A Few Setbacks...

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley," ~Robert Burns

After such noticeable progress here at Lazy Danes, the last week has been quite unproductive! Weather and injury (hammer to finger-OWWWW!) are the contributing factors and while the injury is mending nicely the weather is still being very uncooperative. So here is a status update of our various projects...

Chick brooder- mostly done. I need to add the wire and cut the hole for the lamp in the top still. The chicks have arrived, but they're not missing their brooder. Instead of being in the big brooder in the shed they are nestled in a rubbermaid tote in the dining room. We have the weather to thank for that since I really don't think I could keep them warm enough out there right now.

Goat fence- posts in, wire run to gate. Now we just need more clips and weather conducive to running wire.

Shed- mostly painted. Trim and detail work still needs to be done. How about some dry days?

Raised beds- still need to be painted since they were untreated wood. They are also still under a couple inched of snow. Again, how about some dry days?

Unfortunately, there is more rain/freezing rain called for this weekend so there still won't be any outside work getting done. On the upside, we had some great sledding, built a snowman and let the Danes play in the 7 inches we got a week ago. Crazy weather this year.

And now, on to the chicks! After last years very messy experience of brooding the chicks inside, and since I didn't want to get as emotionally involed with birds I'm planning to eat we were going to brood this batch in the shed. I had planned a nice, large, wooden brooder to keep them warmer than the little cardboard job from last year. All very well thought out if we were having a "normal" NC winter of barely below freezing at night and 40-50's during the day. Well, Chuck got to drive though snow and ice to get the little biddies Monday morning and into the house they came. I do like hearing their little peep-peep-peep but I'm dreading the feathers flying. We only lost 4 to shipping stress and with the weather like it is, that's not too bad. We're left with 28, in some combination of Delaware, Americana and a mystery chick. They're harder to tell apart in this batch so we'll just have to see when they grow up a bit.