Monthly Archives: December 2004

Some Pics of the Occupied Pen

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I got outside earlier to take some pictures. I did it as fast as I could, the wind chill was something! Also, Lothar was acting WILD and really being a pest for attention and all I was out there to do was take a few pictures of the new pen and hens inside.

Here’s him looking in. I saw him later run up to them on that side and try to scare the hens, as well as actually go on the other side and jump right at the door and that scared them AND me!

I got him right into his own pen rigth then and there.

Lothar the dog

Here are some others then:

A view of the Australorps in their new digs

Here’s the Cypress-Side all done and occupied, as you can see the A.’s in it.

Here’s the egg collecting side, with the big door on the right, egg next door on the left. Panel of plywood next to the big door on the right, meant to be another door in time for spring. (with storm coverings for bad weather, as we can tell before it comes ;) )

The Australorps from inside the pen. I put the camera into the pen through one of the doors.

And here are the part of the Wyandottes. One and a half, precisely. That’s Pointsettia on the right, and Trinity’s back side to the left. They and Hawklady will be going into the A-Frame soon, I hope.

Cold and Hen Pens

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Oooh it’s a cold morning, and will be a cold day, just getting out of freezing maybe, maybe up to 38 degrees F. but then again, who knows. This is the country! I do mean: we are out in the boonies, ok? Weather people don’t have the snuff for what it takes to measure weather here as accurately as they do in cities ;)

If the weather is sunny and not too brutal later, and warmer than the now below 20 F., then I’ll see about taking some pictures of the nearly finished but occupied A-Frame out back.

Since we put the Australorps in it on Saturday at dusk, and were at church yesterday and didn’t spen much time in the back yard, I haven’t had much of a chance to look at it all, admire it, take photos, try and fix up a few more things, etc.

I really wish we could have finished this thing on a moderately temped day, but so it goes as it did.

I need to come up with hardware to fix the doors and such closed.

The egg door and the big door next to it are key, and then the lift-off back needs some securing mechanism as well, but is heavy enough not to be a problem per se, for now at least.

A-Frame is really cool. I love the way it is in looking through the door or side with chickenwire, much nicer than crouching down to the two-feet above the ground level and peering over and down from there, especially when it’s COLD! :)

I don’t mind laying in the grass in the spring and summer and watching the birds at the low ground level, but crouching, nah, ugh!

Once Winter is finished, we’ll go ahead and get the pen outfitted with green bird net instead of chicken wire, and make a door for next to the one big one that’s there now, both will be “screen doors”. We may also make a screen change-out for the back side where the Cypress-Side now resides. That’ll be nice for super duper clear moderate times.

Internal things we need to do is get a hook and chain to hang the waterer, and maybe devise a feeder box to attach to the side of something … right now we throw the crumbles on the ground, which I dislike having to do. Once the waterer is hung though, it’ll mean no having to get it out before moving the pen. :)

We also have to get a roost in there. We are thinking of drilling round holes in the handle end of the pen, and inserting a new large dowel, aka broom/mop handle.

Then we will get an artificial light in there too, and modify the nesting area as it presents problems … which I’m hoping it won’t.

The best thing about this A-Frame though is ACCESS to my birdies! I can open doors and touch them, grab them if I want to, pet them. :) Thus far the past has had my birds fairly free inside barriers that kept me on the other side. Not my plan from day one, but how it happened to play out.

So we are online with our third pen, and it’s a grand one compared to the other two.

We will be moving the three remaining Wyandotte-like birds into the A-Frame, if they can live with the Australorps, that is. The A’s are bigger than the W’s, so we shall see.

Then the scrappy whities will go into the superyard, and then Frank will tear apart that old first hen pen and re-invent it. Then back in the whities will go, maybe, if they aren’t stewed or dog food by then. :) I really am hoping just to keep them a bit more for a few big eggs. I could really use them.

Which Artist Would Paint You?

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I found this quiz via Carmon’s site.

RG
You have the Reynolds girl look. Reynolds girls had
the typical British beauty. The eighteenth
century British portrait painters would have
been attracted by your brilliant complexion and
your classical features. Sir Joshua Reynolds
loved to paint girls like you in white dresses
with blue satin sashes. Reynolds and other
portrait painters of his time also portrayed
blue eyed, dark-haired girls, and golden-haired
ones too, plus the occasional red-head. The
following painters would have painted you; Sir
Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence.

‘Pretty As A Picture’ – Which Artist Would Paint You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I must say, I’m thrilled with the answer, as I LOVE one particular Sir Thomas Lawrence portrait what I knew as Pink Lady, but is really called Pinkie.

My maternal grandparents had a grocery store bought production of that, and my grandpa made a frame for it, and they also had what I knew as Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough and paired them in matching frames in their living room. That had big impact on me as a young child, and I’ve carried a love of both those portraits every since.

Here’s link to Joshua Reynolds portraits on Allposters.

