Life in St Arnaud

[Devo1956]

well done murray, keep them going maate.

[Murray]

I was not going to be too worried about this year's young birds, It's all a bit of a mess, we've got things half finished and just doing things one thing at a time.
But these are a great kit of youngsters and I found myself pulling the hampers out and evicting the spiders
When we get a few cooler days I'm going to start showing them the hamper.

[Murray]

Very warm today. It went up to 39 degrees. I kept putting bottles of water in the freezer to get them icy cold and refilling the drinkers. The water was hot when I emptied the drinkers.
After 3 days of hot weather everything was warm. Door handles, clothes, cold water out of the tap, even the salt and pepper grinders. Picked some cucumbers and tomatoes, they were warm to the touch. The buckets of grain mix and peas out at the loft, I put my hand in them and they were warm. I took them back into the shed where it was a little bit cooler.
We have a few days of low 20's to 30 coming up and a couple of cool nights so that's a relief, for man and animals.

[Murray]

I let the youngsters and a couple of the old birds out at 7 am. The Diver and the White Flight Thone' had a fly and went in. After nearly an hour the youngsters arrived back. They started picking around in front of the loft. It's just bare dirt and they were picking up bits of rubbish. Not a habit I want to encourage. So I was picking them up off the ground and plonking them on the sputnik.
I've had quiet youngsters before, but not like these ones. These are just a bunch of Muppets.
One of the small youngsters that I weaned the other day took off out with them. Ooops. After a while he was on the aviary then hopped in through the trap.

[Murray]

Lovely afternoon, so I put a couple of the hens that are homed out for a fly. They enjoyed that. A lot of them have lost a lot of muscle by being locked up for so long, so I'm trying to release them one or two at a time so they ease back into it. This little hen is a daughter of the Billion Baby, a youngster of 2023. I gave a lot of youngsters away when we moved but kept this one. She's only small so she's a good mate for the inbred Heremans cock. He's a bit big. They've raised 3 rounds and are on dummy eggs now.

[Buster121]

Nice photo Murray and good to see the youngsters going well and the broken old ones

[Murray]

Well they don't!

[Murray]

Lovely afternoon, spent a bit of time working in the garden. None of this was here a few months ago. I'm really getting interested in growing our own veggies as much as we can.

[Andy]

All looking great in the loft and garden Murray.

[Murray]

Thanks Andy,
I'm enjoying it.
This is the next bit I want to do. A heap of compost that I'm cooking, lot's of pigeon droppings and rubbish.