My wife and I are planning on ordering some chicks Friday August 1st.

Breed / Quantity

Australorp – 5
Barred Rock – 5
Buff Orpington – 10
Dominicker – 5
Rhode Island Red – 5

Plus the 17 or so we have left after the dogs, fox and chicken hawk got finished.

47 hens with 3 roosters.

My Rhode Island Red rooster is on loan to my cousin right now.

Barred rocks and Rhode Island Reds are, but I have not seen a single one go broody.   The instinct to sit on eggs has been bred out of certain breeds.  When a hen sits on eggs, companies lose production, which means they are losing money.

The reason why my wife and I want a variety is for various traits. The Buff and Dominicker are supposed to sit on eggs, one of my Australorps will go broody at least once a year.

In a previous article we talked about the best chicken breeds for SHTF / TEOTWAWKI.  There are so many good breeds out there, it is impossible to pick an absolute best.  In order to expand my knowledge and experience with chickens, I want several different breeds in my flock.

As of right now the Buff Orpington is quickly becoming one of my favorite breeds.

The Dominicker is an old heritage breed dating back to the pioneer days. If a breed of chicken was good enough for the pioneers, it sho0uld be good enough for me.

Would you add or subtract anything from the list my wife and I want to order? Post your comments in this forum thread – What do you think about my next chick order?

While working on the new chicken yard I figured I would go the glorious route and do as much as possible by hand.

In our age of machinery we lose appreciation for hard work.  I wanted to be able to say yes, I have set fence post by hand.  This included everything from digging the corner post hole with diggers, to notching out the H-brace by hand with hammer and chisel.

After setting 5 post I said “screw this, it is taking too long”, and called my uncle who has a tractor auger.  I still have around 15 corner post to set.  Doing everything by hand is taking too long and  I have a lot to do before winter sets in.

Since I am using telephone poles for corner post, a regular 6 inch auger was going to be too small. It just so happened my uncle as a 12 inch auger bit.

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This flood of illegal immigrants will be the final nail in the coffin for obama. Even the most rabid obama supports are starting the see his true agenda.  Obama will go down as the worst president in history. Instead of bringing the nation together, he drove a steel wedge through the heart of America.

Everyday working people are being thrown to the wolves while illegals are flooding this nation and overwhelming resources.

You think the economy is bad now? Just wait until those illegals are granted work visas. Those thousands of illegals crossing the border everyday will start looking for work. It is just a matter of time before human rights groups call on the U.S. government to start granting work visas. We do not expect the tens of thousands of illegals to sign up on welfare do we? If they are here they can work and support themselves, right?

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For those of you old enough to remember Money for nothing by Dire Straits, here is a version singing about spreading the wealth and obamacare.

In short, while people were busy watching TV the nation was stole from under our noses.

What are we going to tell our kids and grandkids when they ask why they have to buy healthcare when other first world nations get healthcare supplemented by taxation.

Future generations will think of us like we think about our great great grandparents. What the hell were they thinking when the income tax passed? What the hell were we thinking when mandatory buying health insurance was passed?

Guys and gals, please stop with the open carry movement.  You are not doing anything but scaring people.  Law enforcement is called to check yall out, tensions get high, it is just a matter of time before someone gets shot.

Leave your long gun at home where they belong.

The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  I understand that, trust me I understand.  Nobody is infringing on your right to bear arms.  There is a time and place for everything.  Carrying a rifle or shotgun into a store is not the time or place.

Every able-bodied male

The 2nd Amendment serves two purposes, protect the nation in times of war and to help with localized civil unrest.

Yes I know about watering the tree of liberty from time to time.  That is why we vote.  We water the tree of liberty with tears of defeat and not blood.

There is no reason to carry a rifle into a coffee shop.

There is no reason to carry a rifle into a shopping mall.

There is no reason to carry a rifle into a retail store.

There is no civil unrest.

There is no war on our streets.

If you want to shoot something, join the military.

