Sat May 23rd... We Must, We Must, We Must Increase Our... Pool Depth!!!

Today, above all else needing completed...... We Must install the rest of the pool parts, so we can continue to fill the pool to have it ready for the swimming season. According to tradition of many, many years, the swimming season runs from Memorial Day, which is Monday, through September 7th, the Labor Day weekend. All we have to do is place the filter/pump assembly into position and install the skimmer hose to the pump and the pump discharge hose to the eyeball assembly and then we can resume filling the pool. If Vick returns to filling as before, the pool will be ready to use on Monday. By the end of today, we could probably run the pump and add the chemicals.

We will then go to the Hospice Gift Shop and start to build. We’ll save the Bunny Brothel work for a rainy day, when we can work inside. We’ll still have to install batten strips on a nice day, but they aren’t that important.

We’re looking forward to the building of the Hospice Gift Shop. It has seemed like a dream that wasn’t ever going to take place, but with the pouring of the foundation, we have a renewed excitement brewing for that project. Getting it up and running to generate funds for hospice, looks like a reality again and we’re psyched! Stay tuned for progressive pictures.

Friday Eve May 22nd ... The Pool Pump & Filter Put On Hold Today......

The installation of the pump, hoses and filter on our swimming pool had to be placed on hold today. The duck house door was ready to fall off, due to the hinges being bent and twisted by the high winds of last week. We went to GNH Lumber, where we picked up some new heavy duty hinges and 5” lag bolts to bolt the door into place, so we could remove the hinges and install 4x4 post material on the corner, for a solid hinge foundation. Once in place and bolted solid with the 5” bolts, we installed the new hinges and replaced the trim work. Tomorrow, we will go to GNH again and pick up about six 6” lag screws and put them into the 4x4” posts to make sure they are anchored and capable of handling the 6’ x8’ wooden door swinging open and closed.

Jeff came today some time in the morning or early afternoon and cut the relief cut line across the concrete pad. Now we can build when we’re ready. We will also install a flex drain pipe all around the footer and install the two ends into the pipe drain that goes under the pad.

Sounds like a good work day tomorrow would be to get the swimming pool ready for operation so Vick can finish the filling, using the garden hose. Then we can work on the drain installation and then go to the actual wall building on the hospice house. We Can always work on the Bunny Brothel door and stuff at will, because it’s all out of the weather anyway. It sure would be nice to put the DeWalt saw away though.

Friday May 22nd... Reviving the Swimming Pool Once Again... Underway...

Once again I will be laying under the edge of a swimming pool, hooking up hoses, motors and pumps... vacuuming the bottom and spending more time around the pool than in it!! Since we’ve had this pool, I’ve been in it exactly two times... closed it and opened it, twice each, cleaned it many times and worked on it, forever it seems... as we waited for the truck to fill it the first year and the garden hose every time after that. This is the first time we have filled it from the beginning with the garden hose, after replacing the liner due to ice damage this past winter... a career move it seems; but cheaper than the several hundred dollars worth of trucked water from the Catskill Creek. At least when I put the filter and pump in today, the only dirt we will filter out will be our own from the back yard. We have been filling the pool with the garden hose for about two weeks now... maybe more, but at least it will be full and not cost us an arm and a leg.

I went out this morning and place another little black chick into the brooding box, under the heat lamp, so he could be with the other chicks, eat and drink. Vicki saw that it had hatched out last evening, but we leave them in the incubator for at least twelve to twenty-four hours before putting them out with the others. They don’t need to eat or drink for a good twenty-four hours, but they do need to be completely warm and fluffy dry before being introduced into the regular brooding box atmosphere. That first twenty four hours is critical to their survival. We still have a bunch of eggs to hatch... regular chicks, Bantams and a few Guinea fowl. (we hope)

We’ll work on the Bunny Brothel today. Batten strips still need added to the board cracks, soffits covered and some lighting added. We can open a hole into the barn later for the inside door. The rabbits, which we are giving to the Two Kids Bakery, keep getting slid ahead and now they aren’t going until Monday sometime. Reggie needed the weekend to finish up his pens and we are giving them two free standing pens also, so they should be ok for Monday. After the bunnies leave, we will have the room to open up that wall and construct the door opening and install it, so today, we will concentrate on batten boards, soffit and wiring. Maybe we could also build the grooming table for brushing the Angoras.

