Brrrrr ....

And I'm supposed to consider what seeds to buy??

I'm thinking snow puppies not corn beans or cabbage right now

Drought Conditions

Well the government has FINALLY put out a list of states which are in severe drought .... Amazingly enough - they are all states which <i>might </i>possibly switch in the House from Dem to Repub ... I'm totally serious!

There are 11 states on the Primary Natural Disaster list:

<blockquote>• Colorado

• New Mexico

• Nevada

• Kansas

• Texas

• Utah

• Arkansas

• Hawaii

• Idaho

•Oklahoma

•California

</blockquote> 

Now there is a bill that is going to be entered into the Californian state house/senate to split that state into 6 separate states as well (LA, SF, north, 2 middles, south) -- don't blame them, I wouldn't want to cover the unemployment/wLfare for LA either {something like 70% of their population gets some sort of funding}

Any how -- back to the Natural Disaster Zone ...

This means that producers WHO QUALIFY will be eligible for low interest rates ... But the small farmer who took the biggest hit, probably won't though because they don't qualify ...

Hmmmm, and as much as farmers like to think they are "independent", the bigger they are the more they rely on insurance & government money ... Honestly

Although there are plenty of states in the "watch" area ... The only states which get the status are those which might flip come fall elections ... I'm telling ya!

52% of the US is in some form of drought right now

In CA alone, 62-63% of the state is D3, or second worse, drought .... they say (AGDay) that only 1% of the state is actually free from drought of any level ... Wow ...

Texas is pretty bad too, 38% is poor/above poor ... Expect flour prices to go up yet again .... I'm guessing they are learning the importance of hurricanes/tropical storms right now

All this means FIRE WARNINGS like you wouldn't believe ... We will have to see what happens next ...

Sorry I got a bit political here ... But I thought it was rather interesting ...

Bad News, Worse News

Well my chickens are about 1 year old ... yay!!!!!

I need to think of killing all but one of them ... BOOOO!!!!

Why? You might ask ...

Because the bit ties have taken to EATING THEIR EGGS! 

I thought it was just the Reds but today ( well "yesterday" I suppose if you want to be technical but I haven't been asleep yet so to ME it's still today) .... When I gathered eggs I heard a loud tapping in one of the nesting boxes ... I opened the door to find a Red AND a Leghorn going after the same egg!

SOB!!!!

That is $ out of our pockets!

Birds cost $3 each ... Eggs sell for $3/doz wholesale .... I don't see an issue with slaughtering them AFTER we have a newly established flock

OR OR or it could be just that they are getting stir crazy from being trapped inside with the latest cold snap -- we don't let them out unless its above 20F

I wanted to get 6 - 8 Blue/green egg layers (sometimes they throw a pink egg) but I may have to rethink that ... 

Because Blue & Green eggs are So rare in the market I think I can get $5/doz wholesale ... But I still want to have some white & brown eggs too

I have got to figure out a way to stop these birds from eating their eggs!

 I've read that putting FRESH evergreen/pine needles in the boxes is supposed to help ... Makes sense to me ... I wouldn't eat anything that tasted like PineSol either, even though I love the scent of it.

I'm willing to give it a try but I don't know how well they will do with the heat lamps in there