Now for the love of GOD, please stop scaring people.

The season of plenty is upon us. On Saturday June 14, 2014 the grandkids, my wife and I dug 4 1/2 bushels of potatoes, beans are doing good, fig trees have figs on them.

Here in southeast Texas we had an unusually cold and wet winter. We got snow 4 times this year. One of the storms blanketed the farm with 3 inches of snow.

Around 1964 there was a storm that dumped 2 feet of snow in southeast Texas. My dad remembered having to get the chickens out of the snow and put them in the chicken house for the night.  Nobody I talked to remembers a winter like what we experienced here in Southeast Texas in 2013 – 2014.

Because of the cold wet weather I postponed planting potatoes for a couple of weeks. Instead of planting in mid-February we planted in early March. This meant the potatoes would be ready to dig later. Instead of mid-late May, the potatoes were ready in early-mid June.

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How do you store potatoes?  So far this year the potato harvest has gone well.   I have probably gotten close to 3 bushels, and that has not even made a big dent in the garden.

If you had a shed or a barn, you could put down a layer of hay, layer of potatoes, layer of hay, layer of potatoes,,,, until all the potatoes are covered with hay.

Space the potatoes so that they are not stacked on top of each other.  The spacing allows airflow and will help prevent potato rot.

The layers of hay add a cushion between the potatoes and will help prevent rot.

• Keep the potatoes out of direct sunlight.  It is ok to put them in the sun for a little while.  But do not leave potatoes in direct sunlight all day.  Sunlight releases a toxin in the potato, which will turn the potato green.
• Be careful when harvesting potatoes as to not bruise them.
• Do not wash the potatoes, just wipe the heavy dirt off.

Besides a shed or barn potatoes can also be stored in a bushel basket.

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My first attempt at drying green beans. My wife and I planted 2 rows of beans, 1 row Roma II snap beans and 1 row contender snap beans. On Sunday June 1st I picked exactly 5 pounds of beans. I know it was 5 pounds because I used a scale.

My wife has been putting a bunch of the beans in the freezer, and we are going to can a bunch of them. To go along with the canning and frozen beans, I want to dry some using an old method of using a string.

Using sewing string for quilts I did one string of Roma II and one string of Contender bush bean.

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Nothing brings mankind closer to the earth than digging potatoes. There is a certain joy in working the soil, planting seeds, watching the plants grow, taking care of the plants, then harvesting the fruits of your labor. This is especially true with potatoes.

Digging potatoes like opening a present, you do not know what it is until you open the box. The same is true with potatoes. You do not know what is in the ground until you start digging.

There are other options besides digging potatoes by hand.

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Before my wife and I moved to the farm, with the help of friends and family I we got a 75 feet long by 35 feet wide chicken yard.  With 2,625 square feet 100 chickens could fit in the yard and each chicken would have 26 square feet.  It is recommended that each chicken have at least 10 square feet in the yard.  That is double the minimum needed square feet, but there is little to no room for fig trees, blueberry trees,,,, or anything else.

It is time to build a new chicken yard.

The old yard is 75 feet X 25 feet.

The new yard will be 200 feet long, 100 feet wide on the back end and around 175 feet wide on the end where the chicken house is going to be.

The original chicken house is 6 feet wide X 8 feet long.

The new chicken house is going to be 18 feet wide and 20 feet long.

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A new Godzilla movie is out.  Having grown up in the 1970s and 1980s, and having seen more than my fair share of Godzilla movies, I had to go see this one.

When Godzilla came out in 1998 I took my two oldest sons to see it.  My second son wanted to go see this new one, so we went to 11:30 am showing at Tinsel town in Beaumont Texas.  It just so happened this showing was in 3d.

I usually give my movies a beer or whiskey rating.

If the movie is absolutely unbearable, I suggest you start drinking whiskey 30 – 45 minutes before the movie starts.

If the movie is great, I suggest beer or some other light drink so you can enjoy the movie.

