We’re starting to gain momentum again. Once we started filling and stacking the bags I felt rejuvenated. It was exciting to see the building finally rise above ground level. Things really took off this past weekend when Justin and Melainia came out to help. The larger bags filled with gravel weighed well over a 100 pounds so I was extremely glad to have the help. We’ve decided to forgo the bale curb, which was going to prevent water from wicking up the stem wall into the bales since the gravel in the bags already breaks the capillary effect. That saves us quite a bit of time and allows us to avoid using some lumber. We’re currently working on building the frames for the doors and windows which are pretty thick since they’ll be bearing some of the weight of the roof.
The guineas got released into the wild about a week ago and have been doing really well. They go back inside their coop at night without us having to do any training. They herd so close together they practically walk like one organism. They’ve also shown off their flying skills and you’ll randomly see them roosting up in the trees, especially when they get spooked. They don’t seem to be ranging for bugs very much yet so we’re going to stop free-feeding them and see if that motivates them some more.
We also seem to have a runt in the bunch which is quite a bit smaller than the other birds. It seems to have a breathing problem and you can see it breathing hard a lot of the time. I’ve also noticed it tends to split from the flock to warm itself in the sunlight. We got some antibiotics for a couple of our chickens that seem to be having a problem, so we started giving some to the runt too to see if we can clear up his problem. From reading we’ve found that they’re susceptible to lung infections caused by increased humidity since they’re originally from Africa they’re not adapted for humid conditions.
Speaking of wild animals we’d been lucky up until now not having any animals get into our food but that all ended in the last couple weeks. A family of raccoons found our chicken food bag and tore it open and must have eaten around 20 pounds of feed or more. I tried scaring them off by yelling and throwing rocks, then by firing a shotgun near them, and finally by letting of a leftover firework mortar after them. You’d think they’d get the idea.
But no. I put the chicken feed inside the tool tent and they ripped a hole in the tent and went to town again. That was the last straw. So I went out and bought a trap and baited it with the chicken feed. Within minutes of turning off the light to go to bed that night we’d caught one of the juveniles. I’m pretty sure there were 4 altogether including the mother. I know because their eyes glow in the beam of my headlamp. We started to take the little guy to a nearby national park which turned out not to be much of a park at all and ended up dropping the guy off with some chicken eggs for a snack about 10 miles away near a creek.
I was worried we wouldn’t be able to catch the others as easily since they’re smart critters and I figured they’d be onto us, especially the momma. So the next night I put the trap inside the tool tent and disguised it as the chicken feed back. Again within minutes of turning the light off to go to bed we’d caught the momma and boy was she pissed. She was growling and lunging at me. We let her go in the same spot we’d let the baby go hoping they’ll reunite and not return.
Last night we caught another juvenile and hopefully tonight we’ll catch the last one. I figure we’ll leave the trap around for whatever comes around. We did have a brief run-in with a opossum but it hasn’t come back. One problem is the guineas also like their feed and I caught 3 of them in one swoop yesterday, so I may have to start baiting the traps with something else.
In other news, the garden has exploded and we’ve already learned a couple lessons. The first is that we don’t need to plant nearly as much summer squash. One plant is probably plenty, instead of the 4 we’ve got now, not to mention the 3 zucchini plants. Also, we need to give them MUCH more room. We’re also going to grow a lot of the plants on trellises, like the watermelons, canteloupe, and cucumbers. They’ve probably already traveled about 15 feet or more along the ground from where they started.
A couple of the crops that I’m particularly going to focus on growing correctly next year are onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. They haven’t done so hot and they’re the main staples I’d like from the garden. So we’ll see how that goes.