Saturday, February 1, 2014

We miss our friends....

We miss our friends and our routines...

December, as always, is a bad month for us. This year, even worse. Economically, at least. So we had to crank back on our usual social activities. Thus we have not spent time with some of our dear friends. It spilled over into January, and then we were out of town, and it seems forever. Many of our comforting routines are broken, yet to be re-established. Then, to add to our disconnectedness, we have conflicts for two of our annual events that we were looking forward to, and never miss. Aaargh. We love you and miss you, if you are among those we haven't been able to see in awhile....

Roosters don't play well together...

Roosters don't play well together!

Okay, we built the new pen. Now we have seven. Seven pens. Ten adult roosters. Two new crowing roosters. And probably four more coming up. Do the math. Any way you look at it, we have too many roosters.

In the big cage, Racer and his son, Blackcape, get along fine. There is a third rooster in there, however, Scrappy, that is not doing so well. With 30+ hens, 3 roosters should be fine. We had a cute little red rooster we wanted to keep in there, but Blackcape fought with him for an entire day, and we finally had to take him out. We traded him to Kui for Minerna, a Cuckoo Moran hen. But Scrappy was still there, and Blackcape was leaving him alone. But yesterday, Racer beat him up, probably for jumping one of his favorite hens. But after that, Scrappy has been giving Racer a wide berth. So it may be okay. Worth the scarred comb.

In the transition pen, we had three roosters, Sammy, a big combed multicolored rooster with three inch spurs, Rosy, a young rose combed rooster with a beautiful face, and Cocoa, a young but huge Cuckoo Moran rooster, and three hens. Surprisingly, all three hens were laying. But Sammy definitely had the young roosters on the run. If Sammy was downstairs, they were up; if Sammy was upstairs, they were down. But no one was getting beat up. When we built the new pen, we put Rosy and Cocoa in it with six of the juvenile hens from the family pen. Rosy is a scrapper, and, despite Cocoa's weight and size, he's a mild-mannered fellow, and Rosy claimed all the hens. Then we put Minerna in there, and Rosy wanted her, too. But Cocoa put up a fight and ended up bloody. When Rosy wouldn't let up, we had to remove him. However, the hospital pen was occupied, so we stuck him in the brooder room, it not being occupied at the moment. Now, the brooder room contains 40-50 day-old chicks fairly well. But an innovative, pissed-off rooster with an entire night to plan? No way. He found the cracked window, planned his route, and, at the crack of dawn, was high tailing it out across the yard to rejoin his hens. Our four chicken-chasing dogs took off, chasing him into the neighbor's yard,which is when I realized that a chicken was where he shouldn't be, and Kui and I went to the rescue. Me to round up the mutts and get them inside (Panter has yet to forgive me) and Kui to corner the roo. We finally got him. But what now. The current hospital cage resident was a young Cuckoo Moran rooster, so we put him in with Cocoa, and Rosy went in the hospital. We still don't know what to do with him. He's a beauty. And we have a hen that looks just like him. Hate to put him in the pot, but he doesn't seem to get along with anyone else. And Cocoa? So far, he's getting along fine with Chocolate Chip. As long as Chocolate Chip keeps running from him and leaves Minerna alone!

Why was Chocolate Chip in the hospital pen to begin with? He was an exotic free bird from McMurray that was in Tonto's pen. As soon as he started crowing, Tonto started fighting with him. Poor Chocolate Chip was so scared, he hid under the fence edge (very dangerous) and wouldn't come out. So we took him out, for his own sake. Since then, another rooster has started crowing, but we don't know which one, and haven't noticed any chasing! We hope that Tonto will accept one of them!

In Brother's cage, where we put the last batch of juveniles, there were two red and black roosters that were fighting amongst themselves. We gave one to Kui, but Brother and the one that is left are still arguing over the hens, and the hens don't like it much either. The brown egg layers are doing okay; lots of new eggs. But the Marys have all but stopped laying. We may butcher that rooster in the next rooster cleansing. The hens must be happy at all costs.....

No more WWOOFERs!

We're done with WWOOFing....at least for now.

We survived two WWOOFER visits, not without considerable damage, mostly emotional. What are the positives, and what did we learn?

Hmmmmm...

We did get the downstairs area cleared out, fixed up and inhabitable. There is a Hawaiian couple living there now, in exchange for yard work and care taking. We added an outdoor sink, refrigerator,  Coleman stove,  toaster oven and microwave. We were motivated by the WWOOFER program, so that was good.

We found out that people who have not lived on the Big Island, or are not local, do not really understand the Hawaiian land. What is valuable, what is not. The way of life in the country here. It took us awhile to get it. But we were patient and open-minded. And we got it. Don't judge people by their dress; don't judge a house by its driveway; chickens don't care if their coop is painted.

Our farm is healing, with love and aloha.

We have 80 chickens in the layer flock at the moment; 30 meat chicks on order and about 10 roasters (4 - 6 lb) in the freezer. We get about 20 eggs a day (12 of the flock are roosters and 20 are juveniles, too young to lay), and sell out weekly.  We need to butcher roosters, but they are all so pretty... Want to buy any?

We finally have a dog poop worm box going! Took a few tries, but with our tenants' two dogs, that makes 6 on the property, and tons of poop. Evidently, it's strong, so the worms want a high ratio of paper to poop.

Since Jeana moved in, we have lost many of our weeds. The yard is looking great. We are making dirt in one of our raised beds with all the chicken poop and worm compost. And piling up debris and papaya waste along one side of the yard for the papaya trees. Someday we may not have to travel to Kona to get our papaya! And Kui has been cleaning out the chicken pens - the chickens are happy and the dirt pile grows!

I'll keep you posted!

TP...Again!

TP...Again!

Really? Is THIS how they thought they would save money? Or did someone along the supply chain "skim off the top?" Or did a batch slip through quality control? Or, maybe someone told marketing that they were making the holders smaller, and the rolls were too tight. In any case, I'm amazed. Two rolls, from my favorite brand, Charming (name changed to protect me from libel).

I'm back!

I'm baaaaack!

Where've I been? Busy, I suppose... Oh, and I'll admit it, too sluggish and depressed to blog. Not that life is happening any worse than usual; it's more that somehow I have seen fit to totally give myself over to my addiction to carbs and sugars. And, to make it worse, I have a partner in crime. We have been binging on a pint of Haagen-Das daily, combined with fresh sourdough bread, bags of M&Ms, candy bars, pies, homemade Mac-n-cheese, and tons of cereal. Not much room left there for protein and veggies! I'm so "tired," I sleep 12 hours a day. Not much time left to do anything. Normally, I eat a diet high in meat and veggies, low in sugar. And I sleep 6 hours a day. Oh, and this behavior has rewarded me with 20 lbs.! The same 20 I lost by eating correctly for 6 months! This has to stop. Today. I hope. I did say this yesterday, then ate my ice cream. But today is a new day.

Anyway, expect several blogs on a variety of unrelated topics, as much has happened in carbo-world!