And Speaking of Tractor Chicken . . .

After the kids had their tractor ride (see the previous post below this one), I looked out over the newly graded leach field and saw , , , what was that?? A dead chicken??

Whew! It was just one of the girls taking a dust bath and ungrading the newly graded leach field!

Here are some of the best photos of her bath , , ,

Chickens don't roll completely over during their dust baths but they appear to do so.

The other hen appears to be kicking dirt at the first hen, but she is only beginning her bath by getting her "dust tub" prepared.

The hens were at the peak of their weight in July. Fat, happy and wild.

But that soon changed to simply fat and wild once John saw what they were doing to his day's work!

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Septic System Installation

On July 20, the trucks, excavators and gravel arrived for the new septic system. All the permits and permissions had been gotten and filed with the town and now the mess began! Above you can see the truck delivering the new septic tank. Our excavator, Arawn, is on the truck. He was the boss that we hired for the project.

Above and below: The tank is lifted from the truck and lowered into the hole.

Above: you can see the mess that this equipment did to the yard. It was something to watch.

Above & below: John and Arawn attach all the pipes.

And finally, Arawn and John quit for the day. As soon as they left, the chickens ran in for dust baths! They were quite a contrast to the huge shovel on the excavator.

The story of the new septic system is hardly over. There were a few problems later in the month. But that story will come later . . .

Click on any of the photos to be taken to the Flickr photo page and the New Septic System Set.

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Tractor Chicken and the Culvert

The road crew begins the installation of the new culvert.

Barton has an ordinance that says that your driveway can only be twenty feet wide. Our driveway was created before that ordinance and it is forty feet wide. The town road crew says it is the widest in the town. The problem with the driveway was that it had no culvert down by the road. Therefore, a lot of the driveway has washed away and it has created the land around the apple orchard to flood, creating a new bog. In the winter, ice from this bog would seep under the road and break the asphalt, so that the road here was always bad. People in church have even commented on the bad condition of the road here.

John quickly figured all this out and explained it to me, telling me that we need a culvert. So we called the town and Clem, Barton's Road Commissioner, dropped by and heartily agreed with John's conclusions.  Clem doesn't even know why the driveway was allowed to be built so wide without a culvert. Now, property owners buy the driveway culverts and the town will install and maintain them. So John and I took off for Newport and bought a culvert and had it delivered. The Barton road crew dropped in on July 1, after Route 16 was paved and improved, to install the culvert. These photos illustrate the process. 

Tractor chicken heard the town tractor and came down for grubs.

The ditch for the new culvert is dug.
Clem uses a transit to make sure the ditch is level.

The ditch immediately fills with water from the apple orchard.

Tractor Chicken & her sisters move in closer.

Tractor Chicken is determined to get to the new ditch.

Clem chases the chickens away.

The connector is added to connect 2 20-ft sections.

Clem gives one final push on the culvert to send it into the ditch.

While Clem worked, I chased Tractor Chicken & her sisters away.
The hens took to sneaking around through the woods to get to
the tractor. Very sly little chickens!

Clem makes sure the culvert is flowing freely.

The culvert is buried with dirt.

The west end of the culvert.

The culvert is installed!

Tractor Chicken runs in

East end of culvert

Clem & crew drive off when they are done.

The completed driveway.

View more photos for the complete story in my
Installing the Driveway Culvert Set on Flickr.

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Tractor Chicken Again!

More excavation . . . more excited chickens.
(Click on any photo to view it full size.)

They run as fast as they can to avoid the dirt!

They skid and lose their footing!

But they manage to get away safely.

But do you notice that they don't go too far away?

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Camera Critters #117: Tractor Chicken

Tractor Chicken loves tractors

John has a huge safety problem: Tractor Chicken. When she hears a diesel engine (like on the tractor), she runs over and stands too close to the tractor. As it digs, she jumps in the hole or in front of the tractor and eats the grubs and worms that are uncovered. John has almost killed Tractor Chicken a couple of times. Once, while pulling out a willow tree, Tractor Chicken jumped into the hole the tree left behind. But John didn't know that and set the tree back in the hole so that he could get a better grip on the tree. Tractor Chicken began squawking so loudly that even over the loud diesel engine John heard her and quickly pulled the tree back out. Below are some comical photographs of what Tractor Chicken and her girlfriends do in newly dug earth:

Scratching up the dirt for worms.

The Tractor Chicken Dance

We hope that Tractor Chicken learns "safety first"!

Click to view more great animal photos

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