On Friday morning I kept the guinea door closed and removed the outside enclosure. At approximately 9am I opened the guinea door and they got their first taste of being free. The key to success would be whether they returned to roost inside that night.

Thankfully they stayed relatively close to the barn the first day. They love to get up on the octagons. I was a little worried they would try to stay out inside the octagons for the night.

Late in the day I went out to see where they were and could hear them squawking up a storm down by the barn pond. I went down and found them underneath a large red cedar where the branches go all the way to the ground. I’m guessing they found alot of bugs or other things to eat in there.

Sunset is around 7:30pm so I went to find them about 6:45 and again they were down by the barn pond. I found 2 long sticks and gently got them moving back up to the barn. While they were still on the move I went in and put the meal worm treats in their feeder. Finally right about sunset they went back into the coop and I quickly activated the door to close them in. Success!

During the rest of the weekend they seemed to range further out, always circling back to the barn. The dog flushed them when they got up to the house, but that didn’t seem to phase them too much as they got right back together in a group down by the barn. Below is a shot of them about 200 yards away from the barn following a small stream along the corn field. Seems like it would be a prime area for a fox to snatch one, but so far no casualties.

Retrieved the game camera pictures (finally). At least one bear hanging down by Mine Run, likely wonder where all the corn went.

The good folks at Brooke Farms started harvesting the corn here today. Got the drone out and made a little video.

Have always wanted some cameras up at the front gate and finally got the link setup and the cameras installed. I used two Ubiquiti Networks Nanobeam AC devices to provide either end of the barn/gate link, about 1/2 mile apart. Product information here: https://www.ui.com/airmax/nanobeam-ac-gen2/

The setup was incredibly simple, Ubiquiti provides a mobile app that allows you to basically configure one device as a typical WiFi access point and the other device as a client. You can change power, bandwidth, etc. Ubiquiti also provides a very helpful web page tool that allows you to place each device on a map and given the location and height they will tell you exactly which direction to point each unit and how many degrees to incline/decline. Below is a screenshot of that page for my link.

Once the antennas are installed you use the mobile app to fine tune the pointing. You can also use the app to test the speed between the two locations, below is the best I’ve gotten, but I believe once the corn is harvested this will be better as I think the Fresnel cone is hitting the top third of the corn at one point. If I had put the gate antenna on a pole about 10 feet higher I think I could have gotten closer to the theoretical bandwidth of 544Mbps. Below is a screenshot of the speed test from the app, 100Mbps is quite adequate for two cameras.

Finally, here are some shots of each end of the link and of the views from each of the cameras. Checking this morning my server hasn’t lost connection to either camera since I installed.

The hummingbirds really are going crazy over the wild dagga flowers Patty planted in the garden. Its really neat to see the insects and birds respond to all of the flowers in the garden.

First morning they could the guineas came out for about an hour and then went back in the coop.

Built the temporary guinea run today. The goal is to get them trained to go in and out of their hutch. Once they go in and out consistently I will remove the fence.

None have ventured out yet.

Emily likes to do ‘walkabouts’ down here, look what she came across. Haven’t seen a non-snapping turtle this big at the farm.

Moved the guineas into their permanent quarters in the barn after installing the automatic door and a roof over the opening. Quite an upgrade from their current brooder.

Plan is to setup a small fenced in area outside the door in a few weeks and try to get them to start going out in the morning and back in when it gets dark.

The big landscape/hardscape project has begun. Expecting a good month or even two months of disruption. New yard, sidewalks, driveway, plants and pool deck. Here are some before and after pictures from the first week.