Category Archives: Equipment

Water Line!

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in Equipment, Farm Improvements, Weather

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Yay, the winter water line is in! Frozen water lines are only an issue for a few short weeks each year here in our coastal muddy valley, so this low priority project has been years coming. Water on tap in the barnyard in all weather. What luxury!

DH dug a trench using his own invention clamped on the end of his tractor arm thingy. Then RG took over, putting the final touches on the narrow trench, running and insulating the line then burying it, installing the tap and building it a snug insulated box for shelter.

Now it’s over to me to pick up some quick release hose connections. When a cold snap threatens, the plan is to detach the main feed, drain the water from the hose ends, close up the box and in the frosty morning hopefully find a working tap in the barnyard, right where it is needed.

This will be so much better than hauling heavy sloshing buckets of water all the way from the house! I love labour-saving barnyard devices. They leave more time for pure enjoyment.

Another Bit of Detox

29 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Equipment, Farm Life, Reduce, reuse, recycle

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Who isn’t more aware these days of toxic chemicals in our environment?  We are lucky to live on an island where the air is fresh and clean. And we make choices like using homemade soap and shampoo bars, eating homegrown, local and organic when we can, repairing rather than replacing, and avoiding buying new when secondhand will do perfectly well.

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Weaning myself off dryer sheets was on my list too, so the other night I sat down to research and then maybe order a set of those wool dryer balls online. Yup, the internet said they would work, especially if I put a couple safety pins in each.  They would shorten drying time, reduce static and pummel the clothes soft – all without coating our clothing and dryer in chemicals. $20 on Amazon, and $15 at Crappy Tire.

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Then I noticed a DIY link, and I was off!

I had a big ball of wool roving yarn in my stash, picked up for $3 at the secondhand store months before. It wasn’t labelled as wool, but a ten inch strand shrunk like crazy in hot water so I was pretty sure. First I rewound it into nine tennis ball sized balls, enough for me and any interested daughters. An old pair of knee highs and some bits of yarn and my balls were set up for felting. Unfelted, they would unravel in the dryer and make a real mess.

I put my wooly nylon caterpillars through our next two or three wash and dry cycles, then deconstructed them and voila. Homemade dryer balls. Pretty ones too, cream shot through with strands of purple and pink.

Well, that was easy. Bring on the next project! Oh, and anyone want a half gone box of dryer sheets?

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A Successful Hunt

24 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Equipment, Farm Life

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3528E1B4-C4CA-4466-BB0A-5CB181D6BBD0I had to drive up island today to drop off birds and pick up eggs, and I went early to make time for a visit with my SIL who lives up that way. We had a great day secondhand store shopping and lunching in busy downtown Duncan, and to cap it all off, we both enjoyed a successful hunt!

Secondhand shopping demands an entirely different attitude than regular shopping. You can’t make a detailed list and expect to stick to it. Instead, you take pot luck! Our attitude is always something along the lines of “…sure would be nice to find a (desired item) today…”, and we brief each other at the start, because in among the jumble of other peoples’ discarded possessions, four eyes are much better than two. More often than not we fail to find what we seek, but when we succeed, victory is sweet. And often we find stuff we had no idea we needed, until we laid eyes on it. (This can be a problem, restraint is key.)

Secondhand shopping is both virtuous and rewarding. Where else can you reduce, reuse and recycle, support local charities, save your pocketbook and have an enjoyable time with friends, all while rejecting the consumer-driven economy that urges us to buy more and more brand new items, discarding repairable, gently worn or slightly out of style old ones that are often of better quality?

Today, SIL was hunting for a fondue set. Her partner, who is a good cook, had asked her to keep an eye out for one. Success would mean a pleased partner plus yummy fondue, so she was motivated! At the fourth and last store we hit, eureka – in the form of a brand new aluminum fondue set, still gleaming in its factory wrapping, for $10. Score!

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I was hunting for a nice little wood bowl, to make myself a yarn bowl. I’ve been knitting socks this winter, and whenever I split a skein into two, winding each half into a one-sock ball, I spend a fair bit of time chasing the bloody things.

No matter where in my lap I place them, as I tug my line to knit they tend to escape, jumping from my lap (banzai ball!), then hiding under my chair or rolling behind the side table, both scenarios that demand I set my knitting aside and get up to shift furniture and retrieve them.

I knew a yarn bowl would solve my problem, and I also knew I didn’t want to pay the ridiculous $30 or $40 for the nice wooden ones I had seen. I saw no reason why I couldn’t repurpose an old wood bowl.  Also at store number four (my lucky number I might add) I discovered a sweet little hand -turned BC yew wood bowl for the princely sum of $3. Score!

I am lucky that my SIL has a talented brother, and when I got home and shared my vision he was eager to help. Off he bustled to his shop, bowl in hand, to wield his coping saw and press his drill into service.

An hour later…voila, my new one-of-a-kind yew-nique yarn bowl. ❤️ And it even says “Jo”.

 

 

Hatching Season!

14 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Chickens, Equipment, Farm Life, Seasons

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Way too much hatching went on around here last year. Four hundred chicks 🐣 are a lot of work, even if they are cute. Plus I already have one full time job, I don’t need two.

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Fifty or so sold at day old, and a bunch more when they were off heat at six weeks. Most of the roosters became food, which meant all the work of growing them out. I pushed a lot of wheelbarrows last year, did a lot of scraping, shovelling, cleaning and repairing. And hauling 20 kg feed bags home from the store, and out to the barnyard, and tipping them into the bins, and feeding and watering too.

