December Rainfall

0.00 inches during the first week of December - it rained a couple of times, but not enough to register in the rain gauge.
0.00 inches on December 7th
0.10 inches on December 12th
0.10 inches on December 20th/21th
0.10 inches on December 25th
0.75 inches on December 27th

1.05 inches total rainfall for December

Countryside and Small Stock Journal

During the last couple of years, I would pick up issues of farming, chicken, gardening or otherwise "rural living" types of magazines in order to get some ideas about gardening or raising chickens or living a greener life.  One of these magazines initially struck me as odd in their articles and their advertising.  It seemed like a freaky source of information about living off the grid - solar power, composting toilets and the like.  I now think of this magazine, Countryside and Small Stock Journal, as an interesting facet of living the rural life.  Recently I've gotten some good information about raising chickens and growing potatoes in straw.

After looking for some of these articles online, I found a site that seems to have the past eighteen years of this magazine online, free.  It's something I'd like to spend a little time going through during the winter.  Maybe I can learn a little something.

November Rainfall

0.20 inches on November 16/17th

0.30 inches overnight on November 22nd/23rd

1.30 inches on November 27th/28th

1.80 inches total rainfal for November

Really? Another Rooster?

One of our supposed hens started crowing the other day.  It wasn't that much of a surprise - even though he was supposed to be a hen, it was clear for a long time that "she" might be a "he".  What does surprise me is that this rooster came from a batch of sexed day-old chicks.  They were supposed to be hens, but obviously sexing chickens is not an exact science.  Because of that, most chicken breeders have a return policy for roosters.

I say they have a return policy - I went and talked to the neighbor I got him from and found out he ordered them from a hatchery in Ohio - not exactly a returnable rooster.  So, once again, I have to figure out what to do with a rooster.  He's not a problem right now.  I hear him crow early in the morning, but he's pretty quiet - I haven't heard him during the day, but Robin has.

I'm not sure what we're going to do with him.  We'll probably end up putting him on Craigslist like the other roosters, but until then, we have a pretty large chicken running around our yard.

October Rainfall

0.00 inches on October 9th
0.40 inches on October 10th
0.20 inches on October 10/11th overnight
0.10 inches on October 11/12th overnight
0.50 inches on October 12/13th overnight
0.20 inches on October 29th


1.40 inches total rainfall for October