Fertility

Oh hi chicken

So with the roosters gone I could concentrate on the rest of the garden. I am right now fixing some pipes to the outside of the coop, to lead all the rain water from its roof to one single point in front, where I assume I will be putting a water tank.
I also had a couple of guys come and have a look at the slope in the backyard and give me estimates about how much it would cost to make it level. I think I have already mentioned that I want to make 3 levels to plant stuff. Probably lots of flowers..I don't know yet. But it would be a shame to leave it as it is, because it is a place full of sunshine.

Another of my masterpieces

The length of the levels shall be 6 meters. I imagined that burying the block walls 30 cm under ground along with a small base would hinder landslide.
The first guy said that in order to avoid landslide, he would have to bury the bases much deeper than my plan, basically all the bases would be on the same level as the lowest base. Also the width of the bases would be larger so they would have to dig out the whole area, pour concrete and build the walls, and then fill in the holes with soil. They will of course need somewhere to put all that soil while working on the bases, so he said they will need to remove all my saplings and use that whole area as dump. They would of course put the saplings back but there is no guarantee that they would take. Also he would need to remove all the trees at the top of the slope and put them back afterwards if I wanted. Also, he needed to build walls perpendicular to the levels on the ends of the 6 meter length, as the L-shape would make sure the walls would not fall over. All this if I wanted to be absolutely sure about no landslide. Sounded like a huge venture, but I asked him to give me his estimated anyway.
The second guy said he had an alternative, to put pre-cast concrete wall sections of 2 meters each side by side. Unlike concrete blocks, they don't need bases as the two sides of a wall section is buried 1 meter underground, and that is supposed to keep it from falling over. A section's height is 60 cm so the length of the wall will be buried too 10 cm below the soil. He said it should be sufficient, but if I wanted to overdo it I could make concrete blocks with perpendicular bases dug under ground. He didn't need the saplings to be removed as they could probably work their way around them. I asked him to give me the estimate for both cases. Wall sections and blocks.
Either way, I am now thinking about cutting down the trees above the slope. They pretty much cut off all the sun, are hard to prune, and could be replaced with something more productive that climbs the fence.
Also I am thinking about using the leftover soil and also the soil from the border bump (between me and my neighbor, is a long bump of half meter height and over 1 meter wide, all of which is on my side. I just though about leveling it with the rest of the garden to plant something on) and make more distinct raised beds than now. Also I could even the other slopy parts a little bit...
So there is stuff to be done. I also have been very lazy about the last piece of netting which is supposed to prevent the cats from jumping over the lowest part of the net facing the neighbor jungle.
Tora and Chubby go out now every weekend and spend an hour or so on their own in the garden. But I still have to watch Tora and warn him in case he gets too close to that low part net...
Oh, I also paid a visit to the forest plots and removed a middle sized tree that had fallen over and was blocking the road. That whole area is prone to falling trees I guess so I have to take that into consideration when planning for whatever it is I am going to do.
Some idiot had dumped their old and rusty bicycle in my forest so I dragged it out and, yes, dumped it in the public part of the forest. Also in one spot I found lots and lots of coffee and beer cans, as if a bunch of  homeless people had had a party there. I left them as they were. Later when I clean up and cut trees, I will put a garbage can in my plot, so that hopefully the idiots put their garbage there. Also I now see the need of a fence or even better barbed wire to show this land is not abandoned. I guess just seeing the land in the state it is in kind of invites weird people to use it as trash can.
But none of this has to do with fertility.
On Saturday when making an omelette I saw that the egg had a white bulls-eye in it, which I assume is a sign that it is fertile. WOW! The roosters did mount the hens a lot before I handed them back. And it sounds like the sperm remains in the hens body for up to 2 weeks. Meaning that my hens will be laying fertile eggs for another 1 week at least...
Not that I have huge plans to expand but since I have vacancy in the coop, and since I have the chance to get more Araucanas, plus experience hatching little chicks by myself and hopefully learn something from it, I went out and bought a 10 pack of eggs, for our consumption during this week. I would just leave the eggs with the hens, but I am not sure if they are broody, plus it is still pretty cold, we have morning frost, and the eggs might be damaged while waiting for the hen to start nesting on them. I read that hens wait until they have a certain number of eggs gathered in the nest before starting to lay on them.
So, I will start gathering the eggs, build a simple incubator and see what happens... wish me luck.