After Karl

Tropical Storm Karl came and went.  There was some high wind.  Mostly it was just a great deal of rain.


Most might keep chickens in the coop during a tropical storm.  However our tough little village chickens demand to be out in the rain.  The coop is not exactly "chicken tight", so some of the smaller ones can squeeze through the bottom of the door.  They don't normally do this unless we try to keep them caged during a rain storm.  I suspect that the chickens like the rain because they are able to get worms that come to the surface of the saturated soil.  So we let them out even in a tropical storm.  We lost one small chicken due in part to that decision.  The small chicken pictured is the former peep known as E wild type.  She survived and like the ten other survivors is now too large to be called a peep.  The two mother hens have returned to the rooster and begun to lay eggs.

The ducks seemed to like the storm at least as much as the chickens.  Ducks however look good in the rain.  Here are our two new ducks swimming in a small pond that is situated in the middle of our driveway.

When everything dried out a bit we began to clean up a bit.  Near the coop there were some large logs left over from the construction of the coop.  Very temporarily, I had placed a piece of zinc roofing material over these.  In the evening when I went to put the zinc away I found a chicken had made a nest and laid an egg under the zinc.

We had been building three foot square cages for broody hens to sit on eggs in.  However this "unauthorized" nest suggested that we might save a lot of effort and a bit of money by constructing very rough sites that would appeal to a chicken looking for a secluded spot to lay eggs.

This may be a bad idea.  But this morning while placing some wooden eggs in the "chicken bunker" I discovered that one chicken has already begun to lay there.  While an auspicious sign, we still need to check to see how hot it gets inside the chicken bunker on a day with no breeze.

With a string of rainy days, the laundry had built up.  In preparation for a big laundry day, Rebecca and Johnny move the generator into position to fill the tower.

Christopher with the small chicken known as E wildtype.

We now have to get ready for tropical depression 15.  This storm is expected to strengthen into a category 1 hurricane.  It is also expected to hit us, just a bit to the south.  If that happens, that could be bad.