Great to spend some time with the kids.  Emily’s boyfriend Erik ended up snagging a buck!

Pond is almost full

Boys ready to move out!

Patrick was determined

It was cold!

The crack of dawn

Good eating!

Great time with the brothers, although we were ‘skunked’.

Here we go!

Steve in the blind

Spagetti and meatballs for dinner!

Up at the crack of dawn, literally!

Steve made breakfast after the morning hunt

Getting higher!

Two weeks later on Nov 24th

December 9th

And were almost immediately decimated by predators!  I installed an door on the coop controlled by an electronic eye, open at dawn, closed at sunset.  Unfortunately the guineas left the coop but never came back!  Worse then that, they didn’t roost in the trees, but on the ground!  By the time I got back down there I could only rescue 4 of the 12+ guineas!  I locked them in the coop after this disaster to rethink how to get them to free range but return to the safety of the coop at night.

Five were left but I could only get 4 back into the coop

Lots of the feather piles around the barn

Pond is coming along, I added some fish structures by arranging cinder blocks and drain tile around the pond.

Fish structures

Just starting to fill, some pics from the underside of the dock.  The water in the pics below is all from the springs that feed the pond, it was a dry fall.

Pop Pop

Thought these guys did an excellent job.

Dock from a distance

Emily to give some perspective

The ‘hipsters’

All of the muck and dirt is out, the dam has been completely rebuilt and the drain pipe is set.  Now all I need done is for a dock to be built.  Notice the bald eagle in the foreground of the picture below.

Excavation complete

Ordered 36 guinea eggs of varying colors and hatched them in the incubator. Unfortunately only 16 hatched, but that is still plenty for us.

Guinea eggs in the incubator

As part of this new batch I moved the guinea ‘house’ across the hall in the barn so that they can eventually free range from the lower part of the barn instead of through the area we keep the tractor, avoiding a huge mess.  Below are a few shots of the build-out process and end result.

Before

During

Move-in day

Very secure!

They came in for almost a week this time to clear out more sediment, direct stream and spring flows, and prepare for the final clean-out in the fall.