I most honestly don’t know what the picture attached to the quiz is of. It’s a Reynolds, apparently, but Allposters, as far as I’ve researched thus far, has nothing like that. [edit] I also found just now a few other sites and here’s one with many of Reynold’s works, but still nothing of the above featured there. www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=406&page=1

[UPDATE: 12:54pm Dec 20, 2004]I find, upon further reading, that Sir Thomas Lawrence was a student of Reynolds. Here’s a link at artrenewal about him, and his portraits are there too.

www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=866

Here’s the page with Thomas Gainsborough’s portraits on that site too: www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=189

[End UPDATE]

This is Pinkie: by Sir Thomas Lawrence

It’s really nice, IMO. And very much me, in a way ;) I was young once. Also, England is ONE of the places my ancestors come from. I feel akin to my English roots :)

New Hen Pen coming soon!

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It’s a fine day, sunny with a few clouds, supposed to get up to 59 degrees F. So the day is come that Frank and I will finish the old project for the “new hen pen” which began last Spring, and fell away to do-nothing-status as it became a giant that I couldn’t move anyhow, and was just “overkill” IMO.

So we are now fitting it out with finishing touches for Winter use, and plan on making it so useful as to be more “modular” friendly, a super proto-type for future better building practices.

I did some work the other week, and I was well pleased with it.

I made a lift of side for the back of the A framed unit, out of our fence extra pieces, cypress.

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The Cypress wall is only over the top half, and below that is ugly chicken wire, bulking out, not flat. :( I couldn’t get it right all by myself that day, but it’s just there and can be taken off and made better in the future. Over that we’ll be putting a metal roofing panel for Winterization.

I also fitted on a piece for a door to the egg laying nest area. It’s hinged.


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Here’s the big door into the unit, the other side of the A frame from the cypress “wall” I made. It’s hinged.


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We still have to trim out some pieces inside to cover gaps by the doors, and also make another door-like structure to fill in the space on the other side of the big door.

Complicated sounding, moreso that it really is.

Here are the two ends of the untit. First this one is the handled side. It’s not totally done yet.


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And this end is the side with the wheels. This is the side that will be changed to have a “hatch” to mate it to other pen pieces. It’s only temporarily sectioned off for winter.


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Don’t be impressed, it’s a mishmosh of everything. I’m only proud of it by the standards of it actually WORKING soon, and being better than what we have done in the past. :)

Some of the future residents, the Australorps today:


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Bad photo of them … they are much prettier than that! The lighting and angle were both bad, I just stuck the camera inside the pen under the roof and chanced it.

We may divide the middle to put ALL the hens in the pen but not mix them. I want to get them all in there somehow. The Australorps were laying again, but the last few to four or so days they haven’t laid a thing. So I want them in there with a better laying area, and protection from the elements, and someplace where we can run a light out to them easier.

The side with the nest area is where I want to put them. And the other side I just want a door there where there is nothing currently, so that I can put the other birds there in a sectioned off area and get to them for feed, water … eggs? Yes I want them to lay!

It’s a winter thing, just want to get them in there so we can rip apart the old pen and make something new out of the remains. And reclaim the Super Yard for some chicks in the spring too.

I have many ideas for making modular pieces of A-Frame and rectangular shaped pieces, merging them together modularly as desired. Just getting them working is what we need to do.

Yes, there are plans for pens out there. But they all come about from people doing what they need to do. That’s what we are doing. Not really re-inventing the wheel, but using stuff we have for proto-type usable things, and making things as custom as we can to really work, and make that something to market sometime, hopefully. With cheap products … fancy looking, but not really fancy to make or expensive to buy, tools to use general tools. My desire is to make things that are ergonomic, esthetic, and fun to use (for people and birds). All within an Agrarian, Conservationist mindset of principles.

This A-Frame isn’t put together as the basic parts of it, as I want future A-Frames to be made [I didn't build this, DH and FIL did] . It’s too heavy and just redundant use of big pieces of wood. It should be light, and that makes it movable, and it should then be able to be staked to the ground, hooked onto other pieces to increase weight as a sitting product, but unhookable for moving to another spot on the grass.

I think from the prospective of being small and a woman, in need of moving things myself, which would mean that younger folk could also move what I would be able to move. I am what is generally refered to as an average 12 year old’s size … in height. That makes for challenges in a giant world. Making something to the highest denominator means it’s out of my class, whereas lowest adult denominator in our family means it’s accessible by all adults and older children :)

The weather and all that

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Last night/this morning it got cold, was supposed to be around 25 degrees F. but here is was about 18 degrees around 8am or so. Considerabley colder than “city” areas around us. :)

The day warmed up to the low 50′s and it was SO nice. But it’s to get cold again over night. Low over tonight/tomorrow morn is supposed to be 35 at this point, so they say … but right now they say it is 30 degrees … that’s now. That’s colder than it’s supposed to get at all … ;)

Well that’s all from who-knows-where-and-who-is-taking-temps … as it’s not US at HOME. Our thermometer, the only one we have had … broke this last year. It was a digital dude that had a probe to go outside, and took that temp as well as the indoor temp, and saved low and high temps, etc. Nice, below $30 at Dillard’s some years back around this time of year (you know, all the junk the department stores have for sale in the middle of the aisle during “holiday season” for Christmas mostly …) Oh, it talked too. It’s history now though, and I try to believe what the folks in the paper, on the internet, on TV, are saying about what it is, and what it should be in the future.

