We ordered a squeeze of straw bales, to those not from the country, that is eighty bales. The chickens had not been listening to our requests to wipe their feet before going into their houses to lay eggs. During this rainy time, we cannot move them onto fresh pasture so it gets pretty muddy around their houses. We are hoping that before the end of this week we will have been able to move them to the pasture next door. We need to keep them dry to keep disease at bay. About five years ago, we lost 15 chickens to an oviduct infection. We were able to move fast and take care of the problem by moving them and steam cleaning the houses, water system etc. It was a lot of work, so we have acted to avoid the problem with the straw.
Agustin and I were walking the farm talking chickens last week and we were amazed at the number of different mushrooms growing. The soil biology is improving rapidly and all this rain has brought forth abundance. Many we saw were small but this one was quite impressive. I am in no way familiar with which ones you can eat. So we have not sampled the new farm crop.
The picture on the right is from our tractor. Ramon spent most of Monday drying out the electrical wiring and connectors on one of the tractors. Even though they are parked under cover at night they get wet while we use them to harvest your fruit and vegetables. There is a very good cover over this but still he had to use compressed air to blow out all the water and leave it in the sun to dry. The tractor works fine. There are just warning lights flashing, because of shorting connections. We have contact cleaner and a special grease to isolate the contacts too. It did not hurt the tractor to get a good pressure wash and love after working so hard in the field this winter.
Have a great week… Nigel