While this new Godzilla is a LOT better than the 1998 version, it is not a great movie.  It is a good movie, well worth seeing, but it is not a great movie.

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When my wife and I moved to the farm in august 2013, we arrived with 13 hens.  The hens were a little over a year and a half old.  Those 13 hens were laying around 9 – 10 eggs a day.

With that 9 – 10 eggs a day I tried to estimate how many chickens and eggs my family would need during a long term SHTF situation.  In a previous article we got an estimated number of around 75 chickens or so to satisfy our egg and chicken meat production needs.

In the past 3 months something happened that has thrown a serious kink into my chicken flock plans.

Out of the original 13 hens, only 8 remain.

Out of the 24 chicks my wife and I bought in February 2014, only about 12 remain.

In other words, we have lost about 1/2 of our flock in the past few months.

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I have a new project to work on, and that project is a 1999 Toyota Tacoma 4-wheel drive.

A few weeks ago a buddy of mine and his wife invited my wife and I over to their house for a shrimp boil. While we enjoying good company and good food my buddy pointed out a Toyota Tacoma his daughters boyfriend had parked in the yard several months ago.

The Tacoma is in bad shape. A limb had fallen through the windshield, the rear end gears are stripped, the back brakes do not work and one of the front hubs is stripped.

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Friday April 25, 2014 my daughter and I went fishing on the Angelina River here in Jasper Texas.  We left the house around 7:30am, went to the  Exxon gas station at the intersection of HWY 96 and HWY 190 for a bag of ice, went to the donut shop on HWY 190 then headed to Bevil Port.

For breakfast my daughter got a large kolache while I got a ham, egg and cheese croissant.  While at the donut shop I asked my daughter if she wanted a chocolate milk to drink.  She promptly replied she was not three years old anymore.  I smiled, gave her a hug, and told her something like “nope, you are not three years old anymore.”  Kids grow up so fast it seems time flies by.

The launch at Bevil Port was typical.  Pull the boat around, unstrap, make sure the plug is in, load tackle box, life jackets, 5 gallon bucket of noodles, then pull around and back the boat down.  The starter switch on the motor is going out, so I had to use the pull rope to crank the motor.

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Monday April 21 one of my best Rhode Island Red hens got out of the chicken yard and the puppies tried playing with her. Lets just say things did not turn out too well.

A couple of weeks ago the puppies tried playing with the same hen. A lot of the feathers on her neck were pulled out. Besides a couple of small bite marks she was otherwise ok. It looked like she was going to make a full recovery. Then Monday came along.

After my wife and I got home from work I opened the chicken yard for the chickens to free range until dark. The puppies were roaming free while the chickens were in their yard.

Maybe around 6:30 or so I opened the chicken house and that is when I saw her. She was in the nest with a broody Australorp. I knew right then something was wrong. She was missing feathers around her vent and she acted scared.

I picked her up out of the box and that was when reality set in. She was more than just scared, she was missing chunks of flesh under one of her wings and around her vent. I am going to guess she jumped over the fence of the chicken yard. The puppies saw her and and tried to play. Chickens just are not as durable as puppies.

The only reason why the hen was not pout down right then was because she had certain traits that I wanted to breed her for. Anytime the flock was out foraging she was leading the pack. She was not a follower, she was a leader. She was also my largest Rhode Island Red. I wanted those traits passed down to the next generation.

After dark I got some neosporin out of the first aid kit, got the hen off the perch, spread the neosporin all over her wounds, put her back on the perch and prayed for the best.

Tuesday April 22 my wife and I got home from work, went into the house, my wife looked out a back window and saw the Rhode Island red in the backyard just behind the chicken house. I walked out the backdoor, touched the chicken with my boot to confirm she was dead. Yep, she had been dead for awhile.

I went back inside the house, ate dinner, then buried her next to a newly planted grapefruit tree.

To make sure no varmints will dig her up I put several 3 inch thick cement pads over her grave. Hopefully she will rest in peace.

So long nugget, you will be missed.