Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick-chick

I can't help but wonder at the strength and resilience of animals. Imagine chicks at a hatchery. Within a few hours of struggling mightily to break out of the egg, they're packed into a box and spend the next two days being shipped across country.

Newly hatched poultry still have an internal reserve from the egg yolk left in their system. It's enough to nourish them for three days. Pretty amazing, huh?

I ordered my chicks from Cackle Hatchery.  They offer a wide range of poultry species and breeds. I was looking for a specific breed of chicken and they were one of the few hatcheries that had what I was looking for and at the ship date I wanted.

This is a photo of an adult Golden Laced Cochin chicken.

I chose this breed of chicken for a few different reasons. First, I think they're beautiful. They aren't plain Jane looking chickens. Second, they are a tough breed suited for this cold climate. They have feathers on their feet which protect them from cold. And they have very small combs so there's less risk of them getting frostbite there. Third, they are a dual-purpose breed, which means they are good for both egg production and for meat. 

This is the chicken coop that came with our homestead. 

It's huge, but needs some repair work before I can put the chickens in it. The roof leaks, some of the boards on the walls need replaced and it's not predator-proof. This makes me guilty of putting the chicks before the coop. But it also gives me a strong incentive for hustling to get the coop repaired. 

The chicks are shipped via airmail to the local post office. When I got there to pick them up, as soon as I opened the door I could hear them peeping loudly. The post mistress was laughing because it was obvious the chicks were not happy!

Once they were home, they took up residence in a storage tub doing double duty as a brooder box. I've nicknamed it the "Little Deuce Coop". 

That's an infrared heat lamp over on the left. To help the chicks learn to eat, I scattered some chick starter crumbles on a paper towel on the floor of the box. And to help them bounce back from the stress of shipping, I mixed a tablespoon of sugar into a quart of water. They'll get the sugar water for the first few hours only. After that, it's replaced with plain fresh water. 

As I put each chick into the box, I dipped its beak into the water to help it learn how to drink. 

I'd ordered fifteen chicks. The hatchery sent an extra one to help offset any loss during shipping. Sadly, I did lose one chick within twelve hours of their arrival. Another died two days later. 

The fourteen that are left seem to be doing well. Here they are two weeks later. 

It's almost time to move them into a larger brooder box....the Coop deVille. And I need to get busy repairing  their permanent home!

It's a wild life out here!

Between wildlife and wild weather, every day out here is an adventure! 

Hail storms are common. This one lasted more than 20 minutes and left the ground looking like we had accumulating snow.

 The pea-size hail didn't damage any of the plants in the garden, luckily.  So far, all of the hail I've seen has been small like this. Anything larger and the garden would have been a total loss!

I'd been seeing this guy and his wife hunting in the yard and garden for a few days. I finally got a fuzzy photo. (I should learn to have the camera with me AT ALL TIMES) He's a Spotted Towhee.

I've looked for a nest, which is supposed to be largish and low to the ground, but haven't found it yet.

About a week ago, I had an amazing wildlife encounter. While working in the garden, I turned around to find a beautiful silver fox just 30 feet away. It was sniffing around in the grass right next to our deck. About the time I realized I didn't have the camera with me (of course!) a red fox came out of the trees. The two fox stared at each other for several seconds, then the silver one chased the red one away. 

Since then, I've seen the silver fox at a distance. Then a few days ago I saw it again and this time, I had the camera. Can you spot him in this photo?

It was hunting the squirrels that live in the old cabin. 

I love seeing the fox around. However, I am pretty sure my attitude towards it is going to change in a month or so. Why? Because I have fourteen baby Golden Laced Cochin chickens in a brooder box in the garage. Once they feather out, they'll be living in the chicken coop. That fox is going to do everything it can to make a meal out of them. 

The chickens? Oh yes, I forgot to tell you about the chickens.  I'll leave that for the next post. Come back tomorrow and I'll introduce you to them.

Don't fence me in!

Another HUGE project was replacing some fence in the east pasture. The existing fence was leaning badly.

It was leaning so much that we were afraid the horses would try to step over or through it and get hurt. We ran some temporary hot rope fencing and T-posts to make it safe to turn the boys out into the pasture.

With the help of our dear friend Richard, we set about replacing this whole 300 foot section of fence. Eventually, we'll replace all of our perimeter fencing. We'll do it one section at a time, because of the time and expense of installing a wood fence like we're doing. 

Here they are pulling up the old posts. The Bobcat sure makes the task easy! That's G.W. in the driver's seat and Richard on the ground. 

Wrap the chain around the post and pull!

Easy peasy...if you have a Bobcat and a couple of guys who know what they're doing.

Here is some video of the process.  

Richard setting the new posts...

We're using 6" x 6" eight foot long treated lumber posts. They're sunk three feet into the ground. Solid!

For the horizontals, we're using a unique material...lumber reclaimed from wooden snow fence. The good folks at Repurposed Materials in Denver carry it. By using this reclaimed material, we're keeping it out of a landfill and saving ourselves quite a bit of money over the cost of new lumber. It's a win-win situation!

I've mentioned Repurposed Materials here before. It's where I got the billboards I'm using to cover my hay bales. 

