Catching up

We had no power yesterday from about 8 AM until around 7 PM.  Evidently a lot of Goodyear and most of Buckeye didn't have it either, and it was caused, according to the radio, by vandals cutting the guy wires to a major transmission pole and toppling it.  Too bad it didn't land on them.  It got awfully bloody hot in THIS house; I can just imagine how hot it must have been in trailers and stick-built houses.  The night before had been somewhat cool, so I closed up the house as soon as the power went off and closed all the curtains and settled down to move as little as could be.  I could read or knit by the light of the skylights, but couldn't sew.  I need a back-up treadle machine, I guess.

The only real bad thing was that as soon as the water in the well pressure tank was used up, there was no running water.  Sure, I had rain water in the containers out back, and I had drinking water in the dispenser, but I had to carry buckets up the hill to replenish the chickens' waterers, and I couldn't run the mister or sprayer like I usually do when it gets really hot in mid-afternoon.  Luckily though, we didn't lose any chickens to the heat.   I wish I could convince dear hubby to either put a hand pump or a windmill and stock tank on our second well down the hill.  It would help SO much when the power's off, and would really help the wildlife (the windmill) the rest of the time.  But he's so cheap, and things that I want to do are not nearly as important as the things he wants to do, even when he doesn't want to do anything.

Bill killed 2 rattlesnakes in 2 days over the weekend.  He came home after dark on Friday night ( I was out) and walked right over one curled up in front of the back gate.  The yard lights weren't on, because he usually gets home quite early on Fridays so I hadn't turned it on before I left.  He hung it in a tree to show me, but it was gone by 5 AM when the dog woke me to go out (and I didn't get home til 12:30)

Then the next day, we were rearranging chickens(some in this pen, some over here, remove rooster here, put another one in there), and found one under the dog crate shelter in the open coop.  We thought at first that he had bitten one of the roos on the foot, because it swelled up and the roo could barely walk within 2 minutes of killing the snake, and they had all been piled up in the corner where the snake was when it started rattling. I didn't want to kill the chicken if he could recover, as he is one of the best looking of the yound Catalana roosters so I put him in a cage by himself for a couple of days.  He wasn't happy, but recovered well and I let him go back to the rooster pen last night.  It was a short enough time that they recognized him and he doesn't have to prove himself all over.  He is actually one of the top-ranking roos with the chickens as well as with me.

 

 

AJ