birds part 2 and more goats

We managed to finish the fencing yesterday and let the birds into their new enclosure. Everyone participated!
So far the hens have only explored the 1st couple of feet of it, and have been mostly concentrating on taking apart the berm they created against the bottom of the old fence.
GB mostly worked on another concrete intensive project- a walkway on 2 sides of the new chicken run. Here's an area he set up where the drainage pipe for the hillside will go under the walkway and then into the chicken run area and into a pond.
Most of his day was framing on this big project that will make it a lot easier to walk around and near the birds.


Our other weekend project was setting up the electric moveable goat fencing. We 1st put them under the big mango tree.... the grass was high there, there's tons of shade, and we could keep an eye on them from the house.

They came easily to the new enclosure and all seemed good until....
They came to the fence-line (to come to us) and when the 1st one got zapped by the fence and screamed, the others freaked and they all ran right into the fence and were immediately entangled! I ran to unplug the electricity and GB and I had a hell of a time trying to untangle them. We were almost ready to scrap the whole thing after that. It was scary.
But we tried again- with GB standing guard (and taking his lunch out with them). They have mostly stayed away from the fence since. They will touch it occasionally, but have seemingly learned their lessons!

We've been putting them in there in the day and then taking them back up to their paddock at night.
Yesterday was so beautiful and GB and I enjoyed the light as we went up to put them to bed.

Here I am feeding them a bit on the way up. They will do anything for food

birds!

There's been a lot of bird related action and activities around here lately!
Firstly our friends were the lucky caregivers of a teeny bird who fell out of her nest. When they came for a visit, so did the birdie, who needed feeding every couple of hours.


Family project #3,462
Expand our chicken run
Our ladies have done a fine job creating all sorts of erosion on their hillside enclosure. There is not one speck of green there and they have made holes and dips.... and they just needed more space!
1st day:
GB, Karen, Noam and Luka are the primary workers. Ra'am is sick this day.
We're lucky.... in a work trade, David has set most of the poles for the fencing in the ground. He's also (with Ra'am's help) dug a trench on the gulch side so we can bury the fence.

Here's were getting ready

Noam tied fence to the T posts. There are a lot of T posts

There's a gate down there at the bottom. GB is on his way back up after helping Noam a bit.

Pau Hana! It's HOT, we're tired and the pool is calling!Expanded run.... more fencing still needed on the bottom (we needed MORE), but this part is done for now. You can see the brown part on the top (old area). The new part is the green to the left and below.

Luka helped for awhile, and then explored what it feels like to drown out sound.

Shortly thereafter, Ra'am found this baby bird under the big mango tree. He's a cardinal who must have fallen out when he tried to fly. The nest is impossibly high, so we cared for him for a couple of hours and then passed him on to the Pelkeys to rear.

Unrelated...

Luka in swimming lessons!

Weekend Warriors

Yesterday Karen and I cleaned the koi pond and took the muck to feed the citrus trees. We also worked on propagating the Ti plants along the side of the house. Well, two weeks of stress at work manifested in my back going totally out yesterday after cleaning the pond, so today I was staff photographer while Karen and Ra'am did concrete work on the garden steps.