chicken wrangling

This morning we got a surprise.

Another hen has had chicks!

We never thought she'd hatch out anything given that:

• she wasn't as fanatical about sitting on eggs as the first hen
• she was sitting on an empty nest
• we kept throwing her off the nest
• once we gave in and put eggs under her, she didn't sit on them with the single minded dedication of the first chook 
• we found one half hatched dead chick and figured the eggs were done for
• even if she did hatch out live chicks, she was nesting in a "sky box" and we had visions of chicks leaping out and breaking their necks soon as they hatched.

Well, she proved us wrong on all counts.

This morning, when we had to go to work, she trotted out three tiny little chickies!

Well, we had to go to work, but leaving them out in the 'wild' around here is a death sentence for little people their size.

We managed to lure mom (and chicks) into the pump shed where we closed them up for the day, and when we got home this afternoon we got to work on some serious relocating.

I mentioned we raised the first 3 chickies in Alcatraz. Last weekend we released the remaining two chicks and mom, then promptly lost one of the chicks when it tried to return to Alcatraz, got into the yard and one of the dogs got it.

sigh.

So, we herded the dwindling family back into Alcatraz... till the remaining chick got too big to fit under the fence.

However, plans must change when circumstances change.

The new arrivals meant we need the safety provided by Alcatraz for another batch of chicks.

That brings us back to this afternoon and the chicken wrangling.

Wayne and I went into Alcatraz and began chasing mom and baby around. We caught them and amongst much squalking, we got them up to the hen house where we locked them in with the rooster and other hen. The plan is to keep them in there for a couple of days - till the little one recognises the hen house as HOME and not try to get back into the yard.

Chicken psychology.

Then we moved onto the pump shed.

The pump shed is a very small shed, with a pump in the middle (go figure!) and there's barely enough room to swing a cat, let alone chase chooks.

Anyway, I got mom on first grab but only saw 2 surprised chicks under her. Panic. Then I looked and the 3rd chick was dangling under mom where I held her.

I promptly lost hold of mom as I tried to grab the baby before I squashed it.

Long story short, I got mom and all three babies and we released them into their new home for the next couple of months: Alcatraz.

Now, if the babies don't all die of shock, we've added another 3 chickens to our family.

See? You thought we lived boring lives in the country! Never a dull moment around here!

z

retro flour sifter planters

Last week I shared the new shelf outside the kitchen window.

I haven't yet moved it down the 6 inches I think it needs to be moved, but I have made one change.

I moved some of the plants to make room for my flour sifter containers.



I think that technically, three of something makes it a collection, so here is my sifter collection. One is really rusty but the others still look respectable.

Not that rust isn't respectable!

They all have (had) working parts when I got my sticky little fingers on them, so I lined them with hanging basket fibre stuff, then filled them with potting mix before adding a selection of succulents.

Yep. I like them outside the kitchen window, along with the 2 tiered caddies I made out of baking tins.

Other than that, I've done a whole lot of nothing at home. Did I mention I was sick for most of last week? Yep. Holidays are not the time to be sick.

Turns out it was food poisoning.

The Dr said it sounded like gastro, along with the flu, just bad luck to get them together. But I watched a segment on A Current Affair last night about bacteria found on chicken. And the symptoms the guy on TV listed were all my symptoms to a T.

Guess what I had for dinner a couple of nights before I got sick?

Makes sense. If it was viral Wayne would have got it too!

I think I'll avoid pizza and take away food for a while...

z

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Beyond the Picket Fence

a day tip shopping

Yesterday was a great day!

It was the first day of my holiday that I've been well enough to go out all day. Not only did we visit a couple of tip shops for a look around (and pick up a thing or two) but I even managed to actually eat more than a couple of bites of something!

Life is good.

First tip shop we visited I saw this and fell in love.

I wanted it so badly.

Yes it was overpriced. Yes it was a wreck.

It needed the entire top ripped off and replaced (easy), the door on the right needed major mending, and it all needed a good scrub and de-moulding, then painting... but it would have looked great in our bathroom!

But Wayne wouldn't let me buy it. He said "too many projects, not enough time". Not to mention not enough space. 

And he was right. (Don't tell him I said that!)

Then I saw this.

Ok... I don't want it in my bedroom, but how cool does that look!! I mean, they just stacked them up to save space, but take two 1960s dressers, remove the legs on the top one and join them together, or put on much higher legs to make more space between them, and what a great wall unit!

If I had time and space I'd have bought them too, just to do that!

We did pick up a couple of things. This is great. Its missing its top, but Wayne is going to use it to hold his drawing supplies. It looks pretty cool on his desk.

Wayne found me this tiny galvanised scoop.

When I took the photo I didn't notice the bird poop. Enjoy.

