And then summer was over and it was summer again (summer 2011 till now)

So after the last time I posted things took off for the summer and then winter came and we had a bunch of reno's in the house planned and the last 8 months just flew by like blinking.  Blinking with a side car of exhaustion.  I am going to post photo's and just comment on them for the things that happened over the last eight months.

So over the summer we took the kids to the Toronto Zoo and had a blast, but there is a lot of walking, you don't see to many fat people

Plus we had the chance to go visit friends at their boat.

 I had a few friends that I grew up with up to this summer (2011) for a camp fire-bbq.  good times Lee still working on being  FATMAN! with his double patty burger w sausage and bacon.

Centre Island were we where shrunk

Here are our first Buff Orpington pure breed birds

Some Where in here our Hand Crank Cream separator broke.  Now that would be ok if we didn't need it for our milk and if we had bought it at some store down the street where we could just exchange it, not the Ukraine.  So at first I sent it back and up-graded to an electric model.  Now I know that all of Europe including the Ukraine not only have different plugs, but they also run off 220v not 120v like use here, but I didn't know that until I had the separator in my hands. I had to purchase a step-up, which changes 120 to 220, but again didn't know that till it was in my kitchen full of milk.  And if that didn't complicate things the first motor that was sent had something wrong with it,  So 3-4 months after sending it back we now have a working Cream Separator, but now the goats are dry (no milk).

THE CHICKEN PLUCKER:  Well this didn't go so well.  It started off being made from an old washing machine, but after tearing everything apart and rebuilding it the motor was not strong enough to spin the drum to plucker feathers.  So after a lot of work it was scraped and I built one from a 45 gal drum and a motor for a furnace.  it is still yet to be tested but there will be pictures or a video of that.

At some point here we butchered all the meat birds and because the chicken plucker did not work we skinning a lot of birds and plucked a few by hand,  THANKS RYAN!!!

BABY TYLER: Born Nov 11, 2011 6.1 lbs Name figured out 10 mins. before birth

THE BUS:  I took on driving a school bus, because of the appeal of giving up retirement to work, LOL. No really, we were expecting our third child and in order to be prepared I started driving to make some extra money and to cover off the loss of Cheryl's income when she was off on mat leave.  Now It sounds like good job for a farmer, a little bit of time in the morning and then a little bit of time in the after noon.  Guess what by the time everything was factored in I was driving close to 5hrs a day and could never give a project the time it needed because I would only have a few hours in a row to do something.  I signed that I would drive for a year so this Friday is my last day.

RENOVATIONS:  As the months started to get colder Reno's started on the house.  This was not just a lip stick and mascara job, I am still working on them everyday and it has been five and a half months.
the list
-New floors in the kitchen, main floor bath, and front hall
-Paint the living rm, kitchen, mf bath, upper hall and front hall
-Build a mud rm, complete with built-in shelving
-Replace all interior doors and closets w matching doors
-Replace all light fixtures
-Hang an above the stove microwave
Wait for it...
-Install a new kitchen

And then there were Cows!!!  So after our first summer with goats and Cheryl not drinking milk we decided that we needed to get a Cow also.  It would provide milk and beef.  After a lot of research I decided on Red Poll Cattle.  It is an old breed from england that used to be dual purpose.  It often wins awards (currently) for the the meat and flavour.   It's milk is high in butter fat content but has small fat globulars, so people that think they are lactose intolerant can actually drink this milk with no side effects just like goats milk.  They calf easy and are not prone to genetic disease like lots of other cattle, so they cost less to raise and you don't need to give antibiotics to keep them alive, not that I would anyways.

I was able to buy two cows both pregnant and have them delivered over March break.  The problem is that we have had plus 20's weather for the week prior and all the snow melted and the ground was soft.  The cows arrived and the truck could not get back to the paddock so they were just let off the truck and then I spent the next two hours chasing cows up our road and back down and on our neighbours property and then finally into the paddock.  They seem to be adjusting well but they still don't like me to much.

still getting caught Up

I left off with we had just got the last 16 chick.  So stop me if you have heard this one...LOL

We had the chicks in side by the fire place for about a day and then Cheryl put and end to that.  Out side I fenced them in around the fire place (that doesn't work) in the garage.  The Turkeys and Chicks were living together in not so much harmony.  We lost five chicks before I figured out it was the turkeys killing them.  The Turkeys would walk up to the chicks and just stump on the their heads, so that was the end of their communal living.  Which also meant more work, two feeders, two waterers,  two floors to clean, but that stopped it no more chicks died.

