NH Homesteader's journal

[sumi]

Your DH is a gem! Good luck with the truck shopping. You must let us know what you end up buying. I drive a 13 year old Nissan something-or-another that we totally stole for e300! lol There was very little needing fixing on her and I had the garage go over her from headlight to tail light.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I'll totally let you know, because I'll be so excited! Lol

DH got out of his day job early, and is taking a 2 1/2 hour nap, then we're going on a chicken hunt before dark, eating dinner and off he goes to the mountain. At least he doesn't do the day job on weekends, and it's likely they won't make snow this weekend either. They can only run so long before they run out of water and have to give it a few days to refill. So, hopefully after work tomorrow he can come home. I'm not totally counting on that though!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

OH boy...poor guy! Two and a half hours is not enough. Can you tell I'm sleep deprived and only want about 24 hours to try and catch up! Hope you find the MIA chickens!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Found one... Dead. Dorking roo. 2 still missing. Brewster the Dominique just inherited the Dorking's resident hens. And the Cornishes just inherited the small side of the coop.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Oh, that and I won't be ordering from hatcheries again. So until we splurge and buy Dorkings from a breeder (not this year), we are down to one hen. I think we are down to 13 chickens now, one of which is a cull cockerel. Sheesh, we need to stop free ranging these things.

I'm also upset because I cannot find anywhere other than hatcheries to get Chocolate turkeys from, so that'll probably be another year also (there are breeders down south). Looks like the year of no new breeding stock!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Oh stinker....sorry ya lost him. Hope you find the rest. Do you think a predator got him or he just died of previous injuries?

 

[NH Homesteader]

I think he just never healed well and the cold did him in. He was in the coop, in a back corner you can't see so well unless you climb in (I am not climbing in coops right now so I didn't see him). I think the others are gone. Sadly, it fixes a space issue we had, so I'm fine. DH is upset though. But we no longer have to build something for the Cornishes! We lose someone the first cold snap every year it seems. Last year it was our old tom turkey.

I do think a predator probably got the others though, no sign of them. Some of them are dumb and don't go to bed at a reasonable time, and these were little still, and we have owls... That's my bet.

 

[baymule]

Sorry about the losses. It sucks to raise them up, put your time and money in them, only to feed some varmit. Your poor husband needs some rest and sleep. He sounds like a great guy. We don't know how to fix cars, so we have to pay someone else to do it. We both have driven a lot of bombers over our lifetimes, finally arrived a the place where we could buy new. That said, DH's truck is a 2004 F250 Ford Lariat Diesel with 150,000 miles, mine is a 2008 Buick Lacrosse with 50,000 miles. I cringe at the prices of new vehicles.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Wow you don't drive very much! We drive a LOT. We live far away from everything. And NH roads kill vehicles. Between the salt in winter and frost heaves in spring.... It's brutal on cars.

I keep telling DH he doesn't need to work this much. But he really wants to save up some money so he can stay home with us for a bit when baby's born. Which I appreciate immensely.

 

[baymule]

DH worked 3 miles from our old house for over 15 years. Most of the miles are from moving up here. My car belonged to my mother, it had 20,000 miles on it. She died in 2015. I gave my car to my DD, I had treated it badly and it had a lot of miles, but it was bigger and better than what she had. But all the car seats wouldn't fit and they got a bigger vehicle. Now that we are retired, we don't have to go to work every day, some days we don't go anywhere at all. And I am ok with that!