Fall is in the air.

Now that fall is in the air, we have a lot of projects that need to get done before winter. First, the 20 or so roosters that we still have around will need to be dressed (or un-dressed, so to speak) and put in the freezer. I did 3 of them 10 days ago, plucked, gutted and put away. I did 3 more last Saturday, this time I skinned them instead of plucking, as I have heard that skinning is so much faster. Not! It ended up taking exactly the same amount of time as plucking, and it was much more physical hard work. So, back to plucking.



A nice young man from church comes over sometimes to mow.  He was here, so he got the opportunity to help pluck chickens.  He will never look at a chicken dinner the same after this.  I am dipping the next "victim" in scalding water in preparation for the plucking.


Next, the pigs are out. Not out of our property, but out of the electric fenced area, about one acre. Over the summer the grass grew so thick around the electric wires that it weighed the wires down to the ground. So the pigs eventually figured out that it wasn't working any more, so they went exploring. So, right now, we keep the front gate closed all the time, even when we are home, so the pigs won't escape. For the time being, they have not tried to go through the barbed wire, although it wouldn't take much for them to do that. It's not too bad right now, but I can see that this is not a long-term solution, so I will have to mow down the grass that has grown over the electric fence so that it will be working again. I did spray the grass along the fence with Rounduup, which actually worked very well to kill the grass, but it didn't magically disappear like I was hoping for, so I still have to mow it down. Hopefully, next spring it won't grow back in the same spot. The pigs don't really cause any havoc, but it is a bit unnerving to walk out the front door and have two 500 pound pigs standing there on the front walk, staring you in the eye. The upside is that they are finding lots of good things to eat, so we haven't had to feed them nearly as much over the last 2-3 weeks. The other downside is, that they don't always hold it until they get back to their area, so we have to watch where we step. It's not quite the same as a dog.



It's bad enough having chickens in the front yard.  Pigs is, well, it's just too much.


Next, the hay needs to be stacked. I mowed the upper half of the property about a week ago, and it is dry enough now to stack on the haystack I made some weeks ago. Since I made it, rain and time have gradually worked on it, so that a 10 foot high stack is now about 5 feet high. I will also need to mow the lower 5 acres, as it did not get mowed and baled this year. The elderly fellow that used to do it with his grandson died this summer and apparently the grandson isn't interested. Which is okay, as I plan to start using the hay myself.

Next, the bees have worked their magic again this year, and I need to get the honey super off of the hive and extract the golden sweetness and get it put up in jars.

Next, the new hens are starting to lay. So, once the new roosters are in the freezer, I will need to move the hens to the lower chicken house for the winter, as it is insulated. The summer house is uninsulated and I don't want them to freeze. They don't have a nesting box, so they have been laying in the bed of the pickup truck and on the shelf in the tractor shed. We have been getting from 5 to 8 eggs a day for the last week, so we have given away a bunch of eggs. They build up fast!

Next, every time I go out to where the walnut trees are I nearly break my ankles on all the walnuts. This is walnut buying week, which we missed last year. So, I need to get out there and get them picked up and take them to the walnut buyers and see if I can get some cash for them, rather that just using them to fill pot holes in the driveway, which is what happened to them last year.

Next, the swimming pool is pretty much ready for winter, but I would like to put a leaf net over it to try to keep the leaves from accumulating on the bottom of the pool, which is what happened last year. We closed up the pool a few weeks ago when it got cold and took out the pump and drained the water out of the filter. Then the weather turned warm again and the water all turned green. So we added a bunch of chlorine powder a few days ago to try to keep it from getting too green until the weather gets cold again.

Next, since the weather is starting to get cool, I am going to start using the woodfired cookstove again, which is really nice on a cold Saturday morning. So that means I need to start cutting firewood. The huge dead walnut tree about halfway down the driveway still has several more branches that can be cut and split into firewood. Last winter I went the whole winter burning wood in the cookstove and the fireplace all on just one branch from that tree. The trunk at the bottom is about 4 feet across, and each one of the branches is about 2 feet across.

Next, the pond is nowhere near as full as it should be. I have finally concluded that it will have to be drained and re-built. It fills when it rains, but then the water leaks out again until it gets to where it is now, which is about 5 feet of water. It should have about 10-12 feet of water. I don't know for sure where the leak is, but I am pretty sure it is in the area of the big bedrock rise in the middle of the pond. The fellow who built it the first time told me that that could be a problem. What he should have done is to dig out all the bedrock that sticks up in the middle of the pond and then seal it at the bottom, but I assumed he knew what he was doing. So it goes. It's really too late to do that this year, as it has to be done when it is dry, so that will have to wait until next summer.

Next, it will be deer season soon, and there are lots of delicious looking deer around the property, so I am hoping to convert a few hours of hunting into about 100 pounds of venison.

As you can see, there is about two weeks' worth of work that needs to be done this Saturday. I am planning to retire in about 3 years, and I am accumulating things to be done after I retire. The way things are going, I will have to live to 100 just to get caught up on projects that should have been done BEFORE I retired.