Clearing Brush In the Yard and Setting Up the Early Bird Door

Monday May 2, 2022 Guerneville CA.

Yard work

I’m still nursing a sore back. It’s getting better slowly.

I decided to do a little work on this part of the yard that is getting overgrown. I need to cut out the blackberry vines and the brush that is coming up. Most of the brush is wild plum trees that have started from seeds, that are not needed.

A little at a time

The plan was to  just cut a little at a time on and off throughout the day to save my back.. So I worked on clearing that throughout the day. Of course that took a lot of chair hopping and some naps.

My helpers came over to help out once I’d dug up the ground a bit digging the vines out.

I also worked on this part of that patch digging out the wild blackberry vines. Once I get all the big stuff out, I’ll use the power mower to finish it off, but not today.

Brush pile stays

This is also part of the cleanup area, the brush pile stays as I need places to put the old brush.

Wild poppies

I noticed these wild poppies are starting to bloom.

Cut brush

By the end of the day I’d gotten most of the brush cut, but not cleaned up.

Plenty of cut brush to clean up, maybe tomorrow as my back already had enough today.

Chickens automatic door

Late in the day the chickens went to roost. See that gallon paint can. That’s a weight to open the outside door in the morning when the chickens get up they can step on the trigger and the outside door will open and let them out to graze.

Getting to the weeds early

I’m a late night person and don’t get up early enough to let them out early so they can feed. And when I do get up and let them out I feed them so they don’t eat as many weeds as are growing right now as they are already full from the feed I feed them and I’d rather they eat the weeds so I don’t have to feed them as much.

You can see the little board with the string on it that they can step on to trigger the door to open so they can get out and feed.

When they step on the little board, the string pulls the pin out and the door pops open when the can falls down from the weight in the can.

The can has some rocks in it and will fall down when they pull the pin by stepping on the little board.

I’ve used this method before and it works pretty good to do the job.

Windy day

The wind was blowing pretty good today and continued in the evening but it was still a fairly pleasant day.

First strawberries

I went to the blueberry pen to check on the strawberries as they are starting to produce ripe strawberries.

I was able to eat a few ripe strawberries. Yummy.

Nice day.