Happy Mother's Day!... Woo Hoo We have water...

Woo Hoo! We have water. Turns out the fuse box is fine… no point in replacing it till for a while. Replaced a control unit on the pump… and fixed a burned out spot on the powerline leading up to the pump… woo hooo… water…

Ok gotta go… everything needs water… dogs…birds… etc…

Who thought I could get so excited about a little thing like a pump working… you know we all need water… and 99% of the time we take having it for granted…
Life is a journey… each day a new opportunity for learning… Mary & the thirsty Hairballs.

May 12th... lost our water after a storm

Wow… I thought I was prepared to live out on this ranch… yeah right. What an awful panic feeling to be out of water. It seems a fuse blew on in the fusebox for the pump. Which by the way I thought was a breaker box. It’s going to be a breaker box. One good thing came out of it. I learned the name of a decent electrician. One of the long time farmer/ranchers recommended him.

They have no idea how much I appreciated that. Most of the time I’m on my own out here. It’s nice to know that I’m not completely alone when David is at work. Yes I value independence. But it’s really nice to have a bit of support. Usually I’m the support for others…. It’s nice to be able to reach out and have someone around. Even if it is around a mile between houses. Not all are that far apart.

Another Thunderstorm came through this afternoon. Dropped about 3 raindrops and blew on it’s way. Created a suction in the house and slammed one of the bedroom doors. CaBam! Truthfully it… with it being the storm scared me a bit. Scared the dogs a lot. Not having water is a serious problem. The dogs need water. I want a back up water supply… although I’m not sure how to go about getting it. I’ve felt kind of skuzzy all day. Achy and tired. Tough tookis… need to get it in gear and take care of the dogs and fowl…. As well as some office work. Load photos to Arfing News… and edit and load photos to Robbins Run Ranch: my main site… I’m reworking a lot of that site.

I am going to talk to this electrician about wiring the whelping house, fowl house, kennel light poles…with lights and outlets… and my other out building. Nothing real elaborate …

It will be really nice to have heat lamps and heated water in the outside dog runs… be soooo nice for my hairballs when the temps go down. I had wanted that the first year out here, but my being ill put everything on hold. I’m going to work with what I have before I build another building. Large building. Alarm bells were going off in my head. I do not want to be that heavily leveraged. I’m going to liquidate some debt before I take any more on. Maybe start boarding on a smaller scale… rework the buildings I have now… I want electricity to my greenhouse too… and to rework the quonset. Actually make use of what we have.

The electrician the neighbor recommended is only a few miles from here... he came over... found an issue with the pump control... also power fluctuating at the well. Soooooo... no water for tonight... he'll be back in the morning... Sunday Morning ... and Mother's day To boot...

Life is a journey... sometimes there are bumps in the road... Mary

Written May 5th...

It’s raining … again. It’s a nice gentle rain… so I should be happy for the pastures and farmers. The asparagus is going to love it. So is our shrub and tree row. It is also working it’s nice gentle way into my office under the computer desk. Why anyone would finish a wall without making sure it was sealed is beyond me. Frankly it’s amazing how the water can work it’s way through the seam between the wall…which is poured cement and the floor which is also poured cement. Probably didn’t come through to start with. But with time the ground has shifted and put pressure on the seams. Water is insidious in it’s quest to go where it wants to.

I’m frankly fed up with mud.

I was supposed to have clients coming today. I don’t know about the gravel/dirt roads now. Nor about that driveway… if it’s driven on now before it get’s packed again it’s going to be a mud slosh bog. Not to mention wet soggy dogs outside. They have so much hair that they don’t get wet down to their skin. They also have huge houses that they can hang out in all day and play if they want..

