Lockdown Day 11: Second weekend

Sunday 5 April: House painting. Tackling the one side of the house that got missed last time we painted and is seriously long overdue. I somehow thought we could have got this job done in a weekend. Well that was a delusion. In fairness I had planned to water blast it during the week but that did not happen. As it was I spent much of the weekend soaked. The press washer hose has a leak near the handle and the angle at which it sprays out hits me right at my waist line. It was too hot to wear wet-weather gear so I just stayed wet. Eric is adamant that we have a second hose but a Sunday morning search of could not track it down. I'm not convinced we have one! I had to clear all the garden foliage to make a 'path' in front of the woodwork and ended up taking there small trailer loads of rubbish to the bonfire, which remember we cannot light. Once I get a water blaster in my hand I just cannot stop and ended up water blasting the front of the cottage and under the covered deck. It looks sooo much better. Needless to say not a bit of paint made it's way to the boards this weekend and next have to sand everything down. I don't mind painting but I hate the prep which seems to be 80% of the job.

This is the time of year when Oscar and Otto put on weight. The walnuts are falling off the tree that dominates our little lawn and the sound of walnut crunching as they feast on them feels almost constant, like the cicadas of a few weeks ago. This rooster is smart. He follows, particularly Otto, around feasting on the scraps.

On Saturday Eric went down to the barn, which sits next to my veg plot and came back reporting that we had two chicks. News of a birth on the block is always a great highlight for me. OK so I know chicks are not birthed but you know what I mean! Two chicks is a 100% improvement on the Plymouth barrels last hatching of one.

To protect the chicks I decided to commission the new chook tractor. Not quite finished but I decided it was usable. Problem was the silky sitting on the clutch in the chook house had gone walkabout so I had to separate the house from run/chook tractor blocking off the end of the run with mom and chicks in so the silky could find her way back to her eggs in the nesting box. Once achieved I put the two together. Viola. One maternity coop up and running.

Except.... on Sunday the silky was out again but I found a gap where some unwired netting had fallen away. Silky retrieved and patch repaired all good now. I was thinking of making some changed to the run but difficult while trying to house occupants so I am not thinking of it as a prototype and will make a second one with improved spec.

A snapshot of lockdown activities this week:

As of 9am Sunday: New cases 89. Recovered 156. Total 1,039. Deaths 1.