For the second chicken tractor I found a place that sells used lumber not to far from me.  Because I did have to use old skids I could design the tractor to be lighter and I might have gotten a like cocky and made it bigger.  The only thing I would change about this one is that I would have painted the inside before letting the chickens in, too late now.  I am still trying to find a waterer, like on the first tractor, that is gravity feed and shuts off when the bowl is full.  Now you are up to date on the chicks. O one last thing,  the chicks as they grow don't seem to be Buff Orpingtons,  Three do, you can see two of them just to the left of the kids in the picture the rest are white, not Buff.  I'm going to see what they look like at 20 weeks and if they are still not buff I will be going back to have a talk with the guy that sold them to us.


It was about three weeks ago now that the kids and I decided to go for a walk one day instead of sit in the paddock (so Tamara will come out of the barn and eat).  So by the time we got back from the walk and put Hailey to bed for her nap Nate and I were about two hours late for our daily visit to the goats.  When I first entered the paddock I found it odd that Tamara didn't greet us, as I entered the barn I found out why.  Troy was dead!  He some how tipped the feeder I built onto himself (the feeder doesn't weight much it is just four 2x4's).  Tamara must of seen what happened and in a effort to help tried to come to Troy's aid and jumped on the feeder, because he was crushed under it.  Rigger had already set in and so as I pulled the feeder off Nate Entered and there was only one thing to say "Remember how mommy and daddy tell you not to do certain things, this is why, we don't want you to get hurt."

A week past and we found Kiddy (we also did not name her).  She is a one year old Alpine with horns and this was her first kid.  She has the smallest little teats, but daily she is producing more milk.  She is up to about a 1L now and I hope that this is it, because she keeps getting blood in her milk.  She has encouraged Tamara to go outside more and now I don't go sit in the paddock anymore as they can pretty much do that on their own now.

Christmas and ThanksGiving:  The turkeys are now hanging out in the barn with the goats, roaming free and loving it.  But now there is only three.  To add to the story we have had some pretty fierce storms lately here, the first of which we had several trees come down on the property two blocking off the driveway and other then that nothing on the property was hit, Praise GOD for that.  So one night it is raining and I am milking and I was having trouble with the goats because I can only have the one that I am milking in the barn, the other has to go outside so she doesn't eat the feed, drink the milk, nock stuff over, get punched.... you know.  But it was raining and goats are not big fans of the rain so they are freaking out while I finally finish with Tamara and go to do the switch and the barn door falls off and the turkeys are all standing right there and one just didn't see it coming.  so now I had one dead turkey one goat wanting in one not wanting to go out and I still had to milk.  Yeah I might have yelled a little that night, ok replace yelled with screamed and replace a little with a lot.

Cheese making:  We found that the recipes that we were getting online were inconsistent and often times missing stuff, like the measurements.  So we ordered a cheese making book.  It was fine, but then we realized that we had non of the supplies that the book called for. That was fine so we ordered them online, BUT Canada post is now locked out (that is an issue that I have lots of opinion on, but not enough time to write about it).  So we have been dumping milk, because we just can find enough uses for it without making cheese.

I did however make a yogurt which seems to have worked.  It had a woody taste to it and it wasn't sweet and didn't taste like vanilla or berries (ok you caught me I have never eaten plain yogurt and had nothing to base my "did it turn out" on.  It looked like yogurt.  Anyways we ended up dumping have that because I made a 2L batch and we just couldn't eat it in time. I also made vanilla ice cream.  I watched several videos online and after thought it best to make my own recipe because some, sorry, most people would be explaining why they were doing what they were doing and would contradict themselves several times. So after my first attempt failed I tweeked it a bit and the second one worked great,  I might still play with this one.

Trial #2

4 Egg yokes

1 1/2 cups of icing Sugar 

A dash of vanilla

Add part of the milk to sugar mix and wisk till thin.

