Incubator

Snowy weather was heading our way so I came home early and picked the day's two eggs before snow started to fall. They were still warm so I guess (confirmed also by the laying time of next day) that it had just come out within the last hour.
Quickly ran in, and put together a home-made incubator within 20 minutes.

Impressive huh?

Getting the temperature to settle on 37,5 was a huge effort though, unless I watched the box constantly and open the lid/turn off/on the light, or move the light closer or farther away from the eggs to adjust. Plus the room was pretty cold and getting colder by the minute so the box temperature was not exactly going to converge. After an hour or so I gave up and put the incubator upstairs in the bedroom, and set the air conditioner to a constant 18 degrees, and closed the metal window and door shutters. I figured if the environment around the box is somewhat kept constant (with the air conditioner) then the lamp and the temperature around it will have a better chance of eventually land on a certain temperature. And lo and behold, it did land on 37,6 !! Lucky me. (Of course during midnight while I was sleeping in the same room, the box temperature fell down and stayed on 36,8 but I guess that should be acceptable?)
In the meantime, the snow had reached us and it had started to fall seriously.

Still the garden is holding up

I thought to myself that it was pretty beautiful. Little did I know what the snow would do to the garden until the next day... but that's another story.

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.

Vacancy

I think all of those living in our street, as well as all of those living in the parallel street across the train tracks, very well can hear the rooster crowing in the mornings. That is a lot of enemies we would create if we kept the roosters.
Now I didn't go around to each of them. I only went to the next door neighbors on each side, and gave them a bunch of fresh eggs and asked for their patience.
Of course they both shrugged and said they had not even noticed the ungodly early hour loud crowing, and wondered what I was talking about. Yeah right, way to be nice and civil about it. But I persisted and apologized and said even if they didn't hear it till now, it had just started and would get much worse, and that I had already arranged for their removal.
"Oh, but no you mustn't. Not on our behalf. Please keep your roosters." was the answer. And they say Japanese people don't get sarcasm.
The roles were switched, and now I was the one pretending to not get sarcasm. Taking their statement for what it was I said No, they have to go. They are too much inconvenience.
Funny part is that the second neighbor I visited had their little son standing next to her and listening on, and suddenly said "Oh, yeah, so that is the crowing we have been hearing every day early morning!" and the mom said "No, nonsense, we haven't heard anything. Really there is no inconvenience."
The following two mornings the crowing got louder and earlier and lasted longer as expected. On Thursday I went to the coop armed with a big box and picked up the roosters and put them in.
Actually it was not at all that simple. I had to chase after the two roosters INSIDE the coop while ALL of us (6 chickens and my upper body, the water holder, the poop board and lots and lots of poop from the previous night) were there. Lots of extreme flapping, gathering in the farthest unreachable corner and trying to hide behind each other, and then more flapping and screaming their heads of just for the smallest touch, and me getting lots of wood shavings and poop all over me, my face and IN MY EYES. It still hurts.
On top of that the night before had rained heavily and turned the chicken run into a fun slippery slope made of mud, so I got to experience the 3 meter standing slide while carrying big box with two roosters, speeding into the so called door of the run which I did my best not to crash into but kind of slowly ease towards which did not work at all.

our multi-purpose entrance

I put the box in the entrance, put a bit of feed inside and water as well. Kept the cats away for 2 hours and the cocks seemed to calm down and start eating.
I handed over the box to the guy who I got them from a few months before, and he apologized and gave me a couple of ceremonial apology towels, plus my cash back.
He said next time he gets young hens will be in about 6 months so I should call him back.
For now, I have a big vacancy in the coop...