This year I plan to slow down. To hatch less and offer hatching eggs for sale more. I might try shipping eggs. Maybe. People are asking, but shipping seems like a lot of work too, so maybe not.

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Last year’s first hatch was on December 29. This year, tomorrow is day one for my first batch, hatch day will be Feb 4. Haven’t I done well at restraining myself thus far? I am pretty proud of myself for holding off, actually.

I’m happy with my breeders this year too. One advantage of hatching 400 is selecting the cream of the crop for one’s own pens. Lots of people hatch way more than that in their quest for the best. I’m small potatoes in the chicken breeding world, and that’s ok by me. I suppose I am only a moderately crazy chicken lady.

The two Hovabator Genesis 1588s got plugged in on Friday, and left run for a day to shake down. One is running slightly warm and the other slightly cool, but both are steady as she goes. Good old Hovabators. A tweak to the temp setting for each, and then fill them up with eggs. Wyandottes, Silkies, Black Copper Marans and Olive Eggers, plus a few randoms from the Bantam pen, split evenly between the two ‘bators. If an incubator fails, I will only lose half of each breed. Learned that lesson the hard way.

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Uh oh. I can feel it now, getting stronger. Anticipation, excitement, that intoxicating promise of limitless possibilities. Like an addiction. Oh dear, I’d better settle down. I AM going to take it easy this year. I am going to remember all the work I’ll be in for, if I keep the incubators full all season.

21 days to wait now, seven till I can candle to check fertility – the first milestone. My resolve will be most sorely tested on day 18, when I move these eggs to the hatcher. And the incubators are emptied. Devoid of life. Mutely pleading to be stuffed full of eggs and launched on another magical 21 day journey ending in a joyful bursting out of exciting new beginnings.

 

 

There’s DH, checking out operations. I call that picture “oh boy, here we go again…”

Yes, it is going to be a challenge, being rational about hatching season. Wish me luck.

Poultry Nipples

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by in Chickens, Equipment

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Poultry Nipples.
Yes, it’s a thing. A useful thing that I saw in my local feed store’s chick brooder, my first year raising chicks.
Now I use one quart honey pails and poultry nipples in all the brooders. With lids, a small hole drilled in each top to prevent a vacuum as the water level drops.
The first couple years, I spent lots of time picking up chicks and tapping their little beaks against the nipples. Now I don’t bother, their natural curiosity and intelligence leads them to tap the nipples anyway, and they teach themselves. If I get a slow group, I add a few couple-day older chicks from the next brooder up, they soon teach the sluggards.
The label says “adult birds only”, but I don’t know why they are x-rated, they work great for my chicks.
Keeping waterers clean is a losing battle in the chick brooder, one I’m glad I don’t have to fight.

Winter on the Tiny Farm

08 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Chickens, Equipment, Weather

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The best thing about the cold is the lack of mud, here in our muddy valley. The standing water in the Tarzan Tree field is ice, the pond is a rink (no, I haven’t), and the ground is hard and dry. And the Polish birds have clean crests!
The worst thing about the cold is managing the water situation. Breaking ice, defrosting water founts and hauling hot water out to the barnyard several times a day.
We really aren’t set up for this weather, but there is no point in a climate that does this for two weeks once every ten years. So we cope.
I turn the chicken waterers upside down at night, then dip them in hot water in the mornings to give the birds a warm drink to go with their warm mash. I can take a five gallon bucket in the wheelbarrow, plus a two gallon bucket in each hand, at the same time, if I walk slowly.
It is nice working out in the cold crisp air, especially when it is sunny. And cozy sitting by the warm fireplace in the evening. Despite the extra work, I’m enjoying this winter weather.

The Best Chicken Waterer Money can Buy

14 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Equipment

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I like quality and the older I get, the more I like it.

These days, I am also trying to buy less, andI don’t mind paying more if I know an item is going to work better and last longer.
Naturally, when I started keeping chickens, I invested in expensive galvanized metal water founts that would last me 20 years. They worked fine, except that when it froze they froze shut and I couldn’t refill them, they were hard to scrub clean, too heavy when full and when I added apple cider vinegar to the water as a health aid for the flock, they rusted and started leaching toxicity into the water. Sigh.

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So then I tried plastic water founts. Everything from little cheap ones that hold a couple litres up to an expensive one that holds 10 gallons. The cheap ones are easy enough to scrub clean, but need refilling too often, are hard to screw closed, and freeze shut in the cold. The expensive plastic fount is much worse, with too many crannies that need scrubbing, a lid that is damned near impossible to put on properly (and needs to be tight to form the required vacuum), a rubber seal that wears out often, and plastic that gets brittle in the cold. Fail to gently lower it to the ground (and it is bloody heavy) and snap, it’s time for a new tray.

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So I asked my Facebook chicken group what their favourite waterers were, and after reading the many responses, I have discovered and fully tested the best chicken waterer money can buy!
A six dollar five litre plastic bucket from the feed store. The kind I carry George’s grain in.

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It is easy to carry, fills easily and sprays clean with only a light scrub required once a week. There are no issues with freezing because I dump it each night, and my birds absolutely love it. Not only is it by far the best option from my POV; it is much easier for them to drink from. I think the water must taste better too, than from the metal founts. I still use the little plastic ones when I have baby birds, but after the first six weeks I can start using the buckets again without worrying about drowning chicks.
I have learned a good lesson here, a lesson about simplicity.

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