Add to below

2 cups of Heavy Cream 

2 Cups of skimmed Milk

Put in freezer and mix every 30-45 mins. till hard

Eat as soon as possible

Yesterday:  another down side to the older chicken tractor.  Because it is closed in under the coop it tends  to get dark under there and for the past week the Hens have found it nice enough to roust under there.  except that when I drag it forward in the mornings they are down below and well it makes things tricky. yesterday I had no idea that a hen had spent the night down below so as always, before letting down the stairs I dragged it forward.  I did not notice till half way through the day when I went to move it again that one of the black sex-links had her foot caught under the side of the tractor and was now dead.  As I tried to pull her out all but one of the hens escaped.  Now this in the past was fine as they normally just hangout near the tractor and want back in.  This time it was just me and they wanted away from me more then they wanted to stay near the tractor.  So if I went near the tractor they left and then they got lost in the woods and I ended up spending several hours trying to herd them back to the front lawn.  after that they hid in the garden.  They would dig themselves in and even if I was standing over them they wouldn't move.  Smart for them as the garden (flower) is so thick that I couldn't see them.  I finally got all but two.  One plymouth rock had out run me after I smoked her out of the garden and one sex-link took the "you don't have to run fast then the bear" approach and ran parallel to another hen and gunned it just I went in to get the both of them.  

The kids and I were heading back from visiting the goats when as we passed the small opening in the trees that leads to the back deck I seen something move out of the corner of my eye from under it.  I hurriedly got Nate to go around to the other side and I grabbed my rake and tried to catch it.  It got away, but oddly enough we ended up catching it because in her attempt to get away from us she ran back to the tractor and ran head first into it holding her head in through the wire with her body stuck outside the tractor.

Tomorrow we are off to St. Jacobs, so I will keep you posted. I'm sure there will be lots.

Some many things to do so little time

So it is now May 29th, more then a month since my last post and since we got the goat.

THE GOAT: when the breeder called on Apr 15th I was literally trying to get caught up on my posts and make sure that I had written about everything that I had done, and well, a ton more has happened.

The goats name is Tamara, she is a registered Nubian goat.  She kidded twins (good for me and hopefully she continues to have twins in the future) so the breeder through in the male kid for the same price.  He was a really nice guy and I hope to have him up one day to show him the homestead that he had a hand in building.  Now I don't know very many goats, but Tamara is not a very smart one.  She has this cry that she makes when she can find Troy (the male kid, Cheryl named him) and it is very distinct.  I can see that, the whole protective mother thing, but sometimes she will start freaking out and making that cry and Troy will be to the left of her and a little back (what I mean is just out of her line of sight) and she doesn't look around to find him first.  She chooses to freak out first and then look around for him.  This is hard for me to explain in written word, but she is stupid. We converted an old double car garage that was on the property into the barn.  I had spent a lot of time putting some scrap roofing metal around the base of the exterior walls and then piled rocks around the base of the wall to stop predators. Because it wasn't finished the first night that the goats were here I slept in the back of the van parked right outside of the barn with a loaded 22 rifle and a flashlight.  Sleep was limited.  A train passes by our house every half hour over night, I would say. I didn't know this sleeping inside, but now I do.

As we got the call, Cheryl said to me well why don't we pick up some laying hens while we are out and I agreed.  So we found 3 Plymouth rock and 4 Black sex-link right around the corner. A young guy was selling them and he had a huge array of other foul.   Now the chicken tractor wasn't done, so the first thing I had to do when we got back, after finishing the rest of the barn, was finish the chicken tractor. I kinda just through the rest of it together.  Because of that it ended up weighting a ton and now I have to move it using the ATV and not by hand as I had planned.  The chickens love it, but for the first few days they would lay their eggs on the ground and wouldn't go up inside at night.  One of the sex-link was the first to lay her egg in the nesting boxes and then from there everyone followed and it only took them three days till they all learned that inside on the perches was where they should spend there nights.  We do currently have one hen (but we can't find out who) that is laying deflated eggs.  The eggs is just a shell and has nothing in it and the shell itself is softer  and wrinkled.  O well hopefully it stops as the nest of them are laying fine.  We are getting at four eggs every day and some days they give up to six.

The Paddock:  Yesterday I got the paddock to a point where the goats can go out and they are contained, for the last month and a half we have been just letting them roam free and I have spent a lot of time trying to keep them out of areas that they shouldn't be in.  SO this is a relief.  the door from the barn to the paddock still has no lock but that is coming.  Yesterday there was no door and even though the goats had the ability to roam the grasses of the paddock they choose to stay inside the barn, like I said they are not very bright.  To add to that when there was no fence they would wonder around and eat the grasses and everything else that was growing all around the paddock, but now that they are fenced in (80'x 60', it's huge for one goat and a kid) they stay near the doors or inside the barn.  I still need to put t-bar between each set of posts, but Troy is too young to challenge the fence right now and he will be dinner if we don't get another doe soon, so I am in no rush to get that done.  I did build them this great feeder for in the barn but now that the grasses are in it will stay empty all summer.