The ladies don't mind

The hens missed their guys for a couple of hours and were looking around a bit worried and calling for them, but forgot about them after that and continued their lives.
Actually this morning when I went to open their coop door, for the first time I found them all still sleeping as there had not been anyone waking them up. Haha.
Now the days are getting longer and it has not been freezing cold for a couple of days. The peas have just started to bloom, and hopefully from now on I can start growing things and the garden will turn green again.

green peas

Gender bender

Well that was not expected at all. Sunday morning I was awoken by a pretty good and loud attempt at crowing. First I though I was dreaming or that it was a new sort of bird screaming its head off outside. But then it hit me: It was my chickens!
Yep, one of my ladies must be a dude. I went online and found how to check the gender with at least some certainty. The saddle feathers and the feathers around the lower neck are apparently the best way, plus there were many other signs all of which were not 100%. But putting all of them together and checking my chickens, it turns out that 2 of them are actually roosters. So when I thought they were bullying and picking at the smaller hens, they were actually just mounting them.
Gigantor and his friend were big not because I was doing something right, but because they were growing to be men. I guess Big Momma is still big momma.
Now they are grown up enough to crow, and boy are they getting good at it real quick. This morning the crowing was clear and strong, at 5:10 in the morning before the sun was up even.
My neighbors and their neighbors are going to kill me if it goes on like this. So the first thing I did was to look up details about the no-crow collar, which is a wide velcro band apparently which hinders the cock (hah) to take deep and quick breaths which are needed for loud crowing. As result, the crowing gets muffled a bit, and does not travel as far.
Urgency dictated that I made one myself, so I went out and looked for a velcro band with hook on one side and loops on the other so that it can loop around itself, but no luck. Checked the home center, 100 yen shop and the big department store, but they all had different size hook pads and separate loop pads to be sewn together into the band I needed. No-one sold hook and loop 2-in-1 already attached together. Damn.
Bought a long, wide set and came home and started sewing. Without a sewing machine this was a real challenge. The material is kind of plastic so it is hard for the needle to penetrate it. My fingers were hurting and on top of that, every time the string touched the hook side of the band, it got stuck and had to be untangled and after a couple of times became really thin.
Despite all this I did manufacture 2 bands, 5 cm wide, and went to put it on the cocks.
Catching the very suspicious cocks was impossible, no matter what strategy I used. So I waited until morning and just before opening the coop door, when I had better and closer access to the birds roosting inside the coop. I used this time to pet them sometimes, without them running away.
So, I took out one of the cocks and held it in my arm until it calmed down, after a few minutes I put on the collar, but it seemed I had put it on too tight because when I put him down he just remained there instead of struggling to get the collar off which I thought he would do. Plus he lowered his head and almost laid it on the ground. I quickly took the collar off and he seemed to recover. I guess he was not getting enough blood/air and was getting light-headed.
Looked more online and it seemed that even with the real deal collar, some people had accidentally killed their cocks. Some not even right away, but cocks that seemed fine for an hour or so had died overnight due to the collar. I decided to give up on the collar cause I did not want to suffocate the bird, plus it only muffles the sound anyway so crowing would not stop altogether.
Too bad. While I did not plan on having roosters in the flock, accidentally having one would surely be beneficial. A blessing of sorts.
Next I started thinking about killing them for the meat, but the more I looked up ways of killing chickens the more I realized I would not be doing it. They are after all my pets now. Rooster or not.
As a last resort, I sent a mail to the guy who I got them from, explaining the situation.
Unexpectedly I got a reply apologizing that he had not been able to confirm their gender properly and set up a time to pick them up. Wow.
Unfortunately he did not have any females at the moment to replace them with.
I know, I know, probably he will pick them up and see how nicely I have been feeding them and then slaughter and eat them. But I'd rather he do it than I. And I rather not think too much about it. What other option is there? Letting them loose in the woods is probably just as bad. Besides if I am lucky, the guy will keep them alive. He is a breeder so he needs roosters I guess.
Our neighborhood is not the quietest but I don't want to be the one causing the loudest of the noises.
Let me rant a bit. Probably all this is normal but I am not used to it and having my own house yet...
First we have the train that passes from early morning till late night, and those of us who are bordering to the tracks get tiny earthquakes every time. Especially the freight trains that pass by once in a while are loud and extra shaky. Then we have the neighbor's cats which are super loud and meow for long periods of time when they want to go in or out. It really gets on one's nerves. Especially when the neighbor is not home the meowing gets extra loud and lasts extra long. The same neighbor is a heavy smoker and I guess their fan or smoking room vent is on our side of their house because at least once a day we get to enjoy the yucky smell of second hand smoke that fills up our bathroom. Then we have all the crows and various birds calling early morning and all day. Then we have the big dog that the other neighbor keeps outside all the time who sounds like a wolf when it gets cold, or barks at every passer-by who is not familiar. (Us included at first but now it knows we are regulars, I guess I do smell special) Also there is this neighbor (well not directly next door but a couple of hundred meters away in the same street) who rocks to "Eye of the tiger" real real real extremely loud in the middle of the day, which I actually find pretty cool because it serves as a background theme to me working in the garden in weekends. Then we have the water heater that is for some mysterious reason installed on the north side of our building so even if its pipes are inside thick thermo-isolating tube it freezes up early in the morning until 9-10 A.M. on winter's coldest frost days. I have to take showers at night before going to bed now. To be honest it only lasted for a week. Now it is back to normal.
Hmm, I guess it is not that bad.
Anyway, the roosters are due pickup on Thursday morning. So we will enjoy 2 more mornings of crowing.
I plan to go to my next door neighbors and give them a bit of apology and maybe a couple of eggs and let them know it will be over on Thursday, please have patience 2 more days. Then they will know we are not idiots at least.
I worry a bit about the handover though. I am supposed to meet the guy at the station at 10 A.M. I usually open the coop door at 6 A.M. So if I want to have a chance at catching and putting the cocks in a box, I need to delay the coop opening an hour or so, and then keep the cocks in the box for 3 hours straight. Not very humane.
Alternatively I can put the cocks in a real large box with water and food in it. Kind of like a cage. Yeah, that is much better. Will go and hunt for huge boxes today.
 In other news, I did have time to install water catching mechanism on the left side of the coop's roof as well. I used a regular hose. Now both sides' water is collected and led down to the front. Next I need to lead the pipe and the hose together and into a container. Maybe next week, maybe the week after that.
This weekend I got two different construction companies coming to give me an estimate for making walls on the backyard slope. I already have one estimate, but since it is kind of expensive and big job, I want to be sure I get a good price.
Sad to only have 4 chickens in a 7 chicken coop. Will keep an eye out for more chicks....

