Double Comb's Big Day and Misc Cleanup 'n Stuff

I don't know how it happened, but there has been an explosion of chickens on our property. Hens are ok, but currently (until this afternoon) there are 4 roosters which is about 3 too many. They start arguing in the morning as they try to pimp each others hens and they scream all day across the property. Double Comb has the worst voice - staccato and urgent sounding. Big Red has a low voice so it doesn't matter, Abby Normal has a squeaky voice but I doubt he could survive outside our compound and the other rooster is really bad. We finally couldn't take it anymore and borrowed Amparo's cage. When I finished mowing I came up and Double Comb was in the cage ready for relocation! Ha ha! I was sooooo excited! The worst one on the first day of trying - yah! I tied the cage in the truck and took a little drive and opened the cage near a big field (and some houses). I was gonna take a photo of him running up the road but a car came. He is gone and we are happy about it!

On Saturday there was a big, strong wind gust that blew over a bunch of bananas and snapped off a gigantic tree on an adjoining plot of land. We started to look at a couple of our huge trees and decided to do some chainsaw pruning of large ones around the house. The Tamarind tree got really tall and all the pods were way up where I couldn't get them. I decided to cut it pretty drastically to make it lower, bushier and try to harvest what I could. The pods were either green or too old, but the tree is pruned and should be nicer soon.

I'm gonna finish off with heavy duty large loppers to pull in the branches and even things out. Last year we cut about half of the Maria Tree pretty drastically. We only wanted to do half (the half that could shade the solar panels) last year and finish up this year. We cut quite a bit off and didn't want to cut too much and damage the tree (it is beautiful!). The right side is all full and bushy where we pruned last year. You can see the taller parts in the middle and on the left.

Jeff got quite a bit yesterday but there are still a couple huge branches that are tall and were waving around a bunch in our little storm. They have to go, but we want to wait until we harvest the avocados on the tree nearby or the falling branch will most likely take them out. It is the only tree this year with a lot of avocados. A very disappointing year for fruit. We don't have any little oranges, either (I did fertilize...they did bloom...we had odd weather...they didn't set fruit.)

I am waiting for the carambola to get a little riper and then I will prune/harvest them. I plan to cut at least a third off the tree to lower it and reduce the amount of fruit! This tree is loaded and already has blossoms on it. It gets fruit 4 times a year or more and there is only so much you can do with this much fruit.

Another hen with another group (7) of chicks. She paraded them around on days 2 and 3 and now we haven't seen them. With the number of chickens in the yard (more than 20) I think that is ok.

Goats on the road when I was driving Double Comb to his new home.

A father/sons outing - the dad was weed whacking the side of the road and his two sons were making grass piles I assume were going to be taken home for the horses. At least they had a truck - we usually see small cars packed inside the trunk and sometimes inside the car!

Finally - I have been making some "raw" food lately and found that now when I eat processed food it well, doesn't taste like food...it just sits in the stomach and tastes like salt or sugar or chemicals. It is kind of strange. I will always have coffee in the morning (with milk and a little processed sugar) and I love yeast breads. Occasionally meat is fine (once or twice a week and no meat for me is really better). Uncooked food has a tremendous amount of flavor in it but you have to have access to lots of different vegetables to make it work. Compromise is what will happen in our house but this evening's meal was a first stab at beet ravioli and a nice mango soup. The soup was really flavorful and the ravioli was really good but I lot most of the sauce (pureed peppers) when my pastry bag blew up. None-the-less it all tasted good, felt good in the stomach/intestines and for me is a better way to eat!