After almost a year of dreaming, talking, planning, and work, the new and improved fruiting chamber was finished and put to work last Thursday!
Isn't it beautiful!?
Right off the bat the humidity and temperature controllers weren't working well, so Jeremy had to get up in the middle of the night a few times to adjust things. But finally, by 3 or 4 am, he'd had enough sleep and rest that he figured out recalibrating everything so it's all working properly. Sometimes you just need to give your brain a break (and get some sleep) and then problems are a bit easier to solve!
We had an incredible amount of rain over the weekend. I haven't seen the numbers, but it feels like it was inches and inches - like all the rain we should have had since April or May, all combined into one intensely rainy weekend! There was so much rain that some of our incubating logs started molding. Yikes! That is not good for the logs. We pulled up all the side walls to help air things out...and we'll just keep an eye on them and hope they do okay!
The rain did bring out a lot of frogs. We found several in the high tunnel, enjoying the humid warm environment. So cute!
Chick Check!
The chicks are almost 6 weeks old. A little over a week ago I decided to move them into The Big Coop. With 24 chicks, multiple feeders and waterers and roosts, it was just getting too cramped in their brooder. This is the advantage of starting chicks in the middle of summer I guess - I could move them into this larger space that's basically unheated and not worry too much about them. I did bring over their Sweeter Heater and a heat lamp, but they didn't seem to need either one very much.
The bigger space meant I could use much bigger water and food containers so I don't have to refill those 2-3 times a day! The chicks have been very happy with their space. I'm watching and waiting for the roosters to emerge. How many will there be? Who will crow first? Stay tuned!
Spore got tired of being cooped up inside day after day due to the rain - so he finally just decided to go OUT into the rain! Such a wet kitty!
