I’m in a fowl mood because it seems like I’m surrounded by the feathered creatures day and night.  Stepping out the door, I see a group of wild turkey parading before me.  It’s a sight I always enjoy, and it gets me to thinking about the domestic fowl we (“we” – meaning Retta) raise as a hobby.

Here is one of our hen houses, which you may have seen in previous posts.  We use this building to house our guineas, whose numbers range variously from a few, to several dozen, depending on the time of year and activity of the local predators.

Usually, our guineas would find some secluded spot in the tall pasture grasses in which to lay their eggs.  This year, however, several have decided to utilize the nesting boxes that are installed in the hen house.  They have been very broody as well, sitting on the eggs in quite a maternal fashion, patiently waiting for the eggs to hatch and the new-born chicks to emerge from their confining shell.

 

Daily, Retta inspects the nest boxes, and when she finds newly hatched keets, she removes them from the box, leaving behind the litter of egg shells and feathers that you see in the photograph above.  To date, we have 36 little keets, and the number grows daily.

We place the new-born keets into our makeshift nursery, which is comprised of a couple of livestock water tanks, having a bed of pine shavings and warmth provided by a pair of incandescent heat lamps.

We will keep these fine looking guinea keets indoors, under our watchful eyes, until such time as their feathers come in fully and they grow to a more substantial size.  Then, it’s back out to the hen house for them, where we will keep them penned up for a few weeks.  After that, when the keets are large enough, we will begin letting them out of the hen house during the day, so that they can go about their glorious job of devouring thousands upon thousands of those ticks that we all love to hate so much.

Meanwhile, you may remember a post where we took a ride across Bull Shoals Lake on the Peel Ferry, the sole surviving Arkansas public auto ferry.  Ostensibly, the reason for that ride was to look over some professionally built hen houses, to determine if we should buy, rather than build, a new domicile for the chicks Retta had ordered from a local hatchery.  You can probably tell from the excellent workmanship of the new hen house in the picture above that we opted to buy, rather than build.  After looking at the cost of materials to build an equivalent structure, it turned out being worth our while to purchase this hen house.  It is sturdy, portable, and heavily constructed with quality materials by a group of Amish craftsmen in the Seymour, Missouri area.

The interior has a translucent fiberglass panel to allow light into the house, and features 6 nesting boxes, perches, and slide-out litter drawers beneath the perches.  There is access to the protected outdoor “yard” area from within the house, and it is all protected from the weather with well-built metal roofing.

The nesting boxes have doors that open up from the outside, so that we can easily collect the eggs that the hens will begin laying sometime soon.

Here are just a few of the young chickens that now call this hen house their home.  They say variety is the spice of life, and we seem to be pretty well-seasoned with this eclectic mix of chicken breeds, which includes assorted Polish chickens, Silkies, and Spitzhaubens.

So now, perhaps, you understand why I sometime feel that I’m in a fowl, fowl mood.

While preparing to cut the grass today, I ran across this gigantic mushroom.  In order to provide a sense of scale, I placed a CD on the ground next to the huge blob of fungus before snapping the photo.

I am not familiar with the various members of the mushroom family, so I cannot identify this particular specimen, and hence, cannot tell you if this is edible or not.  But there is certainly one way to tell:

If you don’t hear from me for a little while,  I’m sure you’ll have an inkling as to why!

We are fortunate to have several ponds scattered around our property.  Previously, I had written about three of them: the catfish pond (remember the discussion about flocculant?),  the carp pond (recall “The Grassing of the Carp”),  and the spring-fed pond (which shrank dramatically during the dryness of last year).

There is another pond on the property, which is the subject of this post.  I call it the “people pond.”  As caretakers of the land and stewards of the animals, we strive to provide an aquatic environment conducive to the well-being of all the wildlife that reside at this location – so why not the human inhabitants, as well?

Unlike the other ponds on the property that automatically adjust themselves to exist in all seasons throughout the year, the people pond needs a little extra effort and management.  In the fall, the people pond needs to undergo the process of winterizing.  The people pond must be cleaned, and the water chemistry adjusted for the long winter to come.  Pipes, pumps, filters and other equipment must be drained of all water, to prevent expansion damage that would occur if water were allowed to freeze inside of the equipment.  The water level is drawn down, and the people pond is covered for the duration of the cold season.

In the late spring, usually around Memorial Day weekend, we anxiously undertake the annual ritual of opening up the people pond for the summer.

The winter safety cover shown in the photograph above serves two purposes.  First, it serves to protect against accidental people pond incidents, and second, it keeps dirt, leaves and debris out of the people pond during the winter months.  In the center of the cover sits a sump pump, equipped with an automatic sensor switch, which keeps the cover drained of water from rain and melting snow.

The cover is attached to the decking that surrounds the people pond by a series of heavy elastic straps, which are held in place by bronze retractable anchors embedded in the deck.

The retractable anchor tend to accumulate debris over the course of the winter, so it is necessary to wash them off with a strong stream of water from the garden hose.

Before screwing the anchors flush into the deck, I find it helpful to spray them with a little lubricant first.  The product that I like to use for this purpose is either Bull Shot, shown above, or Boeshield T-9, developed by Boeing Aircraft Corporation.  Either one of these products contain a wax-like ingredient, which assures that the protectent will adhere to the anchor even in wet conditions.

The turquoise gizmo that you see beside the skimmer assembly is just that – a Gizmo ™.  This device is used to seal the water return lines in the winter, after they have been cleared of water.  If you look closely at the photograph above, you can see the hole down at the bottom of the skimmer that the Gizmo screws into.  With the Gizmo properly in place, any rain water that manages to get into the skimmer and freeze will not ruin the equipment.  As the freezing water expands, it will cause the Gizmo to collapse in on itself, thus sparing the skimmer from damage.

The people pond cover needs to be cleaned and thoroughly dried prior to summer storage.  As you can see from the photograph above, it is not particularly good form to be standing around taking pictures as your better-half does all the work!  Thank goodness for the blur function of my image editing software, or you might see the “salute” I received for my blunder.

The people pond cover folds nicely into a breathable nylon storage bag, which will find it’s way into the equipment barn for the summer.

Now that the cover is off the people pond, all that remains is to raise the water level, adjust the water chemistry, prime the pump and filter units, and install the hand rails and exit ladder.  Notice the clarity of the water in this picture.  This is what the water should look like immediately upon removing the people pond cover.  If the water does NOT look like this, then somebody did not properly adjust the water chemistry prior to winterizing the people pond the previous fall.

Our people pond has been quite a project.  Compare the photograph above with the picture that is shown below.

This is what the people pond looked like when we bought this house.  It was in dire need of some TLC, needing a new liner, winter safety cover, pump and other necessary equipment.  The water was filthy and gross, containing slime, algae and assorted creatures.  It did not deserve to be called a people pond.  Now it does.