Author: Caryn

More nålbinding

On By CarynIn Craft

I am continuing my nålbinding practice. I used up more scraps of wool yarn in my stash to make a hat! It has a slightly pointy top; I need to work on making flat circles, but I’ve seen several pictures of nålbound hats with a pointy top, so I’m going to call it a design choice (as in I chose not to pick out the stitches and try again). There is a time to unravel and a time to push through. Mostly I push through!

Wool hat made with the Mammen nålbinding stitch

I’m glad I did push through on this, because it seems like it will be a good warm hat. The last rows are made of soft merino wool, which really makes it comfortable to wear. And I love the ear flaps! My ears are usually cold walking in the winter. I love the spiral construction, and I figured out how to finish and blend in the final stitches. Now to go raid the yarn stash and see what else I can use up.

Wool hat modeled

Water access

On By CarynIn Coop
Hose hanger and sprayer holder

I realized I could thread the hose through the wire mesh and have access to the sprayer inside the chicken runs. It makes it much easier to rinse out and refill the foot baths. Eventually we may put a PVC pipe down to the runs, in which case this setup is still useful, but for now this works. I had an extra pull handle from the catio door rebuild, so put it in at an angle, which makes a great sprayer holder. I also have had hose holders for years that I’ve never installed, so I put one of those up to keep the hose from being a tripping hazard. I fully expect the chickens to try roost there, but the ease of water accessibility is worth it.

Cooling chicken foot baths

On By CarynIn chickens

I’m so excited! We went to the hardware store and in the garden center they had 17” plant coasters, which are bigger than my current foot baths (cupcake holder top and bottom). The plant coasters are made of a sturdier plastic too. I took them out to the chickens, but left the old foot baths because the chickens are usually wary of new things, and I didn’t want them to overheat for fear of a new foot bath. I didn’t need to worry, they stepped right in (but not for the video, figures).

New larger foot bath (black) next to old foot bath (green)

Since I filled all four with water, rather than dump out the old foot baths (they will never hold cupcakes again anyway), I’ll observe which dishes get the dirtiest which should tell me which foot baths the chickens prefer. Another impromptu experiment!

Outside foot baths

I also figured out that the hose reaches into the coop, which makes rinsing out the foot baths much quicker and easier. Better late than never.

Mind the gap

On By CarynIn Life Hack

at the top of the bottles before you freeze them.

Water in jugs and bottles with a good air gap

Two of my water jugs developed leaks because the expansion of the ice popped the seams on the bottom. I learned the hard way to leave a sufficient air gap when filling them with water so the ice has room to expand. So I am now doing an experiment with different plastic drinking bottles to see which ones hold up to freezing. (It just happened that I am out of water jugs, and I had a variety of plastic bottles in the car. This is not really a planned experiment, but we will make the most of what we have.)

I like freezing the gallon jugs because the ice lasts a long time, even in the Texas heat. The smaller drinking bottles won’t be frozen as long, but they will last longer than regular sized ice cubes.

So hot.

On By CarynIn chickens
Combined screen shots of the nearest weather station and pictures of the thermometer in the chicken run

I did a little data collection. The high was forecast to be 100, and at 10:30am I was quite excited that the chicken’s runs were still in the 80s even though the nearest station was reading 95 degrees. Then 4pm happened. 102 degrees in the shade. Yuck.

Styrofoam AC with melted ice packs out and frozen ice packs in

I took ice out to the chickens twice and switched out the water in the foot baths four times. Although I had the styrofoam cooler filled with ice packs and the fan running, I feel like it is these foot baths that make the biggest difference for the chickens.

The chickens love the foot baths

Another telling thing is that almost all of the chickens’ feet feathers are wet. So they are taking turns cooling their heels.