The wood pieces are eight feet long and probably an inch and a half to two inches thick. It's heavy, solid and perfect for our fence.

You can see the holes from the bolts from the snow fence as well as the sun bleaching on the wood. Neither of those things bother us. The wood has a nice gray weathered color which fits in perfectly with our old homestead outbuildings.

In this up-close photo, you can see both the holes and the bleaching. 

Here's a series of photos showing the progress G.W. and Richard made over two and a half days.

 Yes, I had a small part in this, too. My job was to check the reclaimed wood for any stray nails and then measure and sort the boards by length. I had several categories..."8 feet", "between 8' and 8' 1/4"", "between 8' 1/4" and 8' 1/2"" and "unusable for the fence". 

The wood we couldn't use for the fence because it might have had a split or been too short will be saved for other uses, like repairing the chicken coop. 

 And, four days after they started, here's the finished fence! 

They've even built in a section for a gate. (We'll do the gate at some point in the future). This fence line is on the border of our property and the public open space. It'll be nice to have a gate for easy access to ride the horses out into the open space, but we need to have a strong and lockable gate to keep people out.

The section on the left is for the gate.

We're very happy with the finished fence. The weathered boards make it look like it's been there for a long time. At five feet tall, it's safe for the horses and is very solid!  

It was extremely hard, dirty work! G.W. and Richard did an outstanding job.  And just think, guys, there's only about 2,000 feet more to replace!

Projects, projects and MORE projects

Howdy, long-suffering blog fans!  Please forgive me for not posting for several weeks. We've been so busy with different projects around the ranch that I haven't had time for writing! 

The first big undertaking was some demo work.

Remember this old pig pen? 

It's in our West pasture and is so ramshackle that it's unusable. It's a hazard with all that old wood, nails and wire and had to come down. 

Our friend Richard came up from Albuquerque for the week to help us with projects such as this. In addition to being an all-around nice guy, Richard has a very broad and useful skill set. If we had the means to do so, we'd try to hire him on full time as our ranch manager!  Even so, we're very grateful for his help this past week. He and G.W. got quite a bit done around here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...Richard started on the pig pen by removing the woven wire fence that had been used to keep horses out of the pen. The wire is still good and worth saving, so staple by staple, Richard took it down. After taking apart the wood fence, he used the Bobcat to push over the posts.

 This was a full day's hard work! I sure am happy to see this thing apart. 

The wood from the pig pen is too far gone to be reused for anything structural. 

But we are going to save it for "artistic" projects....signs, picture frames, etc. G.W. has some good ideas for the wood. Nice winter time, indoor projects!

And here is all the woven wire that Richard so carefully saved for us.

While dismantling it, Richard found some old, hand-forged nails. 

We've used fence panels to block off the entire area until we can get the wood removed and go over the area with a metal detector and magnet. 

That's a project in and of itself. A project within a project!

This is just the first of a half dozen or so articles on all we've been working on here at Crossed Sabers. I'm burning the midnight oil to write the rest! 

Modern Homestead Barbie

I think I'm going to contact the people at Mattel because they need to make a new Barbie doll. She's "Modern Homestead Barbie" and comes with cast iron pans and a cordless drill. That idea came to me while I was building six new beds for my Square Foot Garden. I think it's high time they made Barbies a little more like real women!

Most of the snow from the May 1st storm has melted and it was nearly 60 degrees today. Beautiful day to work outside.

Here's what the garden looked like before adding the new beds. 

I built four 4' x 8' beds and two 4' x 10' beds. They're made from untreated two by twelves. Remember, do not use pressure treated lumber for vegetable or herb beds because chemicals can leech into the soil and into the produce you'll eat. Yuck!

G.W. helped me get all this lumber home in his big truck.

While I was hard at work, this is what was going on over in the corral. Nap time.  They're so darned cute!

These garden beds went together like the others...I drilled all the pilot holes first.  The pilot holes take the longest. 

Once they're done, the beds go together in about 15 minutes each.  It's simple to do.  The toughest part is moving the boards and partially completed beds around to work on. That's heavy lumber!

I'm going to recommend that Mattel give Modern Homestead Barbie a Dewalt cordless drill. It's a workhorse. Lordy, I hope they don't decide to make it pink!

Here's the garden after the addition of the new beds. I'll fine tune their placement when I'm ready to fill them with the Square Foot planting mix.  

Yes, it's a huge garden, especially for the intensive Square Foot  method.  I've got just over 400 square feet of garden space!  My eventual goal is to grow the majority of our own food. That will come gradually. This first year is mainly about building the structures. Another project for this year is installing a drip irrigation system. 

Over the next few years, I'll learn by trial and error which vegetables will grow in my climate. We live at high altitude and have a short growing season. We're either in a warm Zone 3 or a cold Zone 4. It's going to be a challenge to produce longer season veggies like tomatoes, eggplant and corn. Using the hoop houses may extend the season just enough.  Time will tell.

Meanwhile, over at the corral....still napping!

One last thing...Modern Homestead Barbie should also come with a large bottle of Advil. Her back's going to ache a lot!