Tag: guinea fowl

2020-05-20 log

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Again, it has been raining all day long. It is too wet to do anything outside, and I was hyperfocused on creating a new ETL process for work and worked way too long.

The big non-work thing of the day is: I PUT NINE GUINEA EGGS IN THE INCUBATOR.

We will see… I have no idea what their level of fertility or viability will be.

I made a spreadsheet that, when given an “Eggs in Date” on the “data” tab, populates the “days” tab to tell me when to candle the eggs, put them on lockdown, and expect hatching. You should be able to save your own copy of the spreadsheet and use it, if you like.

2020-05-18 log

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A big fluffy grey and white cat has been haunting my yard and tormenting Hermes. At 5:40 a.m. today, Hermes was up on his back legs frantically pawing at the inside of the bedroom window. That grey and white cat was on the front deck railing staring in. 

I chased the cat off, and am now apparently at a time in my life where I choose to stay awake at 5:45 a.m. because I can go ahead and do a puzzle and eat my dark chocolate Catalina Crunch with heavy cream and drink tea in a leisurely fashion and still plant out and mulch my winter-sown Lobelia cardinalis and Mentha pulegium (pennyroyal) before animal care and the workday.

Who am I?

Also, why have I accumulated so many seedlings that require consistently moist/wet soil when we consistently have summer droughts? (Probably because I’m buying seeds in late fall/early winter when half my yarden is a giant puddle?)

It was a grey and drizzly day, but I’m not sure we got rain-rain. I’ll have to check the level of the rainwater catcher tomorrow when it’s light.

After work, I potted up a couple of tomato seedlings to give away to a friend tomorrow (Green Vernissage and Siberian).

I stole all the guinea eggs out of the coop and sorted them into:

  • laid during dewormer egg withdrawal (marked with a wax crayon X, and to be put out for my nocturnal anti-tick crew: the opossums)
  • fresh but too dirty to incubate (set aside to be washed and Instant Pot hard “boiled” to make pickled eggs)
  • fresh, pretty, and clean (for possible incubation!!)

I began data collection on incubator temperature and humidity constancy, and if that looks good, I hope to put a batch of eggs in on Wednesday (maybe even tomorrow night?). I am still waffling on how many eggs to put in. This will be my first time attempting egg incubation and I have no clue what the fertility or hatch rate is going to be.

I am sure this whole process is going to be heartbreaking but also fascinating.

2020-05-11 log

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This morning I confirmed the trees outside the far end of the goat pasture are some type of Rhus (sumac) and not the dreaded Ailanthus altissima. That’s good, because I’m going to be battling the suckering hell of the Ailanthus (tree-of-heaven, my ass) in the back treeline forever.

Today fiber was laid up to the side of the house. The workers dug up a hosta, which I replanted this evening. They also moved my wintersowing containers around, in some cases stacking them up, which was not really ok, but I moved all the containers around the Shed Bed soon and detected no damage.

The workers also hit (and repaired) two separate water lines (apparently there is a right mess of current and old conduits between my house and shed), and dug in a bunch of directions trying to avoid them. The lead guy apologized and reassured me they’d fill, seed, and straw-cover it. I asked, “Seed? As in grass seed?” He confirmed. I said, “PLEASE DO NOT. I am trying to get rid of grass! I don’t want more!”

After work, I worked on bermuda grass removal in the area between Squash Mountain and Blackberry Bar.

Inkpot laid an egg in the front daylilies.

Lurkey flew into the neighbors’ chicken run at dusk and got scared by their dog, which caused him to fly out, and across my back yard. He landed in the side yard between house and goat pasture, and ran across the road and the field over there. I last saw him entering the treeline. This will be the first evening he hasn’t roosted in the giant sugar maple behind my neighbors’ house since December.