It’s been in the 80s and 90s here since last week. Confirms, as if you didn’t already know, that global warming is real. I’ve lived places where it’s supposed to be this hot, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, but Seattle is not meant to be 90 for sustained periods of time. We don’t have A/C in our houses, most of us live here because we like the cooler weather, and it makes us whiney.
So far the pets are all dealing fairly well. The dogs have been spending their days following the shade from one part of the yard to another and going through gallons of water. The cat has been spending his days inside and his nights outside prowling. And the hens have been putting up a ruckus every time they see me - like I can just reach over and turn down the thermastat. I was a bit concerned about the girls as they don’t have a ton of shade in the hottest part of the afternoon, but they seem to be holding up pretty well. Still laying, not doing too much panting and no picking on each other.
On Saturday I had Agnes, the chicks and all the rest of the girls out in the yard together while I cleaned the chick crate and the hens’ coop. When I was done, everyone went happily back into the coop, including mamma and chicks. Instead of chasing them around and trying to catch them to put them back in the shed, I decided to leave them in there and see what happened. As Mike says, I’m a hill billy at heart and while I love them, they’re in that gray area between farm animals and pets… In other words, no reason to get too worked up about it unless there’s blood shed.
We got home from dinner at friends to discover that not only had no blood been shed, but Agnes had managed to get all the chicks up the ladder and into the coop to sleep in the straw. Wow, so cool! Sometimes it’s best to just let mother nature and instinct lead the way. They’ve been in there ever since, and aside from some minor squabbling over treats, and Pru’s pecking all the chicks on the head the first day or two, it’s been pretty calm. So nice not to worry about them cooking in the shed during this hot weather!
We haven’t had our one local summer meal yet this week as while I went to the farmer’s market and got some fabulous fruits, vegetables and italian sausage, I failed to plan a meal that combined it all into an all local menu. Hmmm. Sooo, we’re going to have friends over on Friday and I’m going to pull it together to share with them. Look for a post to go up on Saturday sometime.
In other news, we’ve outgrown our upright Fridgidaire freezer (circa 1970 or so) that came with the house and will be replacing it with a chest freezer sometime soon. With 80 lbs of beef, 11 two-pint packages of strawberries, 7 pints of raspberries, 8 lbs of cherries (we harvested our own last week and got about 6 lbs) and 6 pints of blue berries already in there. Plus 15 chickens, 1/2 a hog, vegetables, elk and antelope we’re expecting to add later this summer/fall, we’re in need of much more space!
We’re currently debating between getting a 13/14 or a 20 cubic foot freezer. The 20 seems so huge! but that’s what we had when I was a kid. The 13 or 14 cf would probably work, but it seems to me like we’d be having to search through it all the time. Hmmm, guess it will likely be decided by what eventually comes available on Craigslist - our source for all new (to us) appliances.
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I’m with ya sister! It’s too dang hot! Today we have a heat advisory warning with temps to get in the 100s.
Seattle would be just miserable right now.
As far as a freezer. Hmmm, it sounds like you use it quite a bit. I’d go for the larger size.
When we were freezer shopping we knew two things. One, get it upright, I can still remember cleaning out 10 year old meat from the bottom of my grandmother’s chest freezer. Things *do* get lost in those. Two, get once size larger than you think you need. It’s amazing what we fit into ours. We store coffee there, usually a whole lamb, many chickens as they store always has the organic chickens marked down on Monday each week. Plus there’s all the meals I put up for DH in bi-monthly batches. Oh, and once there was that 10 skeins of yarn that I suspected of having a moth in it. DH asked me how I was going to cook *that* for dinner! Having a freezer saves us tons of money and I love having it. Here’s hoping you find exactly what you need!
Thanks Chelee and AnnaMarie. Mike and I talked about it last night and we’re going to go ahead and get a big 20 cf chest freezer. Our current one is an upright and I like it okay. But I grew up with a chest freezer and we could really use the space and organization that it would offer. I even found one through Craigslist last night - for 1/2 what it would cost new. Yay!
I like it and the background and colors make it easy to read