rachels.haven's Journal

[B&B Happy goats]

This forum is bad for me. I like it. But it's not the only bad influence in my life.

My mom thought the hurricanes in St. Pete were the best time for skateboarding with a bedsheet with her brothers. She would probably check the weather and head down there anyway if she hadn't been living there in the first place. But that lady is tough. And a little crazy. She's been waging war with raccoons down in tennessee in the dark with my little brother. When she sends me texts with play by play texts telling me how she killed a racoon carrying off a bantam hen while she was "yelling like warf" and her racoon scores vs her bird hit points it reminds me that I will never be as slightly crazy as my mom. But she's also always smiling, cheerful, and quiet spoken with lovely curly red hair. And she's gone back to work as a plant stocking contractor for the premium hardware plants which has certain perks, so while she's running around the backyard in the dark shooting up raccoons with my mellow littlest brother, she's surrounded by blooming hibiscus, jasmine, pomegranate other tropical novelties they sell for summer display that came out of cracked pots that were destined for the dumpster because they weren't up to par. If I were her I'd probably already have a coyote tail up on my coop. But I'm not her, so I'm not gunning down murderous raccoons all night in Tennessee. Nothing gets her darling baby goose dragons and muscovy without getting a "bullet surprise". Maybe someday I'll get to be slightly crazy like her.

Her journal would be fun.

Lol, I don't know your age, but i am going to be 67 this month.....there does come a time ....when you look in the mirror.......or do something .....and you realise, ...OMG I'M JUST LIKE my mother....... my moment was in my late 50's....
Your mother sounds like alot of fun ! Suck it up and shoot that coyote and send your mom the tail....bet she would be proud of you

 

[Bruce]

She sounds alright to me! If she has so many coons that she has to hunt them every night, so be it! She'd be welcome at my house. I have no idea how often coons wander through. The last one I saw had gotten itself trapped in the HavaHart I has set out for woodchucks. Bet I wouldn't have caught it if I was TRYING to catch a coon! That was one POed coon but having seen what a prior coon did to my hen (the day before I saw it in the coop going after another hen that was recuperating in the broody buster) and eventually escorted out to the woods, I didn't feel at all bad about having this one join it.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Sounds like she'd fit right in....maybe ya can talk her into joining....that way, we can enjoy her stories, too!!....

 

[Mike CHS]

T

Her journal would be fun.

I imagine she has some tales to tell.

 

[rachels.haven]

I bet she does. I'm not sure she'd want to sit still and write them though. She's always up to something in her "spare" time. The coons are so many in number because they live right outside of Nashville, where it becomes/used to be more rural. In the spring and part of the fall, if I remember right (might have been early winter) they go to war. I think my parents both hate and love it.

Afraid the reason I haven't shot the coyote yet is because I haven't bought a gun. DH hates guns. However this time he says I'm justified doing whatever I want here and he'll support me. He feels like this is an appropriate use for a gun, but I know nothing about them, he knows nothing about them (alright, maybe we both know a little, but it feels like nothing), so I'm waiting until my voice comes back and I'm calling the mother to get her recommendations and where she got hers, which is funny, because when I was living at home she was against them. She may also recommend some traps. I know they like their traps baited with marshmallows. Not sure how coyotes feel about marshmallows. I'd probably use chicken from the freezer or organ meat. I just have to be patient and get my voice and throat back. I mean, I could text, but on this I'd want to talk and that's still painful.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

There are a lot of gun experts on this forum, like Mr. @greybeard, @Mike CHS, and others. (Apologies to those where are gun experts and I didn't mention you.) But even a 22 rifle will take care of the coyote, and it won't kick back like some other, more powerful guns.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[rachels.haven]

Not much has changed since last posting. It's getting warmer. The three remaining teen aged chickens and baby chicks are staying in the coop until I get a run finished. Someone brought me a litter of 7 leghorn chicks from lab chickens that were hatched for the classroom. Pathogen free apparently. I like leghorns fine. The baby ticks are coming out and man, do they bite fast! One of the giant maple trees beside the chicken coop fell partway over earlier. Careful examination revealed massive root rot of all but surface roots. Now all other trees in immediate vicinity are suspect and I'll probably be avoiding woods in the wind. The trees on lower ground part of our property are struggling and trees are always seem to be randomly falling in storms and wind, but I thought those were on high enough ground. One pine is big enough to squish the house from where it's standing and it's kind of leaning, but I'm hoping it kind of won't. I'm not too worried about it. Maybe I should be, but the tree's been there a long time and the wind tries to blow the other way. It's also probably leaning to get out of the other trees' shade. But maybe we'll get an arborist to come out and give it a look and cut down the other tree since the other tree is a bit of a hazard complete with at least one big hanging bough caught up in neighboring tree waiting to fall. These trees are not Trees of Heaven and are far too large for me to mess with without experienced supervision/direction.