100 posts for Tora

This is my 100th post, and seeing how keeping Tora inside the property has been my constant ongoing project, which also involves fences and POSTs, this post is about him.

Tora likes to fall asleep in front of the TV

With the property finally all fenced in, I can now let the cats out. Chubby is perfectly safe as she is not the challenging type. She doesn't do high jumps and in fact I have to show her where to walk if she wants to reach somewhere that is not perfectly flat and clean and walkable. Still she enjoys the garden A LOT and as soon as she hears the door open, she rushes to take the chance and sneak out and walk around and look at things.
Tora is a different beast. As soon as he comes out he goes to the borders and tries to figure out what is outside of the fence. He wants to challenge the limits and almost never spends any time enjoying what is inside the garden, but rather keeps along the fences, measuring their height and looking for a way out.

What is on the other side? And why is daddy doing all this to keep me from it?

Knowing this, I felt it is best to make extra sure, just in case. So I bought a GPS tracker (well it is a 3G tracker, but what the heck, it was what was available in size suitable for cats) and every time I let him out, he gets to wear it around his neck.

Tora knows he can be outside when I take out the tracker necklace.

The tracker sucks at locating exactly where he is, because apparently we have bad 3G coverage here. But it shows within a 100 meter radius at least, where I can find him. And that is IF he jumps some fence. But I keep a watch from distance when he is out and about and try to improve the fence if there is somewhere he may seem to be able to overcome. He loves being outside in the sun.

He spent so much time at this spot the other day so I put a couple of mini mats out for him

Chicken man

Finally the tax bill for purchasing the house came and I went straight to the convenience store to pay it. There I saw the cutest chicken curry nikuman ever, and had to buy and eat it. Big mistake. It tasted just as bad as it was cute.

