You know you're a redneck when...

I can't help but laugh at our most recent adventure.

Sunday was another day in the "Adventures of Danielle and Donna". When Donna and I get together, our husbands groan, and our farms' animal populations generally go up. The result of this weekend was no different. We headed off to the Renfrew Fall Bird and Small Animal Buy/Sell/Trade. I was going "just for fun" and Donna was looking for 4 more hens. Well... Donna came home with 8 hens and I came home with a new Runner hen, four Ameraucauna hens, an Ameraucauna Roo and a few nifty accessories (cages). But! I only spent $2 more than Donna and that $2 was for feed, so it doesn't count.

A friend of mine had a 5' x 8' shed that she no longer used and offered to give it to me so long as I came to get it. After having a look at it, I decided that it would, with some "minor" modifications, be ideal for a duck house or chicken coop. The need to go get the shed and start working on getting it ready for winter became a little bit greater as a result of Donna's and my most recent shopping trip.

The funny part of this adventure? Getting the shed home so that I can start the modifications to turn it into the duck house / chicken coop. Unfortunately, it turns out that the shed was not 5' wide but 5'1" wide, which is one inch too wide to fit lengthwise into our trailer. So, we improvised. LOL! It's a good thing our farm and our friend's farm, where the shed was, are only a few minutes apart and connected by seldomly driven back roads.


Loading the shed onto to the trailer, cross wise.

Another view of the loading operation.

Ready to head home. :-)

I am happy to report that the shed made it through the transportation and unloading process unharmed. The renovations start this weekend. :)

Busy busy busy!

Now that summer is (more or less) done, we've started on our Fall list of farm repairs and planed upgrades. Byron, our new BFL ram arrives on Saturday. I've decided that it's time to separate the horned boys from those that aren't. Last year's rut was a challenge. I prefer to have an easier time of it this year. :-)

One of the severe storms this year tore down the loafing shed in the ram pen. seeing as we had to rebuild it anyways, I decided it was an ideal time to include a few modifications. The biggest one is that the large ram pen is now divided into two smaller pens with a solid post and board fence in between.


I'm hoping that this not only keeps the boys where they belong but is also sturdy enough that if they do decide to butt heads, well... Two strands of electric will be added to discourage the boys from socializing.

The new ram shed (sorry, no pics) has a solid divider wall which creates two 10' x 10' shelters for the rams. We've also set up a shared water trough through a hole in the wall with the goal of running one less water heater this winter. There will be three rams and a wether on one side (Amadeus, Byron, Peanut and our very docile Shetland boy, Blue) and the Shetland boys on the other (Wedge, Aman, Gizmo and Twist). Just a few more minor repairs to one other fenceline to go and we'll be ready to move the boys into their new digs!

Next step: figuring out my breeding groups for this year...