Doing anything on the Hospice Gift Shop is out, because Jeff needs to cut the concrete on the pad with a relief cut across the middle before I can build on it.

The rear deck is out until he and the guys come and get the main posts and ridge beam up and in place. It will be double 2x12’s, twenty feet long, placed on top of two posts and anchored to the house. The weight of the two 2x12’s with a piece of stiffener, ¾” plywood in the center, is collectively more than any one person can lift, so I had to rely on Jeff and his crew to do that and anchor everything properly. We’ll take over after that, but until then, we’re dead in the water with that job too.

Thurs. May 24th... Lillian Was Here!!! Exploding With Usual Energy......

Our Friend Lillian, from Old Bridge, New Jersey, stopped to visit for a few hours this morning on her way to her sister’s house, somewhere in Massachusetts. She exited the car in her usual flurry of perpetual energy and happiness. I have never met such an energetic, excited and happy person which makes her way through life, doing anything that interests her. She just returned a while back, from a trip to Israel with a tour group of people she had never met before. You can bet the entire group’s lives have been truly enriched by having met Lillian though...... When she walks into a room, she actually causes it to light up from the energy she brings to everything she’s near or touches. She has promised to stop on her way home next time, so she can relax and stay a little longer.... visiting and enjoying the tranquility of the farm... she had mentioned possibly staying overnight and leaving for home the next morning. We enjoy her company very much and cherish her as a friend. We wish Lilly a safe trip and she and her family a special visit together.

The rest of the day will seem rather bland in comparison to Lillian’s visit, but we will trek to the library for tonight’s watercolor class with Stanley. Last night we did a group of trees on the edge of a field with an evening sky glowing over a mountain in the distance. Tonight... who knows, but it will be another evening among friends of equal interest in art and each other, so we’ll all leave happy in the end. We have become a bit closer with Carol and have agreed to go to her house for a visit with her and her husband Greg on Saturday afternoon for a bit. I’ll enjoy seeing her old farm house and all the remodeling her and Greg have done.

After tonight’s art class, we’ll return home and retire for another evening after a fun and full day of living our lives on the Cluckin’ “A” Critter Farm and doing what we love to do... Together...

Wed. May 20th... We Have a Turken in the Brooding House......

We just placed a Turken or “Naked Neck” chicken in the brooding house this morning, moving it from the incubator because he was fully dried and ready to eat and drink. He is a cutie, with the traditional bare neck and bare head in the back..... Devoid of all feathers, they are a funny, but neat breed which is actually cold hearty, good egg layers and are very good foragers and are immune to most diseases. We have a full blooded Turken rooster in the new barn and now a hybrid Turken which we can’t tell the sex of, until a little time passes and it grows a bit. They are fairly common in Europe today, but rare in North America. I don’t care about any of that...... but would be pleased if the newborn chick was to be a pullet. That would make it much more probable that we can expect more Turken chicks to show up in the future.


Tonight was the second evening of Stanley’s watercolor class and we enjoyed learning a few new things. We seem to always learn something, even though this is possibly our fourth or fifth watercolor course we’ve taken with Stanley. We also take his drawing classes and are trying to go to one of his daughter, Susan’s pastel classes and would like to take a college course in Pastels. Vick loves watercolor, but I’m not too full of it...... Pastels are more my speed... more forgiving... you can cover over mistakes easily and save your picture.... unlike watercolor where an entire picture and several hours of work can be lost by one mistake.

