I’m tired tonight, but in a good way. Tired because I’ve done a full, hard days work and I know I deserve my cup of tea and my comfy bed.
Hubby is back from hunting. He is sporting a two-week beard and a few more hunting stories. He shot a 9-point stag and brought back some venison for the freezer. It was nice to have him back and I immediately set him to work gutting roosters for me. It’s my job to catch the roosters, hold them for the head chop and then pluck them. He chops heads and then when I have three or four plucked, he guts them for me. A nice little team effort.
In between the gory bits he worked hard digging out and boxing up the foundations for my new garden/chicken shed. I can’t wait to have this up and functioning. I’ll take some pictures of the process of it being built.
I worked hard catching and plucking the roosters, and chasing the couple that escaped the pen! And then cleaning up the culling mess, which seems to take the most time of all.
Once the rooster pen was empty (except for one very lucky boy who is going to a new home soon) I raked up all the deep litter, about a cubic metre, and piled it into a compost pile. What a gorgeous lot of organic matter that is. I can’t wait to dig into it in spring.
I spread lime all through the pen to help kill nasties, keep the smell down and keep the earth sweet, and I spread diatomaceous earth on the roosts to kill any mites. Then I transferred my eight-week-old chickens into the pen and laughed to see them run around and enjoy the space. Now I can start loading it up with weeds, old hay, sawdust and lawn clippings and start the whole deep litter process again.
We had a homely dinner of roast turkey (one of our own) and vegetables (the pumpkins are tasting pretty good) and then after dinner cleanup I helped hubby unload a huge trailer load of rocks that he foraged from a slip down the road. We loaded them into foundations of the shed-to-be to take up some room so we don’t have to buy as much concrete.
And of course the day also had it’s usual kid-wrangling, clothes washing, lunch making as well.
I’ll enjoy my bed tonight.
Good Morning Lottie of New Zealand! I can relate to much that you do and say, but as I get older, I cannot bear to call my animals by name and look them in the face each day, then see them on my plate. I do enjoy seeing your way of life in your country, as it seems to be so similar to ours. (Sue from Kentucky,USA.)
ReplyDeleteHey sis, that duaghter of yours is awfully cute. Venison - mmmm!
ReplyDeleteYou have a great hubby girly, my computer programmer hubby likes his PC waaaay too much for my liking, sigh. Although he is great too ;o)
ReplyDeleteCute little missy there and yay for free free-range venison!
What a huge day! I was woken this morning by several young roosters finding their voice and told Craig they had to be killed. "Yeah next weekend we'll do it" "No NOW" I crowed just as loudly. I don't think I can wait till Sat!
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