Round and round the Leylandii bush :-)

Totally awesome day here at the north end, and probably elsewhere on the west coast I’m sure 🙂 It got off to a unique start by wifey getting up before me and prior to 6:00am to go and check her chooks 🙂 Me I followed her out of bed shortly afterward  but skipped going out hen watching. They are extremely amusing but coffee, porridge and a spell on here was what I did prior to going out to feed and check the pigs.

 

Jamie Lea was fine with no sign of milk yet so she’ll probably wait until I’m back at work before she goes and farrows somewhere mad 🙂

Bramble’s piglets were out early with mum enjoying the early morning sun, though she soon lost interest in them when she saw the feed bucket 🙂

More fencing

After that it was up to the new shed/house site for more fencing

though I did a little work on the double gate at the entrance first, hanging the large one and marking the smaller one as I had no hinges 😦

With that done, breakfast number two out of the way and my son out of his bed I dragged him over to the schoolhouse at Torran to do a spot of grass cutting whilst I checked out the new battery bank.

The Rolls 24v 800ah battery bank has just been in for a couple of weeks now and the cells were all bubbling away nicely thanks to the 500w of solar panels on the roof. The hydrometer gave consistent readings on all 24 cells of around 1.27 and the voltage on each of the 8 batteries was hovering around 7v. So all was peachy, as I’d expected but it’s best to check and log the specific gravity regularly to see if any of the cells are failing. Unlikely on a new bank but in my experience these things either fail when new or when old and not in-between. I think they call it the ‘bathtub curve’   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve 

and it certainly seems to work for batteries 🙂

The ‘garden’ there is a bit of an epic for a twelve year old, especially when the mower has to be taken there in a trailer but I’m hoping if we can get it sorted then he can keep on top of it.

Last week he made a start on it with the brush cutter, a much lighter Stihl than my Tondu and one he can start and manage on his own. He’s not quite got the knack yet but he’s getting there and by the time the summer comes he’ll be an expert 🙂

The first escapee

We only did an hour on the ‘lawn’ as the fencing was calling, I had planned to leave the boy to it but the mower’s a bit heavy to get in the trailer for the wee feller 😦

So for me at least it was back up the hill 🙂

 

More fencing in the sunshine then down to have a look at the chooks

to find our first escapee trying to get back in 🙂

 

I just walked round to the gate and the chook followed me in, right enough three more came out but wifey soon had them back in by filling up the feeders. Took them a while to work out there were two of them right enough

and they certainly weren’t bothered by the ‘wee dug’ 🙂

That was about it really, we had an early dinner then I went back up and did a couple more hours fencing

up by the ancient rowan tree that watches over our shed 🙂

Then all three of us, four if you count the dog spent far too long chasing hens round and round the Leylandii tree trying to get them in their coops 😦