Jeff was to come this evening and start the rear deck project. DIDN’T HAPPEN....... surprised? Not me!! I wish he would have at least came over with his concrete saw and cut the relief line across the foundation pad, so I could have started the Hospice Gift Shop walls tomorrow. Not to be I guess. I’ll have to ask him about the man lift he was going to bring over for us to use to do the board and batten upstairs on the barn too. I also need that to put Vicki’s birthday present up for her as I promised...... A swing, up 35 to 40 feet in the rear pine trees on a strung cable between the two trees. Just once, I wish he would come when he is supposed to! Jeeze Um..... It seems everybody has one of those guys that is supposed to... but seldom ever does; Jeff is ours.

Tues May, 19th... Timmy Turkey Succumbs to his Lung Disorder... He’s Gone...

I found Timmy dead about three o’clock this afternoon, crouched on the floor as if he was sleeping, with his head lying on the floor. He was fine this morning when I was in there and gathered the eggs, but had succumbed sometime after that. He had COPD from the lung worm he had last winter. The worms left his lungs so scarred that he had trouble breathing, so we had him and Tina both to the vet for treatment once and bought medicine from Curt several times to treat them; twice for the actual lung worm and then several times for their breathing. Tina holds her own, but gets winded easily. Timmy was actually gasping for air if he walked more than ten feet. I suppose Tina will sometime die from it too, but right now she is hanging on. We have pills we can crush and dissolve in water; then, using a syringe (without a needle) we flush it down her throat, which will dilate her lungs so she can breathe easier. She doesn’t need it just yet, but we have the med’s if she does. We’ve spent well over $175.00 on both Timmy and her for the lung worm and its complications. We’re going to miss Timmy but he’s better off. We have five poults in the brooding house and there is a Tommy among them, but he cannot replace Timmy.

At seven o’clock, we will go to Stanley’s art class, which was called off last night due to his fall. He was checked out at the VA hospital and after x-raying his hip, decided it was only bruised badly, but not fractured or seriously injured. This will be the fourth or fifth class we’ve taken with Stanley and we learn something new every time. He paints beautiful scenery pictures and is known as “Mr. Tree”. He specializes in tree pictures and doing an apple orchard or a distinctive old twisted tree excites his creative juices. He has won several awards and his tree pictures are in many galleries and museums all over the United States. His latest award was for a picture called “Evening Embers” which can be seen by clicking on the blue link, which will take you to the “Hudson River Valley Art Workshops” website. We love going to his classes or just spending time with Stan and Joyce dining and chatting during an evening out. Stan and Joyce are good friends.

Vicki just came in and told me that we have another chick breaking through its shell in the incubator. That’s two today; Added to the twenty six already under the heat lamp. As we said last evening, we had the twenty four Araucanas and the two that hatched under a hen in the barn..... Now we have added the two from today. We still have twenty Bantams in another section and five we raised in the early spring when we hatched three and Isabelle gave us two from Ashley.

Mon Eve May 18th... Art Class For Tonight Cancelled Due to A Fall......

Our friend and mentor of the art world, Stanley Maltzman, had to cancel tonight’s class on watercolor because he fell this morning as he was leaving his house. He had a pair of shoes on that had an extra cleat on the front toe of the shoe, which caught on the door sill. He was leaving the house and as he attempted to step through the door, the cleat caught and he tripped out the door onto his porch, injuring himself bad enough to cause him to call the VA for them to check it. He just had a hip replacement last winter and thought he may have injured his leg or hip. It turned out that it was just badly bruised, but ok. We’re thankful, because Stan is 87 years old and probably wouldn’t do well with a break to heal. We’re glad he cancelled the class and is taking it easy. Vicki told him to call us if he needed anything, because we, along with his friend and nurse, Joyce, keep a pretty close eye on him. We also keep his daughter Susan updated with anything she needs to know about her Dad, which he hasn’t told her. (Within reason, being careful not to infringe on his privacy or be a tattle-tail)

