Here is my second very short TikTok video, featuring our chickens:
If you use TikTok, you can follow the homestead @YellowCottageHomestead.
TikTok: Our ducks
As an experiment, earlier this month I started posting 15 second videos of our homestead on TikTok. Very simple videos, just looking at the ducks, chickens, etc; occasionally with some titles or music, but mostly just plain “original sound”.
Since I like to own all of my own content, I also save the videos to my photo library, and I thought I’d cross-post them onto this blog.
(This is also my first time embedding video on my site, without going through YouTube; please let me know if you have difficulty viewing it.)
If you use TikTok, you can follow the homestead @YellowCottageHomestead.
Here is the first video I posted; I will post the subsequent ones over the next several days:
Cat update for week ending February 20
For Caturday this week: cat food, cabin cats, a raccoon, a possum, a GIF, a Paladout, and more.
As mentioned on my personal blog, the feral cat food dispenser was running on batteries during our big power outage, and reacted badly to low battery capacity by continuously dumping all of the food from its hopper:
In that picture you can see the empty hopper and the top of the feeder tube, full of food (the dispenser is on a drawer I can pull out to make it easier to refill). Below, you can see the rest of that tube, and the big pile of food it has dumped:
I scooped the excess back into the hopper after I replaced the batteries. It’s nice that it has a battery backup when not receiving power, but running continuously might not have been the best way to preserve battery capacity.
Here are Porcini and Poppy watching me approach on a rainy morning:
Poppy didn’t bother retreating; she knows I’m not a threat, so long as I keep my distance:
A raccoon briefly visited Porcini in the cat house. She informed the raccoon that it wasn’t welcome there:
The raccoon was just waiting for a possum to get out of the way:
Bella in front of the feeder. I do wonder where she sleeps; she doesn’t avail herself of any of the heated shelters, unlike the rest of her family:
A cat in each doorway:
Poppy arriving, with Porcini and Spud in cabins:
A GIF of Poppy going into a cabin with Porcini, Spud in the other cabin, and Bella walking behind the cabins:
Do you see three cats?
Hint:
Poppy and Porcini inside the cat house:
Doing my morning rounds, having visited the ducks, I noticed Paladout on the hidden path by the pond:
Closer:
Three cats inside the house this morning:
Finally, Poppy watching me from under our main deck:
Video: ducks on the new floating wooden island
I recently built a floating island for the ducks, to give them somewhere safer to rest. They seem to enjoy it.
Flock Friday for February 19
It’s been an interesting week, with an ice storm, snow, and days of power cuts. The ice and snow is all gone now, and we have power again (albeit with an hour outage yesterday evening). But things still feel unstable, and I know other parts of the country aren’t faring so well.
If you missed them, check out the previous two posts on the ice storm, including pictures of the chickens and ducks.
Here’s an aerial drone shot of the pond and snowy environs; you can see the new island in the center, and the ducks nearby:
Duck prints in the snow:
Despite the days of freezing weather, the pond didn’t fully freeze at all; the closest it came was a slushy crust:
The hummingbirds were very hungry with no other food sources:
Ducks on pond bank, with melting snow:
Ducks on the island:
A cam shot of sleepy ducks on the edge of the pond, and on the island. It’s got a bit of a tilt due to water pooling on it, but the edge is still above the water line, so that’s okay:
Hungry hummingbirds again:
Ducks on the lawn:
Let’s finish with a couple of token chicken pictures:
Ice storm: generator, chickens, ducks, bees
Our electricity is still off due to the ice storm a couple of nights ago. Fortunately we have a portable generator, and fortunately I recently got it serviced so it actually works. I had it running most of the day yesterday, and expect to keep it going all day today (I turned it off overnight). It is providing power to our kitchen fridge/freezer, and currently slowly recharging the UPS for our internet router and Wi-Fi, and can be used to recharge other devices as needed:
Since we’re on a well, when the power is off, we don’t have any water, so we are using water jugs:
Though weirdly when we flush a toilet it does refill; I know there’s some water in the pipes and pressure tank, but I would have expected that to be exhausted quickly, but hasn’t been yet. Upstairs, what’s more. Could water be coming up from the well without the pump?! We don’t want to push our luck, but are glad we don’t have to refill the cisterns the hard way yet.
Ice on a tree by the chicken runs:
Ice on the chicken run roof netting; it’s survived much better than the old netting I had previously:
Chicken coop icicles:
The chickens are quite happy to stay inside, thank you very much:
I took a look at the beehives this morning:
They each have a sheet of ice on their roof, which could be concerning, as the heat of the hive should have melted it, though the feeders on top of each hive may have insulated the roof from them:
Levitating ice:
There are a bunch of dead bees on some of the hive entrances, which is actually a good sign — it proves there are some bees active to clean out the dead ones. There are thousands of bees in each hive, so a few dead ones is normal and not concerning. I did see a live one walking around, too, probably on the cleanup crew:
More on the ground:
The chickens reluctantly came out for their treats:
I refilled the food for the ducks, and tossed some over to them to enjoy:
The pond isn’t frozen; after starting to get slushy yesterday morning, it hasn’t been quite cold enough to maintain that:
Ice storm: icy branches, icicles, ducks, hummingbirds
We had an ice storm last night. This morning, everything is covered in a layer of ice, with some powdery snow on top. Only about half an inch of each, but it was enough to knock out our power (and for everyone else in the region).
