Monthly Archives: July 2011

Sly Skunk Slinks into Chicken Coop

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Last night we heard a bit of a ruckus. Britton didn’t want to lock the chickens all the way into the little coop because they wake up at 5am (when the sun comes out) and want out into the yard -which means one of US has to wake up at 5am on a weekend to let them out. So we opened the windows at night and figured we’d hear anything if something tried to attack them. Well, we did! AND unlike the last time which coincidentally was almost a year ago to the day, we got a good look at the culprit. It was a skunk!


Skunks move in undulations but are not very fast so we got a couple good photos

You would think we could smell him coming, but we couldn’t! I always thought skunks stunk just in general, but they don’t! Although when Britton was trying to get him to leave the yard and he threw something at him, he did raise his tail -a warning that he was prepared to spray- which made Britton high tail it away from him! He did not want to be taking a bath in tomato juice! The skunk, unlike last year’s predator (who we think was a wild field cat) couldn’t scale the fence and was trapped in our yard.


You can see the skunk next to the AC in the garden with my freshly planted peppers (click pic to enlarge)

The chickens were all understandably freaked out, as skunks are natural chicken predators. Although, I have heard that they don’t usually go after the full-grown chickens and prefer eggs and chicks to a big ol’ hen that they can’t carry away or eat all the way. But, if they can get a hold of them, they will try to kill them and then just eat the head and blood which is what happened to some of my chickens when I was a kid.

So after all the commotion, the chickens were standing in the yard with their heads stretched high and eyes wide open near our back porch. The young ones were still safe in the greenhouse and we managed to wrangle all three of the older ones back into the coop and lock it shut.

At least they are all big, healthy chickens that make a fuss if anything tries to bother them. I think it would be a good fight if it was just one skunk against all of them. But I’d rather not find out!   And I’d rather that our backyard not get skunkified either! 🙂

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Poll: What should we do with the Rincon Property?

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Please take a second and vote in this poll! It will be interesting to see what you all think we should do. Britton and I have lots of discussions about this (like should this be a five year plan or two year), but we’d like you to weigh in on it as well. If there is another choice that you would recommend that isn’t found on this, you can either comment on the poll or in our blog comments! I have also created a new page about our place in Rincon, Puerto Rico if you need to remember what we are talking about. You can find it here (also on the side bar where it says “Our Place in Rincon Puerto Rico) . Thanks!

For this poll you can choose more than one answer since it is basically dealing with two different questions: 1) what should we do with the wooden house and 2) should we start a guesthouse business?


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Plentiful Peppers (and Other Things)

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An intern at work has a family farm in Evans and he brought in two huge tray-fulls of pepper starts. They all look really healthy and hardy. He told everyone to take as many as we wanted. I took about 30 plants! Britton and I planted them all around the garden area yesterday and in the front flower garden too. I’ve never had too good of luck with pepper plants, but my mom says to just put grass clippings around the base of them to keep the humidity high near them and they will do well. We’ll see! I love peppers, so I hope it works out!


The pepper starts in the garden


One close up


Here are the three not-so-baby pullets under the tree staying out of the rain. We’ve named them: Omeleto (Omelette 2), Barock (the Barred Rock), and Little Foot (the smaller version of Greenfoot).


Flowers are still blooming like mad

 

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Dear Diary

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I can’t believe we’ve been journaling here on LifeTransPlanet for three years now! It’s amazing to me. But I’ve always liked journals, or diaries as I called them when I was a kid because I liked to think about what it would be like to read my diary in years to come. Writing a journal, a diary, or a blog helps you to reflect on the moment that you are in right now and also to remember the past and what can come in the future.

When I was eight years old I received my first journal and started writing in it. Mostly I wrote about all my pet animals including my pet duck, Beep Beep, my pet rabbit, Flash, my dog Ginger, and our pet rooster, Clem. I also wrote about my friends and later, boys. Occasionally, world news crept in such as the first war in the Middle East. It’s funny how much changes, and how much stays the same. (Click pictures to enlarge diary posts and photo)


Thinking about the future and chickens- not much has changed :-)

“And now I have a rooster” …”December 2, 1990 Sunday Did you ever notice that in the year 2000 I will be 20. I think that’s neat”


With my brother Justin and my dog Ginger around 1988

I hoped people would be interested in my journal -and still do with this one

“June 11, 1990 …I got a duck he’s only a week old and man he’s big! My thearoy is that when I get really old a scientist will read this and make me famous…”

Big changes, like moving and death, have always made me “Super Sad” -and still do

“Jan 14, 1991 Tomorrow’s war in Iraq which is so sad.”  “Jan 25, 1991 Flash died! Everyone’s sick in my class and war is terrible too….” “Feb 6, 1991 I’m trying to get over Flash but it’s hard. I haven’t been so sad. Everything around me is changing, America (war), my life (mom got a job), I met more friends, brother, starting school in Fall, moving, aging, changing schools…”

I still write a personal journal in addition to this blog. I write with a pen and paper. It helps me to try and figure things out. To vent. To put into words the mumbo jumbo of feelings that sometimes come over me. A lot of times after I write I am able to better deal with the world and see it from a different perspective.

It has also made it so that I am not afraid to write. I know that being a “perfect” writer won’t ever happen and only makes writing seem difficult, but that I can be a good writer.  To do that I have to actually write something! Being able to write without anyone correcting me has made it so that I am able to say whatever I think as grammatically and politically incorrect as I want to be. It is very freeing! I know not everyone likes to write, but for me, journaling is a great stress reliever and creates a historical document I can always look back on like this first one when I was a kid. Journaling is about the present, it creates history and it helps to look to the future. The ultimate time machine.

Three years journaling online. Three years of animals, activities, changes, super sadness and super happiness. I wonder what it will be like for future kids in the world of journaling their lives. I will be waiting and writing to find out.

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