The heat has been oppressive here at the farm. Quite honestly, the heat has been an excuse not to get some things worked on. Silly perhaps, but it's true. After a days work, coming home and sitting in the comfort of the semi-air conditioned house is a whole lot more appealing than working outside and sweating.
The animals seem to be coping well. Stewie (the beef cow) has been spending a lot of time in the barn, either in his area laying on the dirt or in with the chickens on their deep bedding. I think the only thing that really bugs him is... well... the bugs. The horseflies have been awful this year. Doesn't stop him from grazing the pasture when he feels like it though.
Charlie and Moon have a literal jungle in their kennel. The grass has grown up to 3' in some places and I think they love the shade. They're also digging. I'm sure it's cooler underground so I've been a little lax in filling in all their holes. That is until I walked out of the house the other day and found Moon in the driveway. She'd dug her way out of the kennel... and when I walked towards her she slowly scurried back into the tunnel and back into her kennel. That hole got filled in.
Moved the peepers into the attached garage. The brooder house has a very low ceiling and even taking out one of the windows (covered with wire) and runnign 2 fans it was getting way too warm in there. The attached garage area is smaller, but it has a higher ceiling and while warm isn't as hot.
Decided that the turkey peeps need their own coop so I'm in the process of building that now. Designed it based on an online friend's coop that was featured in the video attached to this story about her and her heritage breed turkeys -- Pick Your Poults Way Before Thanksgiving Day. Hopefully I'll have a full set of pictures on how it comes. Trying to get a new camera to work has been "interesting" so far. The peepers are a month old now and just about ready to be turned out in the world... so I've been trying to get this setup done. May end up doing PVC and a tarp for the roof instead of making it a permanent roof this year. We'll see.
Egg production has finally dipped due to the prolonged heat. Yesterday was the slowest day yet -- only 9 eggs -- but collection has been down to a dozen/day for about a week now. Hopefully the heat will stop soon!
Have started to contact banks in anticipation of picking up a few more acres. Also still have a list of projects that need to be completed. Nothing is ever static on the farm -- even when all you want to do is sit in the air conditioning.
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