Now well we where at the goat breeders we noticed that he had two jersey bull calfs. so we asked and he told us that he picked them up at a livestock auction for $20/head.  I almost passed out. To go over the numbers for those that don't know.

SO Jersey is a dairy breed, so the bull (male) calfs are useless, they take milk supply and feed to raise plus handling and so dairy operation want to get rid of them as soon as possible. A spring calf will weight about 500 lbs or more by the end of summer and still be or just past the veal point. thats roughly 300 lbs of vealish meat for $20 and some time and management, that's 6 Cents a lbs up front cost.  If you have 2 acres of grasses that you can bale 1 acre twice for winter feed well the calf eats the other (about 2 tons) and once you are through spring grasses the next year that calf that cost $20 now could weigh up to  1200-1400 lbs,  thats about 1000lbs of meat after you remove useless bone (because there are stewing bones) and innards, plus there are some innards that are useful like the intestine, heart and liver.  The brain can even be used for tanning the hind and hooves are a delicacy and hard to find with our current industrial food system so you could almost eat the whole thing, and don't forget to compost the rest for your garden the following year.  NOW THATS A DEAL!!!!!!

So Ryan and I went to a livestock auction.  I didn't understand a thing the auctioneer said, but I did find Buff Orpington's for $2/bird (day old chicks) so we bought the last 10 he had and two turkey's for $5 a bird, Ryan bought two turkey's also and we are going to take care of them till they have space or Easter/ Christmas/ Thanksgiving, haha.

I went the next week with Cheryl and the kids hoping to get a pig and bull calf plus some more Orpington's, but the pigs were all off the block and there were no calf's that week, but there were 16 more chicks.  I have had to separate the turkey's from the chicks. They killed five chicks from just being jerks and stumping on them.  They would literally just walk up to a chick and just stump on their head.  So we are now down to 21 chicks and four turkey's.

I will tell more later, bye for now.

Worst Blogger Ever

Ok, Ok, I know.  I am the worlds worst blogger. It has been forever since I was last here and wrote something.  I am equivalent to that date that shows up 2hrs after you gave up and went home, more like the one that shows up on the wrong day.

It seemed like I had nothing to write for well over two months with winter slowly closing shop and literally nothing going on but cutting wood, and lets all admit that there is only so many times you can hear someone talk about cutting word.  It's like listening to politicians talk about what they plan to do, all the hard work takes place at that point because once its out of their mouth you know nothing is going to be done.

Then winter ended and we had crazy warm weather and its like a hundred and one things needed to be done and the daily abeyance list changed, but never ended.  So in the past threes weeks (or so) this is what has take place......

I started, but have yet to finish the chicken tractor.  The bones and nesting boxes are done.  I just need to finish the coupe, add some tin for and the chicken wire.  then it is one down and one maybe two more to go.  This would seem to be an afternoon activity, but I am making it out of old skids that I got for free and I am recycling them into something new that will give life to hundreds of chicks if not hundreds of fine breakfasts.

28 Posts holes are dug. and then subsequently filled with water because the ground on our property is so wet.  I have cut around 20 cedar trees down and I have harrowed (the bottom four feet) all but four posts.  They are leaning against the back deck now drying and soon I will blow torch them and then water seal them.  In the same action I pulled up the boards on the deck to add footings, but the ground under the deck was still frozen,  So today I put back some new boards but didn't screw them into place in hopes that the ground will thaw soon and then I will have to do the holes by hand.

The post holes where ok to dig, we rented a gas powered post hole auger with an 8 inch bit.  It worked fine except for the fact that as soon as you hit something it just logged itself into the ground.  At that point we needed to take the bit off and turn the bit out by hand.  This is where the most time was spend.  The physical work itself; well if you want large shoulders then you should rent one of these and just dig some holes, you'll be as wide as a barn in no time.  As for me the physical and excruciating part was walking around carrying the machine and having to bend, there were breaks, lots of them.  By the end of the day the two man auger turned into a three man auger.

The kids play set is up and some what in good order.  It is not in its final place, but for now the kids can play on it and be occupied for at least a few hours each day.

We have the start of our orchard,  Four trees all about five years old, so they should bare fruit next season for consumption.  I changed the location from where I originally wanted it, and over time it might expand in the form of a phase 2 back to where I had wanted it.  We have 1- Apple that has five different apples grafted onto it. 1-Apple that has just one baking apple on it. 1- Dark Sweet Cherry (self pollinator) and 1- Pear (self Pollinator).  I just added root stimulator to them today, to help them take to their new home.

