Patches on Top of Patches

 Patching clothes does work.  The jeans mentioned in the previous post are still in rotation four years post-patch, although some additional dings have been accumulated.  I have some other pants that are on a steep and increasing downhill slide, however.

I had some pants that needed to be patched in the knee a while back.  I don't remember exactly how long ago, but it was a couple of years.  Then another wear spot made it necessary to add a second patch immediately adjacent.  Then a third.  This is how the knee area looks now:

From behind, it's gruesome.

The patch at the left is the newest one; the pants haven't been washed with it yet.  It's the same left-right orientation as the front view above.  However, as you can see at the right of the top picture, there's another tear forming.  These pants may not be long for this world.  Patching is a thrifty way to extend the lifespan of clothing, but there are limits.

 In response to the obvious question, why not do a huge patch to cover the whole area rather than smaller ones: It's not obvious that a bigger patch will be needed.  Sometimes it's not.  A large patch is harder to put on (keeping both layers smooth and properly aligned) and uses more patch material and thread.  Plus, it takes a lot of time.  Speaking of patch material, however, I may be getting more from these woeful worn-out pants soon...

 

Spring Pruning, 2022

 I am virtually always late when it comes to pruning.  Every November I think that I'll plan ahead and get it done early, and every March I wonder where the dormant season went.  Some things are still dormant as of early April, but they won't be for long.  Better late than never, in any case...

This year I also need to pull out some of the fence circles I put around trees when they were first planted.  The trees had outgrown them, were growing through the fencing in some instances, and old enough to stand on their own. That's not to say that there won't be problems from the deer, but it should be relatively minor damage at this point rather than lethal.

This was not necessarily an easy task, but had to be completed before the trees leafed out.  I found that in some cases, the wire had to be clipped to free the branches, and some roots had grown over the bottom fence wire (no tree roots, fortunately--mostly grass, and in one case, privet). This points to one of the problems with the fencing: it discourages maintenance activities inside the wire.  Speaking of privet, this was growing inside the fence circle next to my Enterprise apple:

Once the fencing was out, the t-posts had to be removed.  Several years ago I got a t-post puller, and had seldom used it.

If you don't have one of these and you have to pull t-posts, get one.  I've pulled them up by hand and this is vastly easier, quicker, and doesn't tear up the ground as much.  The price from Tractor Supply is up from when I got mine, but it still isn't bad at under $55.  It's awkward to use in close quarters but does work well, even if it has to be short-stroked.

I was even later with pruning most of the muscadines.  Some of them leaked sap profusely after pruning, but hopefully they'll be fine as in years past.

A Treat for the Bunnies

It's only about two months past when I should've pruned my fruit trees and the muscadines, so it's time to get going on that task.  Ahem.  At any rate, this year I have a potential use for the small branches taken out in pruning: rabbits like them.

 Although my New Zealand doe doesn't look terribly impressed with the offering, she did eventually gnaw it pretty thoroughly.  Shown below are a couple of freshly-cut sticks with one that has been debarked.

I do spray my fruit trees with a variety of things, but this season all they've gotten is one dose of copper (they're due for another), and I've gotten about three inches of rain since I sprayed the first time.  So I figured it probably wouldn't hurt them to give them a treat. I have also given them some dandelion leaves, which they like (I don't spray the grass at all).

Other than that, they're still on hay and pellets.  It seems to be working well.

The End of Psycho

 As I mentioned a few months ago, my Barred Rock rooster was not behaving well.  Things continued to deteriorate with him to the point that holding him down brought no improvement at all; he'd come at me in another day or two again.  Two things made me finally pull the plug:  The first was the realization that I didn't want to propagate his bloodline (Joel Salatin, in his new book, makes it clear that animals with behavioral problems have to be culled to get improvement in whatever you're breeding).  The second (and probably decisive) element was the attack at my face that left me bleeding in several places.  Yes, I should've been more wary around him, and yes, the injuries overall were relatively minor.  But still.  I was kneeling on the ground refilling their feeder, and he came around and hit me from above and the side.  So he truly had to go.

Ultimately, the destiny of all of them is the freezer.  He just got there a little sooner than he would have otherwise.

