Riding Three Rigs, a Stump Too Big and More Pallets For My Mulch Boxes

Posted on July 7, 2018 by Bob

Saturday July 7, 2018 Guerneville CA.

Dozer battery needs a charge

I’ve been thinking the battery in the dozer has been sitting a long time and needs to be charged up so today I had some time to get this task done.

Barry showed up with two new pallets for me and his chainsaws. He was going up the hill to cut some trees for his firewood, but needed my quad to carry his saws but I was using it. We made a plan.

Fueling the dozer

I brought up five gallons of diesel to add to the fuel tank just to do it as it’s easier to add five gallons once in awhile than to fuel it all the way up.

So I hopped on my quad runner and rode up the hill to where the dozer had been parked and put the diesel in the tractor. I meant to check the transmission oil before I started it, but I forgot.

I’m putting the diesel in here.fuel

 

My brother Barry showed up on his motorcycle because we had some plans. He needed my quad runner to bring his chainsaws up here to cut some trees for his firewood so he was going to take my quad and leave his motorcycle for me to take home on my return,……………..but.

Here’s Barry arriving on his dirt bike.barry

 

Hold on Barry

I said wait a minute while I check the transmission oil as I might need to go get some. It was low, off the dip stick so I took the quad home to get some transmission oil for it. Barry rode off on his dirt bike for a ride while I was gone.

I returned with the transmission oil and filled up the transmission. I had also brought up the grease gun I use to tighten up the tracks as it’s done with grease, tightening up the tracks I mean.

I’m putting in the transmission oil.oil

 

The battery gets charged

Barry showed up again and took the quad back to my house to get his chainsaws while I took the dozer up the road to get the battery charged up. I moved a couple dead trees off the road.

I went on up this road, mostly joy riding to charge the battery.road

 

A stump too big

I stopped and took a look at this big fir stump that sled down the hill two winters ago. I decided it was way too big for my little dozer to move. It’s trunk is more than five feet in diameter. I was able to get around it without moving it as the road was wide in this spot.stump

 

I headed back where Barry was cutting some trees for his firewood and helped him move a couple of them.

A motorcycle ride

He took off for home on my quad as he had the chainsaws and I went back down where I had parked the dozer. His bike was waiting for me so I hopped on and rode on down the hill back to my house.bike

 

Worked on the mulch boxes

After something to eat and a nap  I went outside to work on my pallet mulch boxes. Now I have two of them. I just need to add the front on the one on the right. I just wired them together with steel wire then turned the dirt on the one on the right and the peeps came over peeping and looking for worms. I took this after they’d left because the automatic sprinkler came on.mulchpits

 

And  tidied up this mess

A bit later I tackled these pieces of roofing metal I had store here. I used some and didn’t wire it back to the wall and the wind knocked them over.  But first I needed to trip the kiwi plant as it overgrowing the area. There’s some wild blackberry vines mixed in there too just for fun, ouch. I also pulled a much of ivy away from the garage that seems to be trying to take over as in climbing the garage wall.metal

 

Taming the peeps with worms

After that a bit of chair hopping and just enjoying the rest of the day. I did collect some more worms to hand feed the peeps. When they are hungry enough they will take the worms from my fingers.

I took this picture just before dark of the peeps settling down for the night. They did alright in this spot last night. They are getting weaned from the coop.peeps

 

That’s it for another nice day. Hey I got to ride a quad runner, a bulldozer and a motorcycle. That’s more than most guys get to do in one day. :O)

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Taming Chicks and Pallets For My Mulch Boxes For the Chickens

Posted on July 6, 2018 by Bob

Friday July 6, 2018 Guerneville CA.

Hand Feeding my peeps worms

Last night I left the coop door open so the peeps could go out by themselves to the runs in the morning to feed.

When I first went out today, I found them all resting as they’d been feeding earlier.

peeps1

 

They seem to tire out after feeding or more likely they are just digesting what they eat.

Here’s some more of the little peeps resting on the grass cutting where I want them to sleep at night which I plan to start them doing soon as there really isn’t much need for them to be in the coop at night as the weather around here is pretty nice and I hope I made the runs varmint proof.peeps2

 

Taming my chicks

I watched a video on YouTube last night on how to tame your chickens. They said to start by getting them to feed out of your hands.