It is Apr 15th and the phone just rang, it's the Nubian Goat breeder, the Goat is ready for pick up today!..... 

Winter is Almost done!! I hope...

We just got back from a weeks vaca in Mexico, with no children.  Great Great Time.  Seen some ruins spent some time in the sun and ocean.  loved the fact that the weather was mid 20's (mid to high 70's) all week, not to hot, but never cold, some nights were chilly.

Coming home was hard, the house was 8 (48) when we came home and I was only able to 60 (thats the mid teen's) before bed.

BABY CHIC'S:

So I have written a few times about getting the buff orpington chic's.  This has been one of the must frustrating things that occupies my mind must days.

Months ago I did my research and found no hatcheries in Canada that had the BO breed.  I did find two USA hatcheries that would ship them and there was only a larger shipping fee.  Since then I guess things have changed.  Both companies when I called could not ship over the boarder and only one would ship to a post office at the boarder (US side) where I could pick them up and carry them over with health papers that they would print for an extra charge, almost doubling the order price when you fact gas plus the papers charge.

Then I found two hatcheries, one on the east coast and one on the west coast (of Canada).  they both could only ship by air due to the distance they were from us and that again would double the price of the birds.

So then we found a group that was ordering from the USA and was already going to have someone go pick the chic's up from the boarder.  Great I signed up, paid my fee and then tried to get in touch the person that was placing the order.  Finally they emailed me back and guess what... they were not members of the group and they had only just mentioned to the head of the group that they were thinking about placing the order.  The head of the group I guess misunderstood and printed in their publication that the group as a whole was putting an order together and well... it was not what I had signed up for.

We did end up finding a person that was going to hatch some chic's from her flock, a very small scale business venture for her.  The only catch is that she is out by Ottawa, about 5 hours away.  So now we have our order placed and should have chic's by Apr., which is much later then I wanted them, but what can you do? I did change the order to 20 Buff Orpington's and 5 Rhode Island White, just because RLW mature early and start laying eggs at around 16 weeks old. I'm also not holding my breath though.

Before vaca we had to show the inside of the freezer to the last of our chickens since we wouldn't be able to get someone to feed them while were gone.  The process is getting better.  We used a laundry bottle with the bottom cut out and hung upside down for the kill station this time.  It worked great, but I think we need to use 6L bottle instead of the 8L bottles that we get from Costco.  There was a little to much room in it and some of the chickens got their feet down under them while we were trying to cut their jugular.

The Goat seem to be a sure thing since we stopped being picky about the breed (we are now getting a saanen)  and we are just waiting for the doe to kid and then we can go get it, again from out Ottawa way so hopefully the goat and the chic's will be ready at the same time and we can just make one trip.

I have yet to start the chicken tractors, to many things are going to, but with the steady supply of skids that we found we should have enough wood to build as many as we need plus do the two "top bar bee hives."
I did pick up a hot water tank the other day from some repair place and hopefully this weekend I will be able to go over my plans with the plumber I know and make sure nothing contradicts the principles of plumbing.

Wood is still the on going issue, because of the snow I can only pull out enough wood at one time for a few days.  Add to that the the wood is still wet (even though I am only cutting green ash) so it doesn't produce as much heat so you burn more to get the same BTU's.  Right now after I am done this I will go out and drag more wood in, there is literally two pieces of wood in the basement right now.

Cheryl picked up a bunch of canning supplies last night from someone just trying to get rid of them.  which is great for us.

That's all for now.  I am still looking for a play-pen either free or really cheap.

Thanks for reading.

Why did the chicken Cross the Road?

The Colwill's, Vaughan's and Brandy and Monroe all came over for the slaughter Party.  So things always take longer then you think.  What I thought would take 1hr and have it all done, took 2 and a half hours and still wasn't finished.  We did six birds.  By the end we made Paul take his turn at killing and he did alright, besides the constant hesitation.  Ryan was the supreme gutter, Paul did what he does best watched and entertained while trying to keep his hands clean, hence the making him kill a bird.

The kids surprisingly where ok with everything,  we talked them through what was going to happen and why we have to kill the animals.  We took the time to explain that we were not doing this to be cruel, but to make food.

