This hen has three peeps left. The rats got three of them before I knew it. I spotted her with her little ones when I went in to feed them this morning. There’s another one you can’t see under her.
Slow start
I got a slow start today as I didn’t sleep too well last night. But eventually I got it going and some yard work needed to be done. The raspberry vines and some blackberry vines are taking over and needed to be trimmed back a bit.
Raspberry vines
I got out the pruners and got ready to trim these raspberry vines back so I could get through there.
That’s better, they sure grow fast. I’m expecting the second crop of berries soon.
Resting up
After that I needed a break so I did some chair hopping and walking around the yard sampling prunes and berries, mostly mulberries as there are lots of them right now. I’ve been watering the tree to make the berries larger and it’s working.
Blueberry patch
The next thing that needed pruning was the blueberry patch. The raspberry vines are taking over along with a few blackberry vines. Of course I ate the strawberries that were ripe.
Just easier
I just leave the cut vines here to decay as it’s just easier.
Cut a path through here
Another break before I started cutting this area back to make a path through it so I can get into the chicken pen this way.
Chickens totals
Around six, I let the chickens I have left into the front yard. There’s 11 of them here and three more in the hatching pen. Total of 14, that’s the lowest number I’ve had in a long time. Of course I have a few new peeps if they make it. So far I have five and one more hen on eggs.
I had an urge for some ice cream so I drove to town to see about getting some.
With my corn problem there’s only one I can eat, Tillamook chocolate. It seems everyone else likes that one and lots of times they are out of it. They had lots of the other kinds but I was out of luck.
Visiting
On the way home I decided to go visit John S. and found him home and his son too. I wanted to talk to his son about getting a quarter of grass fed beef the next time I needed some. He’s been doing butcher work on the side and was interested in helping me out when I next needed some, so that was good. I did some visiting with him and then he took off and I visited with his dad for a spell and then drove on home with no ice cream. :O(
Sometimes I think it’s just as well, no ice cream, because I’m a pig and eat the whole container. I like to eat it as it warms, eating the warmer parts around the sides of the container with a spoon. It always seems to disappear before I can stop, at least most of the time.
A hike in the park
I’ve been thinking I need to go on a hike up into Armstrong Redwood State Reserve as I had a place I hadn’t hike in, since I was a teenager, a place where no one else usually goes as there’s no trail anymore and there was barely one left when I hiked it long ago.
Around 4, I walked out my gate and headed up the road a short distance to the park entrance.
There’s not as many people in the park late in the day so it was a good time to go.
I walked on by this area and on up the road into the park.
New fence
I noticed they had recently installed a new fence along the road.
Headed to the Forest Theater
I’m headed for the forest theater, just a little ways up this road, through the big trees.
This bridge across the creek is appropriately made out of redwood lumber. The forest theater is just up ahead a short distance.
I remember this spot
I remember this spot well as a long time ago when I was a wee cub scout I handed out programs here as people came in to enjoy the live big band playing at the outdoor theater. I think I was paid a dollar for that deed.
Forest theater
Being back there handing out programs, I didn’t really know what was going on here with the big band and all the people sitting on the benches. That guy there has the right idea.
I thought I did good
Some time near the last day of their performances for the summer I’d heard they let someone from the spectators come up onto the stage and lead the band for a bit. Being a little boy, I thought the idea was to see if the band can keep up with your lead or not, big mistake. I thought I could mess them up so I asked to let me try it and of course show casing a little cub scout doing a good deed handing out programs was just good showmanship so I got my chance. Remember I was always out front on the trail so I didn’t really know what was going on and I wasn’t real smart at that age, more into mischief. :O)
It’s all good
Anyway they got me up on this stage with the big band and gave me the little stick and I proceeded to try and mess up the band. I did a good job of it. :O) I’d wave that little stick in the air real fast and then real slow, repeating that over and over. Well, that band gave up in a short time and quit playing. I won, I thought. The crowd was having a real good roaring laugh and no one said I did bad but I went on back to my handout spot. I think the crowd just thought it was part of the entertainment. :O) Eventually I figured it out, but it was all good. Sometimes it’s nice to be a little boy scout.
They discontinued the band up there after that year, through no fault of mine.
The forest theater stage looking about the same today as it used to look when I was a kid.
View and kid stuff
The view from the stage. Us kids used to run across the tops of all those wooden benches as fast as we could. No one ever missed but some of the tourists were a bit concerned that we might get hurt. Kid’s stuff, if you survive, it makes one strong.
Hike through the forest
Anyway the purpose of coming up to this spot is I wanted to hike up the hill from here through the forest and come out on our property.
Up the hill
I picked the route I thought might get me there and started out through the trees and the brush as the trail is long gone.
It was fairly steep going all the way up to the top where our property is and it wore me out going up.
But the forest was real nice with lots of big ferns.
Fortunate it was all down hill
Eventually I made it to the ridge top and wasn’t sure where I was until I walked the ridge a bit and found out I was on the old animal trail and a bit beat by now, but from here it was all down hill.
Headed home
Even going down hill was a bit difficult as my legs and feet were beat. I made it down to one of our roads and things got a bit easier.
I got off the road at the bottom of the hill as I wanted to check out this creek so I went down it a ways until I ran into some downed trees blocking my way, so back up on the road for me.
My legs and feet were very happy to be home. I did some chair hopping to rest up a bit.
This hen
This hen has two little chicks. She was the first to hatch some out this year, but I’ve been having some trouble with her as she doesn’t want to stay in her nesting box at night and has been invading another hen that is sitting on eggs, kicking her out.
I tried moving her nest box around and it helped a little.
But last night I saw her up on the roost and I figure it was too high up for the little chicks to get too, so they’d have no protection at night from things like rats. I was hoping her little peeps where in with another hen on the ground.
I was thinking of putting her out with the other chickens and give the chicks to another hen with younger peeps as I figured that’s were they were spending the night anyway……….but.
I noticed something
But tonight when I went out to check on them just before dark, I noticed something.
Can you see the two little peeps? Somehow they got way up on the roost with her, so all is good.
There are over a hundred pictures that are served up randomly every time you visit or change pages. They are of earlier pictures of interest and also some just to remind me of things.
A Sony AX33 4K, a video camera that takes stills too. What am I doing with that? I take pictures from my Kayak a lot. I found I was missing interesting shots, because my pic was being processed in my camera, before it would let me take another pic. Since I like to take what I call action stills, I bought this camera to take videos, that I could make stills out of, but, as a bonus, this camera also came with buttons to just take stills and that's what I mostly do, unless something is real interesting or too far away for my still zooms. My digilat zoom setting for video goes to two hundred x, and sometimes I need that, but usually, I only use the 10x lens zoom. Because this camera is HD and 4K, the quality has to be real good and it has a lot of stabilizers on it which really helps out a lot for taking pics on the water.
The other thing it has that is a must is a view finder and I had to buy Sony's top of the line cam to get it. This is a must for taking pics on the water, as you must hold the camera as still as posible and putting that eye piece to the eye forms a tripod with your arms that helps a lot. The eye piece is also a must as it works way better than a LED screen to see what you are taking a picture of in the daylight as the LED screens wash out easily in sunlight.
I also have another video camera, a Canon VIXIA G30. I use them both to mostly take stills. The Sony takes higher resolution stills than the G30. That was a bit of a disappointment as I bought the G30 to replace an older camera I dunked in the river, but then had to buy the Sony to get higher still picture resolution that the G30 was lacking.
