She sat on her nest patiently for 3 weeks, only getting off of it for about 30 minutes a day to eat and drink. Now she is teaching them what to eat, how to take dust baths, etc.
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 Gretchen made a nest in the north shed of the barn in some gravel. We tried to move her to a dog house with straw when she had three eggs. She did not go for it. She now has about 8 eggs but only sets on them for a couple hours in the morning.
From what we understand, geese and turkeys are different from chickens. They lay eggs, go about there business, and when they decide go broody a week or two later, then they start setting on their nests full time. Chicken mommas set on their eggs from day one and go into almost a trance. Doing with out food or water for days.
Frick and Frack are more interested in each other and don’t pay Gretchen much attention. Last Thursday evening, I dug a 100′ ditch next to the green house. Our current “temporary” water line has been laying on top of the ground for 3-4 years and is always in danger of being mowed or tilled in two. My neighbor Carl and I had planned on going in together to rent a ditch witch for a day this winter and put a few thousand feet of water line in on our respective farms. But as you know, it has been a little moist since November. My immediate need was to bury 100′ of new water line so we can lay down the landscape fabric. I could do that with tools on hand, a single shank sub-soiler and a trenching shovel. Using the sub-soiler was easy, I was on the tractor. I made 4 passes with the sub-soiler, even stopped to switch out the chisel point to a wider sub-soiler attachment that would hopefully remove more dirt from the ditch. I am lazy. It finally got to a point where I had to get off the tractor and use the trenching shovel. The trenching shovel is basic. No on/off switch and only two apps, left hand and right hand. Dig down, lift up, toss to the side. After 20′ feet of that, I was huffing and puffing, it was 5:30 pm and I decided I needed to go to Lowe’s to buy supplies to supplement the automated green house watering equipment the UPS guy delivered. I had planned on finishing the ditch Friday, but it had started to sprinkle on the way home from Lowe’s and I did not want to take the chance of dealing with mud rather than dirt, so I finished the ditch around dark on Thursday. I have not used the ditch shovel in over a year. Now I remember why. That would be my dad, Lane Landon Mullis, and my Grandpa, Otto Lane Mullis, circa 1946. |
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. It is part of our 2010 clean-up project. We are going to install landscape fabric on the east side of the green house and put up a washing and packing shed for vegetables. But first, we have to install a underground irrigation line to send water to the fields.
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