While we were processing them two of them had eggs in them.  It was so cool seeing how the eggs come to be.  In one of the chickens there where eggs in all different stages, all the way to just these little sacks that looked like caviare. Now all the planning didn't work out that great.  It ended up that we got blood everywhere, so once we have our flock it will be summers only killing and and outdoors.  Since we have five left, I'm giving them to a week to lay an egg OR ELSE! They know what is coming, it was explained as they watched their friends.

So sat the family headed out and picked up some feed for the chickens, not bad $18 for 40kg.  The rest of the day I had to come up with a place for the remaining chickens to stay.  We spent next to nothing on their coop.
Materials
-4 skids
-Brad Nailer and nails
-handful of screws and gun
-circular saw
-wire cage material
and Ta-dah!

They have two nesting bowes, a perch and two feed troughs (one for feed and one for oyster shells). The water dish, as of today, is an ice cream bowl filled several times a day.  I have a light hooked up to a timer to come on at 5am to give them few extra hours of light a day to try an coax them into laying eggs. None yet!  5 more days and then more freezer space will be occupied.  I finally got that email about the Orpington order so hopefully I get a phone call soon and then I can have that behind me and done.

The goat I heard back and things look good the seller is going to contact me as soon as the doe kids and then we can come pick her up!! milk milk milk!!!

Till next time.

I want to try and clear up some old post with things that I said I would get to and I did but I didn't blog about so that will be my next task.

All the best,

Taste like Chicken

On the goat front.  We found another person selling goats, but they are about a 3hr drive away and some things are a little unclear I'm going to have to have a few more emails to clear things up.  Hopefully our search is over and we can have a wet doe for the spring,  Cheese Cheese Cheese.

So the Chickens!  two days after I placed my order for the chickens we received a call from the hatchery in Canada saying that they can still fill our order, BUT they need to ship them by air $$$$$$$$$ and that adds an extra $100 to the chicken order.  Now considering that the order only came to $136, well you do the math.  Those are some expensive chickens.  Back to google.

Good thing I married such a smart women because after bouncing a few ideas around and i prepared myself for driving to the boarder and bringing the birds back over myself from the USA.  Cheryl did some looking online and found someone that was selling their birds so they could buy the breed that I want.  So i gave them a call and found out they were part of an Association that was ordering together and after a few more calls I am now joining that association in order to get in on their order of the Buff Orpington's that they are having shipped up from the USA (did I mention that they are ordering from the same hatchery that I was going to buy from).  I am just waiting to hear back from the person at the Assoc. about placing my order and then I won't have to drive to the boarder.

At the same time The other day I found someone online that was just getting rid of their flock because they had stopped laying (winter).  So the children and I headed up there today to pick up the birds.  Nate was all excited and you almost couldn't contain him,

 that was until the farmers dog came into the barn and then he freaked.  Hailey was freaking the whole time so there I was with two children freaking out a dog running around while sheep watched the whole thing and me chasing chickens.  the funniest part was that I was doing a better job of catching the chickens then the farmer.  At one point he was chasing one and I had one in each hand while trying to calm down two children screaming at the top of their lungs.  Now i guess that someone responded to the add after us because the farmer explanation was that someone else was coming and He (farmer) told him that him (the other guy) that someone was already coming so he could have half.  So i thought we were going to have 20 chickens, but instead we got 11.  Still a good deal at that price, FREE!!!! We finally finished, got the kids in the van, pooh covered and all, and left.

So tomorrow Ryan, Paul and Families are coming over to turn all but three into dinners.  Cheryl won't be here so she will miss out, but for the rest of us it will be good practise for when we have larger flocks.

I found a place that has a ton of skids, so for the next several Wed before bible study I am going to be picking up skids until I have all five chicken tractors made.  Yeah!

just in an aside---I had a run in with the Post worker today.  We haven't had mail a week and a half, so I called the post office toll free number and was surprised that they said that there was no way to call the local post office, "they don't have a direct line"  I laughed said thank you and hung up without waiting for a reply.  It took me all of 30 sec. to find the local number online and when I called them they said I hadn't received mail because there was to much snow near my mail bow.  I will give them this, if they felt there was a problem they should do what is necessary to solve that problem.  However what did they do, THAT RIGHT NOTHING.  I had to call them to find out that there was a problem and that bugs me because as with the rest of you I pay to get my mail and if I can't get my mail I feel that I should be informed why.  I shouldn't have to be the one that initiates that process.  Just as a side within this side. on Fri I had to wait to pull into my drive because the post veh. was at the end of my drive pulled right up to my box and didn't put anything in it. because there was to much snow, but they were pulled right up to it, any closer and they would be taking paint off their veh.