I can tell relatively what temps are myself, by going out, of course, and feel good enough about my “close to nature” self to know I’m right about stuff. Like this morning, it was so frosty, I knew it was below freezing, but WAY below was my idea and when I saw they said it was 18 around this little part of GA, I believed it was about that. Below the 25 that was predicted, at least.

I can tell when warmer weather comes in and it’s just warmer weather, or when warmer weather comes in and it’s telling the tale of cold a’coming behind. Or some other kind of storm. I’m not 100% sure. Just get the feeling and come out right more oft than not. Well, I get good practice on this all in GA, with the way things go up and down, in and out. Weather changes more often in winter than in summer. But still, it’s not always hot, not always cold, not always mild, not always anything … it’s so variable here. It’s sort of always hot in the summer, but then, it’s not on a day to day, hour to hour basis, and same with the winter, it’s mild here, but not on a day to day, hour to hour basis. It really gets cold here. It was just as cold here last night, as it was in some northern towns that are cold all winter, usually.

OK then, I looked at Boston, MA on accuweather, and they had the same over night temps as the area around here last night, but today they got to 40 degrees about, but we were at 50 degrees and above. But are the same temp now again, about 35 degrees … which is what Accuweather is NOW saying about now, instead of the “30″ that is said it was then as a now then ;)

Always changing, and then that’s just it, where’s the temp from? Not here, some remote area 20 miles away, no doubt.

I’m judging house temps by how cold it feels in different areas, and seeing what the thermostat up in the hallway says it is. Lately it’s below the 50 degree mark over night, and creeps up to 53 or 55 by midday, it’s warmest and hovers then goes back down. That’s the coldest spot in the house. The back of the house gets the full day of sun, if it’s not cloudy, which helps greatly. The fireplace now in use helps to get the dining room nice, and seems to help a degree or so up the steps to the thermostat, but doesn’t get overly hot since it’s a high catherdral-ish sealing in there, and the down and up hallways are open to this area, with the kitchen right next to it with a small wall dividing it. The kitchen gets the full sun. Front dining room with fireplace gets no sun at all in winter, just a tad of late evening sun in summer. (we live with the main directions pointing through the corners of our house, visually speaking.)

At any rate, chilly inside temps of below or just above 50 are what we are getting accustomed to, and when the outside day turns to the same temps, we see it as “so mild” :) It’s all about inside air vs. outside air, and how much water is or isn’t in one or the other. As I’ve mentioned in another post resently, dressing modestly, for winter, means dressing warm enough to get through it fine. I like it cooler, it’s breathable air any how. :)

What do I usually wear? Well, I wear dresses and so does my DD. We wear long skirts, as like me: I’m usually wearing one of my two Eddie Bauer thermal weave cotton long sleeve dresses, slip, with cotton tights, and tall leather boots with 1-1/2 to 2-inch heels. I may wear a denim dress instead. That’s my usualy though inside the house wearing. I have some other things to wear out, but that’s not where I need to keep warm, most places we go it’s TOO WARM in them. I do not like fake heat, no I do not. It makes me unable to breathe well. It seems to suck my breath right away, as one can imagine what it would be like if the old wives tale about “cat’s sucking babies breath away” would be like. Yes, I visualize that “old wives tale” always have. I understand what it should feel like, if it was possible … :) Cats don’t do that. At least I don’t think they do, they never did it to me, nor to my children, and attempt no such thing night or day here, and we have had enough cats to know.

Oh speaking of cats, that’s part of our night warming stuff on the bed. One or two or three pile around our legs and sleep all night. One gets on our legs, or goes to someone else, another takes it’s place, and on and and on. I like it. It’s great during the winter, a bit too much in the summer, but they seem to like it in the winter more themselves as well. It brings on more heat to huddle together with other living things, so I consider that we are helping them feel comfy, and they help us feel warmer, if not truly “comfy” , but I tolerate it, and so does DH, and we all live happily.

The kittens have fitted right in, spawling out on Frank’s side of the bottom of the bed most nights, moving up closer later, and sitting on my chest sometimes for part of the night. They are sweet. Think Blue, Count Two. Getting bigger, -F is a spitfire lovely cat, becoming a lap sitter with me during the day. -M is so cute and just loves belly rubs. -F is a fighter when it comes to belly rubs. -M has lovely longer hair, looks messy usually. Looks super great if he gets spooked! Bushed out to the hilt! They’ve brought young play back into the house, and from the 12 year old down to the 3 year old, all those cats are more active now. :) Love those youngsters.

We saw some other kittens in Petsmark last Sat. Getting kittylitter, we saw all the animals there, of course, why not?! Two brothers, one a choc. point siamese and the other a black and brown something … both mixes (and litter mates), but the one was so pretty, and they pulled my heart strings … but we already committed to Think Blue, Count Two just two weeks prior. :( Sad for them, but happy for TB,CT and so happy for us to have them too.

Fire’s down for the night. Time for bed!