Shown below are the breast meat fillets:

The one on the bottom is from Tyson--it's a Cornish Cross breast, so is larger, but the color difference is striking. 

The rooster was about 18 months old, so the meat was a little firm, but not objectionably so.  The Tyson breast, coming from a chicken that was about eight weeks old.  It was definitely more tender.

I processed him on a Sunday, breaking the meat down right away.  It sat in the refrigerator for a couple of days before being frozen for another few days before baking.  That should have been enough time for any post-death rigor mortis to subside. So I'm assuming the not-entirely-tender quality of the breast meat was due to age alone. However, as I do more, I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Tractor Modification Update

 As discussed in an earlier post, I made some changes to the tractor design for the second build, which is still occupied by the second group of Barred Rock birds. The main thing I was trying to accomplish was lowering the nesting boxes so that they would be lower than the roosting bars.  I hoped this would avoid the problem that developed with the first tractor, in which the chickens roosted in the nesting boxes and laid on the ground underneath the boxes.  Lowering the boxes greatly complicated the build, but last year it seemed to work reasonably well at getting the birds to lay in the boxes rather than sleep--after an initial period of them laying on the ground.

Well... this year while they have been parked, they have fallen into the same habits the first group of chickens acquired.  They're laying on the ground (again) and roosting in the boxes.  This is what I'm finding daily:

The egg in the picture is a fake one, providing a hint that is not being taken (at least for now).  I'm hopeful that this is more a product of the tractors being parked, with the resulting hay inside, that is making a little nest area at the back on the ground more attractive than the boxes.  Once I started rolling last year, the birds soon moved to the nesting boxes for their egg-laying and all was well.  I hope that happens this year, because there's no room for a nesting box under the existing nesting boxes in the new tractor--unless I cut one down.  At this point, I'd say my design modification was not worth the effort and I wouldn't do it again.  Ah well.

Meanwhile, the Delawares in Tractor 1 are mostly laying on the ground, but I've found a couple of eggs in the boxes--and not much poop.  So there is some hope.

 Update:  both tractors are rolling again, as the grass is greening and the winter weeds are abundant.  Both groups are laying in the boxes more often now, but the Delawares are still laying one or two on the ground every day.

The Delawares Are Laying

The Delawares hatched in late September (as did the Barred Rocks, a year before).  In early January, the rooster started crowing (same time frame as the Barred Rock rooster, Psycho, in 2021).  The Barred Rocks started laying in mid-February last year (which surprised me; I wasn't looking for eggs so soon).

The same thing has now happened with the Delawares--also in mid-February.  As with the Barred Rocks last year, the first eggs have been small.

 

In the picture, an egg from the Barred Rocks is on the left, and the rest are from the Delawares.  As happened last year, I expect the egg sizes to gradually increase.  Even though they're small, they're fertile:

The white spots on the yolks show that.  So the rooster is doing his job.  I'm not hatching any out now, but that may come at some point.  For now, it's nice to be getting eggs in quantity again.

Cardinals in Heat

 The seasons progress.  Although it is still winter--trees are still dormant and it was 18 two weeks ago, the daffodils are up (though not blooming yet) and we're entering a sort of peri-spring period. The roads are covered with dead skunks--they mate mid-January to mid-February--and squirrels have been getting active.

Another early-season mating period is apparently that of the cardinal.  For the last couple of weeks, I've noticed a bird fluttering around the mirrors on my truck, and then I noticed this:

Somebody has been spending an awful lot of time on my front bumper.  I then started to pay attention and saw the cardinal (or maybe there's more than one) flying away from the front of the truck every time I walked nearby.

The picture isn't the greatest--massively digitally zoomed and through a not-so-clean window--but you get the idea.  He's seeing himself in the chrome and in the mirrors and fighting his own reflection, trying to drive the presumed rival male out of his territory.  Not surprisingly, this hapless soul doesn't have a female with him--which is doubtless part of the frustration.

All birds apparently are prone to this, and the impact of a mirror on a male betta fish is well-known.  Cardinals may be more susceptible than most other birds.  There are plenty of pictures online of the phenomenon.  Hopefully this soon passes--then we'll be progressing to male woodpeckers and carpenter bees.