Bruce's Journal

I have been advised that I am planning to get up early and blow snow in the morning.

Well ya don't have anything Better to do, do ya?...
Your "Love" is to be more than 1 day....and ya have already set "Precedent"....

True, though staying in bed until 6 is nice!

I guess it is a second Valentine's Day present.

Well Bruce how is Christofur doing, along with the Boys, and your Girls?

It was warm yesterday and the snow where I had blown paths were melting. The girls came out up to the front of the barn over toward the area where Christofur has his food and water. I was shoveling snow/ice off the back deck areas and saw Christofur watching the girls from just inside the door. After a bit all but Angel went back to the barn, they were making "concerned" sounds but not panicking. Then Angel was wandering (making those concerned noises) up the path toward the car and Christofur was following in a hunting crouch I yelled at him a couple of times as he and the hen went up the rise. The hen went around the car and came back down the path closer to the house. The cat didn't go all the way up to the car but retreated toward his door. Then the stupid hen wandered BACK north toward his door but turned around and went to down to the lower section of the barn. Thus I don't know if he would have gone for her or not but I sure didn't like the motion.

Went below freezing again overnight so there are sections of ice on the paths, treading carefully!, but it should go above freezing tomorrow and stay that way for a couple of days so maybe the ice will melt.

The boys are the boys though apparently they occasionally host a wild rabbit. I've seen it down in the barn alley twice when they were outside but my wife saw it there pretty much right under them the other day. I have seen rabbit tracks outside the barn door a couple of mornings. Looked like it checked to see if the door was open and when determined it was not went around back and came in the alpacas' door.

All but 2 of the girls are laying, I'm still amazed but not complaining! Given I don't expect Echo to ever lay again, I have 10 of 11 girls working which is nice. I have extra eggs but nothing like you have! I gave a dozen to my friend the sewing machine "doctor" on Thursday. He took that up after retiring as a Software Engineer for 35 years back in 2013. He fixed up a little Singer #20 "child's sewing machine" for me. It originally belonged to either my MIL or FIL. We have 2 of them from the early 1930's. We were each other's Best Man a couple of decades ago. I get the "Best Man" discount - parts only, no markup. He fixed up my wife's early 1970's vintage Singer last year, cost me $18

I wouldn't be too concerned about the chickens. As long as they are mature, I've never seen a cat do anything but stalk and startle them. My "Little Man" was about 6mnths old and when we moved up here, he got his first Peck on the nose and never bothered them again. We had a backyard full of feral cats in Fl and when I brought the chickens home, the cats never bothered them. So, I would be very surprised if Christofur ever messed with them...he is still very young and stalking is what they do.
Glad the weather is warming up there for ya, and ya can get a break from blowing the stuff so early in the mornings.
Sure sounds good on the egg front, too. I know the Boys will be glad to get back to real grass...they have to be getting tired of "Frozen Dinners"....

The boys won't see real grass until late April or early May but they were out this morning under the solar panels looking just the same. They seem to be happy enough with their hay. Of course they don't get a choice, I'm not feeding them a ton of alpaca pellets each day!

We are down one wild rabbit. Don't know if it is the same one we have seen in the barn by the alpacas. Circumstantial evidence to be sure but when I looked in the broken window of the little barn there was a dead and partially chewed up rabbit, Christofur was sitting not 2' from it.

And THAT is why I don't like cats.

I forgot to mention that my Woodcraft order came today. The 4" blast gates have knurled knobs, same as the ones I got last year from Acme Tools. Sure would help if they showed BOTH sides of the item. I'll have to go login and mention that in the comment/review section.

I forgot to come back and tell you that I could not find the gates I thought I had. We had several people help us pack up and I have a feeling some things got misplaced. No idea where those things went.