On the bright side… it’s not a nasty dangerous storm like the day before yesterday. WOW, that was a light show, complete with driving rain, hail, tornadoes, lightening strikes, and electrical outages. I would wager lightening hit a transformer. It knocked out a big area...miles in diameter. The electric company out here is pretty good about getting the power back on. I do believe I want a generator out here though. We’ve been fortunate in the winter to have no power outages. If we do the water lines will freeze. Not to mention not being able to run the pump for water in the first place. The entire whelping house will be in here with the wood stove. I’d really like a couple of solar panels hooked to a heating system for the whelping house. Some for the dog runs as well as for the big yard lights. The house too. Be nice to have heat without worrying about banking the wood stove at night or powerlines snapping in the wind and snow… oh what’s that word. BLIZZARDS! We generally have several a season. This past season it was one on top of the other. I am so ready for some nice warm sunny days… not totally blistering heat… yes I know that’s coming. But some nice warm sunny days… without the wind blowing at gale force.
Nice gentle breezes please.

Ok I’ll quit whining for a minute or 2, maybe. 3 new ducks joined our barnyard family yesterday. A Rouen drake, pekin hen, and a buff hen. I put them in with the baby geese. At this point they are about the same size.

Gotta go let the house dogs back inside. I put them out to potty… they are probably soggy stinkers by now.
Got some great photos after the storm… Check the Robbins Run Ranch blog...some fun pics of the critters too... enjoy...

Life is a journey... sometimes there are mudpuddles on the trail... Mary E. Robbins

307-788-0202

Bright Sunny Day...I feel good...

Good Morning… and a great morning it is too. Moved the turkeys and geese out to the fowl house yesterday. Turned the pullets out again. They are too funny… it’s an adventure into the big wide world for those little white hens. At this point they are venturing out of their crate little by little… and roosting in their crate at night.

I put the goslings (baby geese) in an outside yard with unlimited water to play in yesterday. Unlimited as their pan automatically refills. Yesterday evening I went to the fowl house to put them inside for the night and was wondering on the way out if I was going to have to run after them. Not even… this was so cute. I called them “goot goot goot” and here they came running to me. I picked them up 2 at a time and took them inside as they chattered all the way in. Just a note… they are too cute right now… mostly down with little feathers puffing out all over the place… and not very big. Just a few pounds each. My small gaggle (flock of geese) are Toulouse Geese (named after a city in France). By fall the females should weigh 12 to 13 pounds and the males 18 to 20 pounds. They will be varying shades of gray. I didn’t get them to eat. I’m hoping that I have both males and females then we will have some goslings (baby geese) year after year. Just a note… never tease a goose. These birds pack quite a punch with their long necks and beaks when they are adults. I pulled this picture from McMurray Hatchery’s web page.


The Turkeys look pretty good today. I was concerned, they are actually as big as my leghorn pullets are … but not fully feathered. We have 10 turkeys now. A mixed group of Broad Breasted Bronze and Giant White. You do not want to tease these birds either… other than just being plain wrong. You will regret it greatly, The bronze range from 20 to 40 pounds with hens being on the smaller end of the weight range. The giant white range from 25 to 45 pounds respectively. I am looking forward to watching them grow up and forage around the fowl yards and front pasture.

Puppies are doing great… so are my young dogs. I plan to snap some photos of my happy hairballs today as well as starting on spring clean up today. Hello camera... hello rake. Hello broom... hello dog brush... I am so happy I actually feel good this morning. I'm sore and aching from working but feel good. It's been a long time. Had a couple of nasty allergy attacks this past week. Snatched my breath away in a hurry. It took a couple of days to get over each of them. I took zyrterc yesterday morning and used my advair... yesterday morning and last night... and I'm happy to say I'm breathing. And my lungs don't hurt. What a relief... It's a glorious day...

Washer just quit running... so I'm throwing the laundry in the dryer... starting another load... getting myself into a bath with some wonderful bath salts ... fixing brunch for my hubby and myself... biscuits and gravy today I think...

Life is a journey…enjoy the trip…. Mary E. Robbins & the Happy Hairballs
307-788-0202