Day of rest.

 

Buff Orpington chicks.

We went to town and snagged the two porch chairs on sale!  Annmarie grabbed them as soon as the store opened and paid for them immediately.  Once that was done we continued our shopping.  D & B had over 200 baby pullet chickens.  I heard the peeping from three aisles away and drug Annmarie over to look.  They had ten different varieties.  I opted for Buff Orpington babies.  We don't have any left out in the coop and they lay brown eggs.  We now get fewer brown eggs than any other color.  So after bleaching out the brooder the chicks are now ensconced in our dining room for the next two weeks until they are big enough to go out into the coop in their baby pen.  This works out great as they will be laying in full swing by April of next year.  My favorite time to buy chicks is in the fall so they can be deadbeats all Winter long. 

After lunch I went out with Zeke and we hopped on the tractor.  I hopped on the tractor and Zeke terrorized every living creature on a 20 acre stretch of land.  I was just going to mow but the irrigation ditch is dry on the lower end by the school house.  I thought if I got the weeds out and cleaned it all up it would run better.  It worked in the spring.  Unfortunately, I did not do the upper field ditch just the lower ditch.  It is running better but I still need to clean the upper ditch.  I started an experiment by mowing part of the hillside covered in sagebrush.  I am hoping that it will not grow well after getting chopped up by the mower.  I am thinking about discing the patch up and throwing some drought resistant pasture seeds.  Not sure it will happen as I need to do the exact same thing in the barn lot, upper prime pasture and parts of ram pasture and orchard.  I am going to have a busy vacation cycle over the next three months.  I am taking six weeks off throughout my next work schedule cycle to get the farm ready for Winter. 

I cleaned off the grill of the tractor and still managed to get it clogged up and overheat the tractor.  I am going to have to add getting off the tractor every hour and cleaning off the screen to my tractor duties.  That was the real reason I did not get the upper pasture ditch cleaned out. 

Irrigation ditch cleaned out and ready for water movement.