What a week this has been! We have been working hard to get caught up and to get back to schedule with everything. We’ve been ripping and tearing, running and rushing...looking and planning....and finally we are close to being where our plan was for us to be at this time.
We installed an air conditioner in the bunny brothel last week, but it could not keep up in the intense heat, with the sun beating on the metal roof, acting like a furnace, so we planned a strategy and executed it today. We purchased an insulation called Reflectex or something like that... It’s a bubble wrap with tin foil on both sides. It has an Insulation factor of R5 to R10 depending on the manner in which you install it. All I know is that installing it on the ceiling of the bunny brothel, allowed the air conditioner to hold the room at 60 degrees and now it can shut down on the economy setting the way it should. That is a must because Ethel is soon due to have her litter of bunnies. We are also planning to go pick up a new bunny in Taunton, Massachusetts, sometime this coming week. It’s only a two hour ride there and two hours back, so it’s merely a day trip and we won’t need anyone to watch our animals for that.
Also, today I installed two hose reels for Vick to use in watering her flower garden at the hospice gift shop and possibly filling the water bucket in the outside run-in shed. I also installed one near the campers at fort apache, where she can water the melon beds she placed out there.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll finish Vick’s bottle tree after we finish with the installation of the rubber mats in the alpaca stall where we just expanded. It will take about six mats in the alpaca stall area, a few in the chicken house and a few more in the center barn area. Someday we might need to sponsor the alpaca shearing if Isabelle and Ralph sell their house and move to Florida, so we have to make provisions now. This also helps us with the ease of cleaning and keeping the animals dry and warm in the winter.
We fought the battle of the annual pool opening this last week. After swapping and flushing the filters multiple times.....too many to actually recall....and 40 gallons of liquid chlorine, we have a handle on it and it has transformed from green to blue again. Now all we need to do is get the cloudy condition to clear, but we’re well on the way now. After today’s matt installation in the barn, I’ll get back to placing fence posts for the perimeter fencing and any sectional fences needed to break up large areas for herding the sheep and alpacas. We decided that we can place the fence posts and install the boards and wire at a later date. At least we can put the posts in now, since we have them.
Vick’s garden is doing great and she has all but one plot filled with plants. The garden measures 27 feet by 30 feet. That means it is about 114 feet around the perimeter. Vick placed 11” boards against the posts, (inside & out) making a four inch wide bed, in which to plant her beans, peas and other vineing plants, so they were not in any of the six center raised beds. This kept her main beds free to use in a more efficient manner and allows the chain link fence to be an arbor for the vineing plants to climb up. We placed a timer on the water line and placed a rotating sprinkler in the center which waters the entire garden at 5:00AM and again at 5:00PM automatically. All our backbreaking labors to set the garden up will be rewarded for years to come.
With all this completed today..........we will be at a standstill and can live normally until Steve, our excavator arrives with his equipment to start the barn drainage project. Once that is out of the way, we can start the farm store.
I think we’ll take advantage of the lull until he arrives.
Maybe we can get the hospice gift shop opened. Steve Manny is planning a media blitz of some type soon. He is arranging with the media to visit and do a TV piece about us and the gift shop. I guess you gotta take the bad with the good, as neither Vick nor I are very photogenic or comfortable with interviews and such.
040287 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC
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