Some icy branches:
Tree branches weighed down; they’re normally high enough to walk under, not touching the ground:
Icy willow branches:
I lifted up a sample, looking edge on: a layer of ice with a layer of snow on top:
The pond is starting to freeze. Just slushy at present, with some liquid on the edges:
The ramp into the duck house is icy, but they can make it, so still have access to food:
Icicles on the duck house:
The ducks:
Icicles on the bird food box:
And the gazebo and deck:
The hummingbird feeders were frozen; I brought this one inside to defrost:
Since we don’t have power now, and thus can’t use the heater, I’m alternating the hummingbird feeders. We can heat water to make the sugar syrup using a kettle on our gas stove. They’re very hungry, unsurprisingly:
I’ll go out to the chicken coop every few hours to poke at their water dispensers, to break up the ice.
Our internet is working for now, powered by a UPS, though we’ll probably turn it off soon to preserve the battery. Fun times!
Cat update for week ending February 13
We are currently without power, which isn’t great for us, but also isn’t ideal for the feral cats, as their heated shelters won’t be as toasty.
Though they are quite used to snuggling together for warmth. Here are Spud and Poppy together in the left cabin, and Porcini in the right (back when we had power):
Poppy watching me:
Three cats again:
The twins — Spud and Pommie:
Three cats at the cat house:
Snuggles inside:
Spud in his breezeway cabin:
Four cats at the cabins (Porcini, Spud, Poppy, Pommie):
Some snow yesterday:
Me refilling their heated water dish (which also doesn’t work with the power off; it’s now frozen):
Two cats watching me as I walk up the path to the bird food box, while it snows:
Four cats again (the same bunch as before, with Spud behind Poppy in the left cabin):
This morning, a layer of ice covered by a layer of snow; here’s the frozen small pond by the cat house:
The cat house:
Flock Friday for February 12
It’s currently snowing; some snowy duck and chicken pictures towards the end of this post. Plus some pictures of the ducks using the new island, which makes me happy.
But first, a funny picture of a stretching chicken; such a long neck!
The ducks in the pond:
On the edge of the pond:
To see the new island, I moved the second camera to further back:
This is just a temporary placement, to check that the location works; at some point I’ll mount it more permanently:
The view from that camera, showing the first duck to go onto the island:
Several ducks on the island:
Chickens in the veggie garden:
Chickens with leafy treats:
In a nesting box:
Coming into the coop to get mealworm treats:
Ducks on the lawn:
Sleeping ducks:
When approaching the pond, I noticed some ducks on the island; my first non-cam photo of them using it:
Of course, as I got closer, most left it and swum towards me (swum/swam… grammar is hard):
Just Bert left on the island:
It snowed overnight. Here are some ducks on the island, and the older upturned pot islands, with snowy banks:
Ducks going after leafy treats while it snows; they don’t care about the snow:
Yes, the pond hasn’t frozen yet. It takes a while for it to cool down enough, but considering the high temperature today is about freezing level, I expect it to start to freeze in the next day or two.
Here are some ducks sleeping on the ledge at the edge, and some on the island:
Ducks are very cold-hardy, but it’s probably warmer in the water than on land right now.
The chickens aren’t such fans of the snow. They came out to get their treats this morning:
Then headed inside:
Bee shed: design
Having recently finished the duck island project, I will of course take a break from building… nah! I’m already designing my next homestead project: a shed to store beekeeping equipment.
I’ve actually had a plan for this for over a year, and received delivery of building materials for it and other projects back in April last year. But this project has finally bubbled to near the top of my queue.
Here is a stack of building materials waiting in the hoop house:
And more lumber (only about half of these will be used for this project; the rest are spare):
Beekeeping involves a fair amount of equipment, which we currently store in the back of our workshop (along with other stuff, e.g. a cider press):
There’s plenty of room back there, but it’s a bit of a trek from the shop to the hives, so it’d be more convenient to have the equipment closer at hand if we need to add a hive box or something.
And hey, we have this old potting shelter that we inherited with the property:
It is conveniently near the beehives:
So I plan to enclose it with more 2×6 boards and corrugated galvanized steel panels, with clear corrugated panels for windows, and double doors. Inside, it’ll have U-shaped wooden shelving in the back half, weed mat and rubber flooring on the ground, and even a mirror and coathooks for our bee suits.
Yesterday, I took that photo above as a background and sketched the boards and panels onto it using Linea Sketch on my iPad Pro with Pencil. The perspective isn’t quite right, but close enough to indicate the design:
Imagine clear corrugated panels in the gaps of the walls, and U-shaped plywood shelves on top of those supports.
Here is a time-lapse GIF of the drawing process (warning, there are quick flashes of blue as I hid the background layer while drawing, if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing):
Since this is an outside construction project, it is weather dependent — with the big snowstorm we’re expecting over the next few days, I likely won’t start for a week or two. But I’m looking forward to it. Stay tuned for updates!