So this morning I dug some worms in the blueberry patch and tried feeding them by hand. Most of the birds would take a worm out of my fingers so that’s a start.

That container is full of worms. After they had their fill of worms and slowed down, I just left the container there for them and they did empty it later. I’m sitting here feeding them worms. They grab one and run and most of the others follow the one with the worm instead of getting one from me, but eventually I think most of them get one or two worms. They are big night crawlers so I don’t think they can eat very many of them yet.worms3

 

Anyway, I thought that was a good start in their taming down.

Making some mulch boxes

I also decided I needed some way to tame down my mulch run as mulch stuff was getting all over the place which is alright but I thought things would go better if I had some way to manage things a bit better.

So I decided to make some pallet mulch pits. That’s when you take four pallets and form a  box and proceed to fill it with mulching type stuff including all the table scraps. When things mulch down they make more goodies for the chickens to eat including all the worms and bugs they attract as well as the fauna in the mulch as it breaks down. And a bonus is when things are done, you have some fine soil.

Now I needed some pallets and I knew my brother Tom had a few of them. I needed at least four to get started. Eventually I’d like about four mulch boxes so I can rotate.

Tom said I could have a couple of his newer ones and he said there were some old ones over in the apple orchard.

Getting some pallets

So when he left for a farmer’s market I borrowed his golf cart to get the pallets.

I picked up the new ones first then unloaded and drove over by his chicken coop to check out the older ones here.pallets4

 

Only a few good ones

Most of these were pretty rotten but I did find a few good enough to get one unit built.pallets5

 

One last look for my lost chick

As long as I was by his chicken coop I went in to see if I could spot my lost chick  as the chicks are bigger and the light is better.

Here’s all his chicks.peeppers6

 

But my lost chick wasn’t in there. It may have died earlier as my brother lost a few of his chicks early on.

Might as well get some blocks too

I knew where there were some old blocks close by so I drove over there and loaded them up.blocks7

 

I also spotted this old box and I thought  the plywood looked pretty good to build something with such as nest boxes so I put it on top and headed on home with my bounty.box8

 

I placed the four blocks on the ground and put four pallets on top of them to see how things looked. I plan to fill this from the top and take new soil out of the bottom. It’s ok for the chickens to get in there and feed all they want on the mulched stuff as that’s it’s main purpose.mulchpit9

 

I still need to wire the pallets together to keep them from falling apart.

I need to fine some more pallets

I’ll likely make three more of them when I find some more good pallets once I figure out where to get some. In the mean time I’ll work on filling this one up. It didn’t take the chickens long to find it and start hopping around on it.

They wouldn’t eat out of my hand this time

Next I thought I’d try feeding the peeps some more worms from my hand so I collected some more worms from my garden mulch.wormno10

 

Nope, no takers this time, they must not be hungry enough, so I through some worms out to them and they ate a bunch of them. Then I turned the worm container on it’s side so they could see the worms and left them for when they got hungry.

A use for that old box

In the mean time I was thinking about that box I got and decided I’d try it here for the chicks to sleep in or use and set it up and filled it with some grass cutting. I put some grass cuttings on the top too to collect any poo they might deposit up there. This box is on the outside of the coop in the main run. Note the chicken door to the coop is closed to keep them out of the coop.nestbox

 

Seeing how it goes

At the last minute tonight I decided to keep them outside and see how they settle in for the night. Just after dark I had a look and they were all cuddled up in front of that metal hinge and not using the box yet. They looked like they’d be alright there, so I decided to keep them out of the coop tonight and see how it goes.

Just after I installed the box the cat came by to have a look, but didn’t seem overly interested.cat

 

I mostly just puttered around doing little things here and there today. I did plant some more squash seeds so I’ll have more squash later. All that extra squash will go into the mulch boxes. My plan is to grow a lot of extra vegetables for the chickens and what they don’t eat right away will go into the mulch box and they can eat it later.

That pretty much was my day.

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