I also got this cheap version of an industrial light. If I can find a fitting to fit it (haha) I'll use it somewhere. The office maybe... picture it painted my greeny aqua colour on the outside, silver on the inside... yeah!

After lunch we visited another tip shop. While wandering around I noticed the sign on the side of this cart. Hilarious!

Then I began to notice the signs all over the place. Someone got around the place with a can of spray paint and a sense of humour!

(For my American friends, the Tarkine is an old growth forest here in Tasmania.)

Gotta love this one!... Get it? "The Doors"...

It was the best day! 

z

Update 12 April 2015

It has been pointed out to me that not everyone knows what a tip shop is. Well, not to worry. Until I moved to Tasmania I had no idea either.

A tip shop is a shop attached to the TIP, which is the local dump. Landfill. Rubbish recycling center. Whatever its called in your part of the world.

Basically, tip shops sell what has been either taken to the tip to throw away and the scavengers who work for the council* have crawled around picking up to put in the shop attached to the tip... the 'salvage centre'... or 'recycle center' etc.

OR, its stuff people who have things to throw away have taken to the tip shop cause they think its too good to throw away, but don't want it any more.

But mostly its stuff that's been thrown out and been pre-salvaged for your convenience, priced and put on a shelf or a stack for you to go shopping.

Its a great place for salvaged building materials, odds and ends of anything for anything. 

But the overall thing is that its stuff that was disposed of by someone as having no use to them any longer... and as such it was free.

Then the tip shops take anything that has resale/reuse value and they price it and sell it. 

Sometimes at unbelievably ridiculous prices considering it was one step away from landfill!

Eh.

I love scavenging at the tip shop. I go for the rusty bits, the old bits of broken furniture, etc. I've often picked up large pieces of plywood for a project or a bit of timber, or furniture legs or whatever.

Our front door came from a tip shop. So did our kitchen table. Our old kitchen chairs. Heaps of stuff.

My only issue is that sometimes prices are just too high. 

On the other hand I've often bought a box full of crap good stuff for $5.

We do have thrift shops (like the Salvation Army or St Vincent de Paul stores) which we call op shops (opportunity shops), we have junk shops, and we have antique shops. I love all of them. Cause you never know what you'll find in any of them!

*Councils runs tips. Some councils also run tip shops to reduce the amount of landfill by encouraging recycling. In New Norfolk the council contracts out the tip to someone and they have the rights to salvage and resell. Its illegal to pick up something from the tip and take it home.

Go figure.

z

moving forward on the house painting

We have a week off work for Easter. Naturally my list of projects to do is huge.

Massive.

Long even.

One thing I planned to do, providing it didn't rain, was finish painting the outside of the house. Its not too much to want a single colour on all the walls...

Around here painting the house is more an ongoing project than a 'do it once and don't do it again for 10 years' kind of thing.

I think I started painting the house about 4 years ago.

I'm a speedy worker.

Its still not finished by the way... the back porch needs the high areas done and, realistically, it needs another coat already due to the exposure on that side.

So, when we built the front porch I had painted all that front area (except the beams up above). Then we put in a new window in the kitchen and needed to patch walls. And we decided to enclose that area of the porch so there was a lot of raw wood to paint.

This past summer I gave all those spots an undercoat and thought that, really, how hard could it be to finish the job with a couple of topcoats?

One thing I'd been planning on from the start, was a window shelf for plants under the kitchen window. I had this little grey one from the living room so put it on the outside of the enclosed porch. The brackets need adjusting so its come off now, but I was dying to see what it looked like.

Kinda cute.

It sits above the gas bottles for our kitchen. Another project for that mythical 'one day' is to make a box to hide both the gas bottles and the rubbish bin. Two birds - hide the bottles and keep the bin safe from the dogs.

Not that my dogs rip open rubbish bags. They prefer live chickens... sigh.

I had bigger plans for the kitchen window. This old shelf was in the white timber shed which is being used just for storage. I got Wayne to remove it yesterday and with his help (its a heavy sucker) I screwed it onto the wall under the window.

All I did was give it a good scrub and a light sand to get rid of loose paint. I love the chippy look and the various colours showing through it.

One thing I'm doubting now is its position. I think I need to put it lower. The kitchen window isn't deep and having the plants overlap the window so much makes the window look narrower, and from inside I feel like I've cut out some of the view.

What do you think? I'm thinking of lowering it by about 5-6in.

Another thing I plan to do is cut a frame for that window. All our other windows have aluminium frames which were blue and I'm (still) in the process of painting white. A frame around the window will tie it in with the other windows better.

So, after doing about 2 hours of work on the second coat this morning I had to stop. I felt exhausted, weak, had chills and a bit nauseous. I hope I'm not coming down with something. Not on my holiday!

I think I've done enough for today.

z

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Beyond The Picket Fence