End of June

The storm passed without causing any problems. We have been building small cages for the chickens.


At a certain point, a hen decides she has laid enough eggs, and it is time to sit on them until they hatch. When this happens she stays in the nest more or less all day long. She puffs up her feathers, and growls and pecks at anyone trying to interfere with her brooding.

This is a problem because other hens want to use that nest to lay their eggs. Chickens like sheep have a pecking order. If a more dominant chicken wants that nest, a fight ensues. Not a bad fight, but there are eggs in there. Eggs can get mashed.

So the idea is to put that hen and her eggs in a separate cage. There she can do her job without the interference of the other chickens.

So we built a cage and placed a broody hen in it. After several days, it appeared that she was serious about sitting on eggs. So we took the purchased egg that we were using as a decoy or testing egg out of the nest and loaded the nest up with our eggs which are presumably fertile. We also ran out and purchased some more fertile eggs as we did not want to use eggs more than five days old.

This worked out well. Then another hen went broody, and we had to do it all again and build a second cage. That cage was finished yesterday or the day before. I no longer can keep track.

At any rate, a moment came when I breathed a sigh of relief and said that we had nothing pressing to do the next day. I am not sure that far off there wasn't the crack of thunder. It would have been appropriate. In many ways, this is a magical place. We have all learned that it can be reckless to say out loud certain things that some omniscience might construe as an invitation to involve itself in our routine. In other words, we can often feel the hand of providence. Often gently guiding us, helping us, but sometimes simply rearranging our plans in highly interesting ways.



When we try something new, we try to learn how the locals do it first. Then we try to do it that way until we can get results about like the locals get. At that point we make modifications that we think might make the process better. One general guiding principle in making these changes is that we seek modifications or improvements that would be within the reach of the people in the nearby village.

In other words: When we first got sheep, we tied them to something and moved them around to new grass throughout the day. This is how most sheep are handled in the village. Latter we let them roam free in our meadow. They grew faster left to forage without a tether. But, for various reasons, we wanted them contained in paddocks. One reason is because if the pasture is managed in paddocks that get a rest period after grazing, the land can support more sheep. But another reason, an important one, was that the villagers can not simply let their sheep roam at large. They have neighbors, some of which have gardens, and some of which might steal a sheep. So we made paddocks. The villagers might do as well, but they would use barbed wire. Probably they would need six or seven strands of wire, and the cost of that would be prohibitive for us and certainly them. So we used an electric fence. But... Many of the locals would have extreme difficulty putting together $130 to buy a fence charger. But we could afford that, and so we did.

The next issue is electricity. Now most of the villagers have electricity. Many use very little of it, but most have it. At least in the nearby village. We of course don't. We rely on our gasoline generator to charge a battery. And use that charged battery very sparingly. We have been using a car battery, and they are not really suited for such usage. But the deep cycle batteries are several hundred dollars, and well out of reach of most of the people we know. Furthermore, running a gasoline generator is too expensive for most as well.

In the long term the plan was always to build a simple vertical savonious style windmill and use that to generate enough electricity to keep a battery charged. But that would require using a car alternator and either gearing it up or rewiring it to make it generate high enough voltage at the low speed that a savonious windmill turns. I know nothing about car alternators, but always planned to go pick up a used alternator at a junk yard and play with it and try to learn something. Just as soon as I had the time, and the motivation.

So, to restate it a bit, there is some sort of philosophy that we have more or less adopted. The idea being something like this: learn how the villagers are doing something we want to do, figure out a better way that we can do it, and that better way has to be something they could do too, if any of them are interested we share the information gladly.

It is not that we are running a charity or anything. I don't know how to explain it. We look for ways of mutual uplift. For instance, the other day, I went to my friend to buy some eggs to put under our hen. She said she had none right now and wanted some herself as she had a broody chicken as well as a broody turkey. I went and purchased two dozen, keeping six eggs for my hen and let her have the other 18. But the deal is, that if the eggs hatch, later, I want her to give me one young chicken with feathers. She agreed that the deal was fair. With luck we will both win something.

With luck

Since sort of aligning ourselves with this principle, we have had enormous, uncanny luck. We are more confident than we ought to be. We are more capable than we would ever have imagined. And something more, we are able to sense circumstances.



I don't know how to explain sensing circumstances any better than to mention that after the past few days, Christopher remarked that this looked like a very electronics heavy episode. We have no tv, so Chris makes up his own shows, usually using South Park as a template, and us as the characters in some absurd plot that matches what is going on around us.

So with regard to the electric fence charger, we ought to find a better way. The battery situation, well, we can pick them up for $25 used, and they last three months at least. But we should find a better way. Charging them with a gasoline generator, we can do that, but most of the people that we are involved with can not.

And I had spoken out loud that I had nothing going on the next day.

Johnny went to turn on the fence charger as we had been turning it off at night. The battery is going bad. He came back and said there was a problem. The fence charger is broken. There supposedly is a warranty, I would have to return it to some Mennonite encampment in Mexico. This is bad. I opened it up, but it is all transistors, capacitors and inductors inside. I can't trouble shoot this, and even if I could I don't have the soldering skills to fix those tiny little wires. I can just go buy another one in Shipyard, several hours away from here.

On a quick trip to obtain two dozen fertile eggs, the alternator light came on in the car. Our alternator is not charging the battery. Almost certainly the voltage regulator is dead. It has happened before, and for about forty or fifty dollars, I can have the alternator taken down, rebuilt, and reinstalled.

But it seemed like a lot of problems. The battery going dead, because we don't charge it the best way. The fencer going out. The car alternator failing.

There was some wind then, and some piece of this or that spun around in a whirlwind. It reminded me of a vertical windmill.

We went to an auction at the police station today. They were selling bicycles. I got one for $4.50. It needs some work.

Maybe the boys can fix it. Because I am going to take the bus to the junk yard and try to buy an alternator. Then I am going to try to replace the alternator in my car. If that works, I am going to try to rebuild the old alternator and make an effort to couple it to a weed eater engine, or maybe some sort of wind mill. With this I will try to properly charge our battery. Then, I am going to try to build an electric fence charger. One that is strong enough to do the job without starting fires or electrocuting any of the animals or people.

And I don't know anything about any of these things. I will almost certainly fail in several or most of these tasks, but I am going to try. It is absurd to even try, but it might be fun, and it is the correct thing to do.

It is going to be a electronics heavy episode, with lots of profanity. I will probably not post anything for the next several weeks. Maybe Rebecca will.

In the mean time, here are some pictures.