Tasted like it was filled with cat food

So the theme for this post is chickens. I finally got my thumb out and attached the pipe I had bought for gathering rain water to the side of the coop.
Originally I had thought of sawing the pipe along its length into two half circle profiles to attach to both sides of the coop, but there was really no genius way to connect half circles beneath the roof sides to catch the rain running down. Plus the pipe is a bit too big to fit under the roof above the coop door, as the door just barely misses the roof when opened. (Design miss from my side I guess)
So I kept the pipe's full circle profile, made one cut to fit the roof into it, and just stuck it under there and secured it with three plastic bands. Seems to work. Now I have to get a narrower pipe for the door side roof and do the same thing. Then I shall lead the ends of the two pipes together into a water tank or something.
So anyway, after the pipe was installed, I took a picture of it

The pipe is on the right side

Taking the picture I noticed how cute the chooks were and decided to take a group photo of them, but they seemed to grow more and more curious and got into my face.
I did manage to take one picture before they where too close.

Gigantor is on top right, Big Momma is on top left

We like your camera..

We like it a lot... it is shiny and can be pecked at

I found 2 eggs last weekend in the same nest on the same day. Both were warm and unless both are laid by the same hen, I can assume they are the work of Big Momma and Gigantor.

Gigantor egg on left, B.M. egg on right

I think I have given the growing chicks good attention as they are now outgrowing Big Momma who was an adult already when I got her. Hopefully the rest of them will be laying big eggs too.

Hidden treasures

Since moving in 6 months ago, we have grown used to not watching TV on account of the house not having any antennas on its roof. The only thing that it has is a tiny dish that manages to receive 2-3 so-so channels that we can watch if we are real desperate. Installing an antenna on the roof is not expensive but having to pay on a monthly basis for something we don't watch is a pain. Plus the way they make you pay is so vile and once you enter a contract with them they pretty much own you and can come and go as they please. No sir, until they learn to treat people with a bit of respect they can keep knocking on our door and get turned down like the clowns they are.
Anyway, I thought it would be a nice x-mas present to get a tiny indoor antenna. Said and done, bought the 5000 yen variant and brought home and hooked up to the old TV. No signal. Connected the booster that it came with to the power outlet hoping to get something. Nothing. Took the whole thing up to the second floor but still nada.
Well, at least we tried. Returned the antenna to the shop and told them it doesn't work where we live, coverage is too weak, and got a refund.
Back home I started looking for stronger indoor antennas online. But buying an antenna online and then realizing it is still too weak, I was not sure I could get a refund as easily. Looked more for a guarantee and found a company that sold and installed both indoor and outdoor antennas. Called them up and asked what would happen if their antenna doesn't work where I live, and they said I have to pay their transportation fee anyways, which was 5000 yen. I told them I would think about it.
Looking more at their home page I saw they even install outdoor antennas indoors, under the roof in the attic, "for aesthetic reasons" as they put it. Perfect, I thought. Then for some reason I got the urge to go up and have a look if there was a big piece of metal that would hinder such installation from working, and to make sure there was room up there for an antenna. After all I had never been up there yet.

Up we go...

While climbing the ladder, there was this strange thought that crawled around in my head, but it was pretty silly so I didn't pay it much attention. It said "wouldn't it be nice if there was an antenna in there already?" But I kept thinking logically that all our neighbors have antennas on their roofs, probably for a reason. Because the signal around here, behind the hill, is too weak for indoor antennas to work. And that is why the previous owner had other alternative means of watching TV, like internet and a satellite dish.

The tiny 3rd floor room

I found a hatch in there that I had never noticed nor opened before. Cool, a bit like exploring a dungeon. Went back down and got a torch. Back up and opened the hatch and stuck my head in there while thinking "I wonder how much they would change extra if I asked them to connect all the outlets in the rooms below to the antenna..."

Yep. Empty as I thought.

Then another thought hit me as I turned my head to look around. "Hmm, did I ever try connecting the TV to those antenna outlets? Of course not! No point knowing there is no antenna on the roof... but wait a minute... what if.."
And then I saw it. First a cable and following it with the light the antenna itself.

Hallelujah!

Oboy! Could it be it is already connected and working? I ran down and hooked the TV up and it turned out it is connected to every room. Great. Next time I can tell the worthless guy knocking on my door to fuck off without feeling bad about it.