Squirrels, chickens, produce

I enjoyed the day with Mama yesterday as I worked from home, but today I am back in the office. Fortunately, there is plenty for me to do while I am here. This week I have a break from teaching classes, but only for this week. For the next several weeks I will have classes twice per week – every Tuesday and Thursday. Today I can focus on a couple small incidental projects I have been given. Having the spare time to get those projects done is a treat and I plan on using the time constructively.

While I was home yesterday, I tried to lessen our squirrel population but ultimately was unsuccessful. Mama has as part of her morning routine, tossing out a little scratch grain for the few chickens that manage to get out of the coop yard before we let the entire flock out at the evening feeding time. That scratch grain has a high content of cracked corn in it along with a variety of seeds. The chickens love it. So do the squirrels. We routinely have to chase away the squirrels from the coop because they chew up our containers trying to get to the feed. When Mama puts it out for free, it is too much for them to resist. So, having seen a squirrel in the early morning feasting on the cracked corn tossed in front of the coop, I got my .22 rifle and took a shot at it. I missed.

It was a fairly long shot for a .22, but I thought I knew how to make the shot accurately. Not only did I miss the first time. I missed the second time a squirrel was feeding on the corn and a third time as well. My trying to kill them did not seem to deter the squirrel from coming back. I did not know what I was up against. Even though I saw only one squirrel at a time I was sure there were more than one eating at the corn. I was proven right in the early afternoon when I saw three squirrels eating together at the corn. I just shook my head. I will have to try something different to rid us of the squirrels before they decide to take up residence in the walls of the coop. We have had to deal with that in the past and I was able to rid the coop of the squirrels but not before they had done a lot of damage.

Over the weekend Mama decided to allow the larger chicks we have in the nursery coop to have access to the yard attached to that building. It took a couple days for them to figure out the process of getting out of the building into the yard and make the return trip into the building to roost, but they finally got it down. But, on the first night I went out to shut them in the building, I must have missed one that had stayed in the yard. We found it dead the next morning and as is typically the case, it was one of Mama’s favorites. So, with the twenty we started off with as chicks, we are down to eighteen.

At the same time, we opened the yard to the older chicks, we moved the baby chicks into the Banty house. I had to install a light in the Banty house to provide some warmth for the overnight hours, but other than that we had very little extra work to get the chicks transferred. As I was making a return trip to the garage where we had been raising the chicks in two large totes, I discovered that Mama had left one of the baby chicks in one of those totes. Mama was not sure how that happened. The chick was not making any noises so if I had not looked it may have been some time before we discovered it. I think we have thirteen baby chicks in that group, having lost two since we got them. Overall, Mama has a very good survival rate with baby chicks.

Mama went out with me last night as I shut up the chickens to ensure none had been left out in the yard of the nursery coop and that all her baby chicks were in the upper portion of the Banty house with the light to warm them. It was a cool night last night. As we were out there, Mama took time to count all the chickens. As of last night, we have 42 large chickens, 18 large chicks, and 13 baby chicks. A total of 73 chickens, only four of which are roosters. Right now, we are getting about two dozen eggs per day. When they all start laying that will go up by at least another dozen per day on average. That would be nice.

By the middle of next week, we should be able to pick zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We will start picking blackberries by the end of the month. All of those produce items are on our current diet, so we should be able to eat up what we pick as the garden produces it. Spaghetti squash is also ripening quickly, and it is on our diet as well. I am amazed at how the Lord worked it out that all the produce from our garden this year is part of the diet Mama and I are holding to for the next couple months.

The peaches and nectarines will ripen after we are done with the strictest part of the diet. God’s timing is always perfect.