Egg Shells, Rats, Trail Work and a Visit With My Cousin

Monday August 1, 2022 Guerneville CA.

Egg shells for chickens

I eat a lot of eggs, more than most because of my corn problem. Interesting enough the health doctors are finally realizing the benefits of eating eggs. Eggs  are the only food we eat with all the stuff for life in them. No other food can claim this, only eggs from chicken, fish or whatever. And the high cholesterol that they have is proving to be more good for you then not.

Anyway, I get a lot of egg shells from this practice. And what do I do with them. I crush them up and feed them back to the chickens so they can recycle them and make stronger egg shells on their eggs

I use the small log to crush them up a bit although the chickens don’t really care. They seem to love them and gobble them up, no matter what size.eggdhells1

 

Then I put them in this dispenser for them to eat when they want. They eat them up fairly quickly.shells3

 

Rat problem

I don’t particularly mind the rats cleaning up chicken feed at night but when they kill  my young chicks, I do mind.

The problem is rats are hard to trap, most of the commonly used ways of trapping them or killing them doesn’t work on the smart ones, so one needs to be creative.

My idea is to leave this feed box door open all night so the rats can get used to eating from it and eventually remove the feed and put some feed in there that is not good for the rats to eat. If that doesn’t work I can also set the door up to close on them or I can maybe pull a string to set it off. I have a cam setup that goes to my computer so I can watch the action as  motion sets off the camera recorder, which is good as I can see what’s working and what isn’t working. box2

Not for chicks

I have to be sure to shut it before daylight when I do the deed to keep the chicks out of the box.

After messing with that and some chair hopping I went in the house for a nap and after that cooked up todays meal and had another nap.

Dead quad runner

Around 4, I went to start the quad and the battery was low,  so I put the charger on it for about an hour before taking it up into the hills to do some work.

Before I forget

Which reminds me I forgot to put  the charger back on it when I got back so will do that right now before I forget.

That’s taken care of and I turned on a couple sprinklers while I was at it.

Forest road work

I brought the chainsaw with me as I wanted to cut these downed trees off the road and I did. I’d been meaning to cut these trees off the road for quite some time now but keep forgetting about them, so now the job is done and I won’t have to turn around anymore.quad5

 

From there I continued on up the road to where I’ve been doing some trail improvements. I’d cut this log to get it out of the way a couple weeks ago, but I didn’t cut enough off it so I removed about another six feet of this and worked with the Pulaski for a bit too, moving dirt.trails6

 

Hey

As I was working away I heard someone say, hey. It turned out to be my cousin with  her two dogs out getting some exercise.

We shot the bull for a good while then they took off up the road and I got back to work for a bit.cousin7

 

Peaceful spot

The sun went down while I was up there and the forest started to darken as I sat in my chair and enjoyed the evening. This is a very peaceful spot.view

Eventually I headed down the hill and  headed on home.

Nice day.

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Dirt Bike Ride,Trail Work, and Doing Things Differently

Sunday July 31, 2022 Guerneville CA.

Helping the neighbor

Once I got it going today I went over to my neighbors to see how the internet Wi-Fi was working that I hooked up a few days ago. I tried a couple things to try and improve it but eventually put it back the way I had it as it worked best that way, so all was good.

Neighbor’s van

She just got this van as her mother pasted away not too long ago so I  had a look and told her what I thought. It looked like it was in good shape.van1

 

After that I went back home and cooked up something to eat and after that I was tired out so I had a nap and took it easy for most of the rest of the day until 5.

Doing things differently

Usually I ride up into the forest and work on trails or clear stuff off roads and then go for a dirt bike ride, but after the work I’m worn out and always seem to cut the ride short.

Overlook

So today, I went for a dirt bike ride first and made it up to the Guerneville overlook after riding around for a bit.

Good ol fog, our air conditioner

The fog was sneaking up the river, our natural air conditioner. It’s not humid, just cool and mostly comes in at night to cool the day off. I think the forest trees absorb water from the fog at night too through their leaves.bike2

 

Guerneville

The fog slowly sneaks up the river as I looked over the side at the view of the town.fog3

 

Trail work time

I rode around some more for about an hour then parked here where I was working on the old animal trail.bike5

 

Good enough for now

I was trying to just make this part of the trail good enough to walk on without falling down the hill so I worked on improving that. Eventually I’ll widen it out so even older folk can walk on it easily.trail

 

Good spot

After and during working on the trail I sat in this chair to rest up and enjoy the nice peaceful day up here in the woods.chair4

 

Headed for home

Eventually I was tired out enough and got enough exercise so  headed on down the hill on this road.road6

 

Water tanks

I stopped here to look across at the water tanks and the pink ribbon was on the ground so the water tanks were nice and full.road7

 

Pink ribbon

I could see the pink ribbon on the ground from this road across from the tanks. One of the reasons I have the pink ribbon on the gauge as it’s easy to see from this spot as I go by.tanks8

 

That chicken

Once home I checked on the chickens to put  them away for the night.

I was dismayed to see this nesting box turned over. There’s a hen in there trying to hatch out some eggs,…………But.box

 

The hen with the two oldest chicks that is up on the roost with them has been being bad and terrorizing this hen for some reason turning over the box. The hen in the box seemed to have made a new nest on the side of the box and was dong ok. so I left it that way.

What to do

I may turn that hen on the roost out with the other chickens tomorrow and let her two chicks get with the other hen that has chicks. They seem to do that anyway. Momma hens take in little peeps when they need to from what I’ve seen in the past, which is good as that keeps the rats from eating them.

Rats

I’ve been thinking of a way to rid the place of rats and I think I have an idea. Most of the rats are too smart to get caught using the standard methods.

Nice day.

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