Not much to talk about on the beast front so I resort to trees. Here are some pics. Coop hasn't painted outside yet still-oops.

Before in winter

Top of giant pine in question. Hoping if it falls house will mostly get hit with brushy part and not cause major structural damage. With giant gas grill in foreground that I have no idea how to operate, of course.

Found some bad hay this weekend. Smells like silage or old beer. I think it will be mulch. Because it didn't smell moldy I tried to feed it and the does threw all over the place and didn't eat any so everyone had skinny stomachs this morning and the bucks scarfed it down because they're not picky and they all wound up bloated. Yay mulch! I might call in and see if they'll make good on the "watch out for questionable bales" thing. Might not. I'm kind of tired.

DH dove off his bike memorial day. He went too far to one side of the road while a car was passing and slid off the pavement and road bike tires being road bike tires and all his bike stopped in the gravel and dirt and rocks and he didn't. He was going 27mph apparently and was enjoying himself too much. The lady in the house where he crashed in front of drove him and his mangled bike home. It's still mangled on the porch. He hasn't been up to fixing it yet. Lots of advil, aleve, and tylenol. He did not tuck and roll by any stretch of the imagination (can that even be done on a road bike?) and took the impact head and shoulder first and got road rash down his whole side to boot. Bike clothes kept the stones out of his skin. No breaks according to the doctor-just a massively bruised collar bone, neck pain, and everything hurt for a long time. He's starting to be able to be off the painkillers for parts of the day. Needs a new helmet. He crashes like this every few years, usually his bad eyesight can be just a bit to blame, sometimes mechanical failure, sometimes user error. But he's on the mend now, thank goodness-we even got a short, downpour soaked hike in yesterday, and I see that as a good sign. I would not mind if he tried a more "all terrain" bike. A gravel bike or hybrid might be fun, right?

The accident wouldn't have been as big of a deal if he and everyone on his team weren't being made to stay very late at work trying to prepare something to help make their non-programming upper level person look good and justify his existence. His healthy team mates from lowest engineer to manager are very worn down and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them started leaving soon. Working 8 or 9 am to 10+ at night for no real reason is too long, especially if they want to retain anyone with talent who knows better than to accept that kind of treatment. That whole thing's been hard on Mark on the pain management and rest point front. So I've been pulling double duty on the kids and house front to try to make things easier, and I'm ready to get back to normal, maybe sleep for a year. Too bad kids aren't as easy as goats, and keeping a house isn't like mucking a barn. The older kid especially does not cope with things being out of wack well and makes life for everyone at home miserable-but I'm not sure he can help it at this age-not an excuse for him, but I'm not ready to hold grudges yet either.

I'll write more later. Hopefully next week will be less tired. As part of my general fatigue and resulting bad judgment I am making ribs in the oven for dinner (which at this point means it's just in the oven covered on a rack). Sides will just be nuked veggies and mashed potatoes. It fixes nothing and I really don't like pork, but the rub and slowly cooking meat sure does make the house smell good. Maybe I'll snag a meat scented nap. This smell should be made into a candle or air freshener.

 

[Bruce]

That tree is a widow(er) maker. I think you would be best off having a tree service check it out, take it down and any other trees that are suspect. Not cheap of course.

Sorry about DH's director. I've worked for people like that, nothing good to say about them. That guy is stressing not only the workers but all their families as well. Hopefully they will get his project done soon and back to normal work.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Miss @rachels.haven,

So glad to see a new post from you! Sorry to hear about your poor DH and his accident. Hope he fully recovers soon. And sorry about his having to work long hours as well. It sure makes for a tiring life for him and you!

Mr. @Bruce is right -- something needs to be done about the tree. You may be able to get the tree to come down completely by yourself, but that would probably be dangerous for you. So Mr. Bruce's advice about calling an arborist is probably a good thing to do. That way, he/she can advise you about the other trees as well.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[rachels.haven]

No worries. I'm not touching that tree if I can help it. I am definitely intimidated by it, in a good way. That's no tree of heaven. It's much, much taller and bigger around. As soon as I can I'll get an arborist out.
In the meantime, on windy days like today I'm avoiding going near trees and keeping the kids back. Just today as I was heading to the bus stop to get son #1, one of the large trees in the pond snapped with a loud noise and fell into the water and I was walking right across the drive from it (although it only would have hurt someone if they were swimming in the stagnant drainage pond). The woods are hazardous, I guess.