We decided tonight to pull all the eggs under the chickens in the barn, because it was becoming impossible to keep the nest eggs and fresh eggs separated. We candled all the eggs and the ones with live embryos, went to the brooding house and into the incubator to finish up. Some we’re just starting and a few were chirping...... We would have liked the hens to hatch them and raise them, but we had four chicks hatch already and two disappeared... finding one dead later and the other vanished without a trace. When that happened, we took the other two from under Mom and placed them in the brooding house to raise them under a heat lamp. They are now with the twenty four Araucanas we picked up this morning at Agway. By tomorrow, there will be another one or two to add to them. We can watch these guys much better in the incubator than the hen that kicks eggs out onto the floor and switch from nest to nest. I think the hens being raised in a hatchery incubator, still have a sitting instinct, but not a complete one and they loose interest to feed and stay off the nest too long or return to the wrong nest box.

Now we can return to gathering eggs morning and evening, from every nesting box and get them candled, weighed, graded and into the refrigerator quickly. We are also just about a week or two from marketing our eggs into the local stores now. We are just waiting on the grade and size stamps. We’ll also market our eggs at the farmers market Greenville is going to start up soon.

I guess we’ll start the Hospice gift shop building soon. We need to go to GNH and pick up the sill material to place under the sill plate. We can get that anytime... maybe tomorrow...... then take off like “Ol’ Bob the Builder” again! Fun, fun, fun......

Mon May 18th... We’ve Recovered from Shearing Day... A Good Day...

Yesterday we started out early for Isabelle’s farm along the Hudson River, to join in on the Alpaca shearing day scheduled to begin at 8:30. We arrived to find Isabelle and Wendy, her friend of many years, from Scotia busy making ready for the other alpaca owners to arrive. There was coffee and doughnuts for those of us needing a kick start in the morning, and these staple items were well received by all. There were ten alpacas and one llama on the list for shearing and all the owners were present at some point in the day. John, owner and operator of Schoharie Llamas, from Schoharie, NY was the shearer and when he arrived the program got underway. The previous year, John had sheared the alpacas on the ground, which was an arduous job, to say the least, but this year, he had a table. All went well and we finished around six in the evening or so. Our contractor friend Jeff, had brought his daughter, Christa to see the event, so when it ended, we took her to her house in Westerlo and then returned home ourselves, to await the arrival of Isabelle with our alpacas. When she arrived with the boys, Isabelle’s husband Ralph, Wendy and Ashley, the fifteen year old helper, accompanied her and we lead a short tour of the barn and bunny brothel for Isabelle. We also invited them to join us for dinner at the Wayside Inn near Oak Hill, or perhaps, still in Durham, as I never know where one town stops and another begins. Anyway, they accepted and we all dined and chatted about the days events. Wendy commented that using the table slowed the cutting process substantially, making it almost twice as long, but sure saved your back and knees over the course of the day. Vicki and I couldn’t imagine being on the ground, holding alpacas down for the shearer, as they kicked and fought to regain their feet again. That would be brutal for both the animal and the people. All in all, I’d say the day was a successful adventure with little injury to anyone involved except the people. I had a few bloody scrapes and others nursed a few bloody spots too. John the shearer, was kicked in the face during the next to last animal, which gave him a red scrape mark just above the eye and bent, broken glasses, but he was ok after a few seconds to gain his bearings again. It was an exciting, long and tiring day for all and we slept fine all night. Today the boys are running around in little coats to keep warm. Below are pictures of the event and the boys today.






Luke to the table






First he's cinched to the table...





Then it's on his side for shearing...




Off comes the fiber. Wendy holds Luke's head.






All the rage.... the old ET look!

ET phone home....

John is a shearing away..

Luke gets a little dental work...

A little comb and brush job... Boy, if we just had a little fu fu.....

Iggy is now on the table

Iggy losing his fiber now...

Bollero is up next.... He's doing quite well for the first shearing...

A little naked Huacaya alpaca.. Cute Huh?

The boys with their little coats

They adapt well to clothing...

The turkey's in the brooding house.

The Bantams... wild birds... they fly everywhere when you feed them.

The turkey's don't move for anything...

Newest chicks that hatched under hens... Now in the brooding house for safe keeping....