonderfully.  The boys topped these beds off with leaves yesterday, and now Keith will put fresh soil down on top of them.  Nathan showed us that he can now carry the heavy bags of soil on his shoulder... and moved a bunch around for Grandpa.  I was so proud of how he worked yesterday.

The boys figured out quickly yesterday that if they used their leaf-grabbing thingys from last fall, they could move the leaves quickly.  It took them about fifteen minutes.

The most-established of the flower beds also got it's cleanup started yesterday.  I have a long way to go!  I did not do anything today, as the rain was steady all day.  I'll get to it as I can this week.

How many of you hate that we are now doing chores in the darkness again starting tomorrow morning!  How I love having daylight while I chore.  One thing I am going to be so happy about at retirement is that I can do chores when it is light... as Keith says, up with the light, to bed with the dark.