And then there were chickens

Soon your going to see a pattern occur with the new events in our house. The pattern is this, my wife mentions something in passing and suddenly it arrives at our house. Most of this is good, it's not really much of a problem, except a sudden change in plans and, well, I have problems with my plans changing, it messes with my head and takes me a moment to get around. 

So imagine my surprise when I see and pen being dragged into the yard. Well, it was called a 'run'. And this run was about to be home to our own new pets...chickens and a goose. 

Well, we got them settled and situated where they needed to be and very soon I learnt something about geese. I say learned something, but I already knew, geese are mean. Now, I knew this through just one of those facts you pick up, I'd never experienced this first hand.

Our goose (named goosey) was very good at protecting the chickens, a bit too good, as it has to be herded away from where the chickens laid there eggs so you could go in and get them otherwise it would honk, flap it's wings and try to nip you.

How bad could a goose nip really be it's a break after all? We get this a goose's main food is grass and plants. To eat these they have to cut the plant matter up. They have no teeth... What they do have is a serrated beak and that is very sharp and very good at ripping skin as well...for a short time I had quite a few cuts from that bird. 

And when it nearly got the wife, well I was informed I had to build a chicken coop with separations so we could get the eggs safely.

Guess what I have no skills in, yep, you guessed it, carpentry.

Time to find wood and nails and a hope and prayer that I could build something that would stay together and not collapse on the new peta in the night.

And then there were rabbits...

 I'm skipping a month or so ahead and the arrival of chickens but this fits better following the last post about the garden.

The garden did start growing well, the good soil rich in dark organic compounds gave them a good boost, but their good growth also brought about the introduction of a varmint... rabbits. Now, we had seen rabbits in the yard briefly, along with armadillos and heard raccoons in the woods, but this was the first time they'd interacted with anything we had done. So I went out to check the garden after a heavy rain and wind. The ditch all around the mound was filled with water and the thick clay soil led to more than one slip and at least one curse word as I nearly fell onto to rear. I notice that the sprout plant leaves had been the subject of distinct macerations. The evidence of what had caused this damage was sat blatantly on a log next to the garden. Rabbit poo. 

So it was time to build a fence. Now, at this time I did not have a job, any real tools or cash to buy any wire for the garden. So I had to improvise. 

So I went prehistoric in my skill set and made a wattle fence, I did not make the daub. I'm the burn, well, ex-burn pile there were a collection of reed like poles that had dried out. I pulled a mass of them out of the ground and snapped the muddy ends off over my knee. Making the ground wetter than usual I jabbed a collection in the mud, then began weaving the rest between the poles. It did not look pretty, but it was a fence, about a foot tall.

Looking at the fence, everyone laughed at it. 'The rabbits will just jump over it.' so I defended it, rabbits are lazy and if they can get food without jumping and hunting it they leave it alone. 

How long did it work. Well... Guess who was right...me or them... I'm hoping you've guessed right and said me. The rabbits did not return until one of my boys broke it and did not tell me, but it worked. So a few repairs here and there and it worked. Yay.

Now my onions were growing well they were getting tall and I got asked a simple question that led to a lot of confusion..."Have you fluffed your onions?"

Well, my knowledge of English meant that fluffing is a term from the adult entertainment industry, not that of gardeners. So, I had to ask, "how do you fluff your onions?"

It turns out fluffing your onions is breaking up the soil around the onions so they can grow larger...who knew? Well not me.

On that note, have you fluffed your onions recently?

Clearing up and growing

From the moment you stepped off the small deck at the front of the house we were greeted by an old burn pile. 

The burn pile was where the last people to live here has collected a big pile of crap they didn't want and thought that setting it on fire would get rid of it. Unlike at Vindolanda where the weather stopped the fire from doing it's job and created some great preservation, here stuff didn't burn because... well microwaves don't burn very well.

So I started to clear it out, now I originally started it to just get the eyesore out of the way and make it a bit safer for the kids. But coming back from the woods one day when it was actually cold and I wasn't being eaten alive by the insects, we come out to see the bee uncle with an old tractor tilling a strip on land over.

Now I was confused and went to the father in law to see what was happening. Turned out, in passing, the wife had mentioned my plan of turning the old burn pile area into our Vegetables garden. So they were here making the first garden strip. 

So once the ground was tilled, and broken up ready for planting I set to work digging with the shovel to make the raised rows, my wife was very surprised I knew how to do this. I'm not sure what shocked her though, I mean, I was trained as an archaeologist at University, I know my way around a shovel, I grew up on Norfolk, a farming county in the UK, put the two together and it's not a huge leap that I'd know how to make a row in a garden. But impressed she was.

So the first planting began, onion bulbs, cabbage, red cabbage and potatoes. Time to start growing.

winter walks

We're lucky in that where we live now is a few acres of woodland we can walk through to see nature and hopefully learn how to fish from the bayou. But deciding to go for a walk might not always be a good thing. Now I'm not talking about being worried about the black bear in the area, or a ravenous pack of coyotes, or alligator trudging along...but my personal nemeses.. mosquitos. You see there's a fine line it seems between them hiding and being asleep as it's too cool or warm and awake and very hangry for your blood. I say your blood but basically I think I'm mosquito crack. But I digress let me explain my proof to the my blood is mosquito crack.

As a family we were up and wanting to go for a walk, it was decided at about 8am, I'd gone out and it was nicely cool the sun hadn't warmed all the dew from the grass yet so it was a good sign of mosquitoes being asleep. But if anyone who's ever had small children and trying to read this, they'll understand that 'lets go now' means in small child language 'procrastinate, procrastinate now' so there's lost shoes, toilet breaks, various 'can I take' questions as apparently it's not a walk without a stuffed animal. So we end up leaving nearly an hour later. And it's a little warmer... So the walk begins, it's nice and cool under what's left of the canopy and the boys have sticks and the usual can't see any animals as they're loud and scare everything off, and I begin swatting the mosquitos away... Just me...so that was weird. But we continue the boys are having fun, we make to the back to the bayou and wait for a bit to see if there's any fish bobby to the surface to eat. I'm swatting more mosquitoes. On the way back the start to get bad as it's heating up after being out another thirty or so minutes so the boys begin to run back, and the wife and so do I. We escape out of the woods and it's like a horror movie, we break into the sunlight and the majority of those following stay in the shadows as if their an insectile vampires trying not to be burned by the sun. 

We get inside and that's when we do a bit count, each boy has a couple each, the wife has five or so, and me will I have twenty plus... There is something about my blood that they crave.

It's then that my eldest child pipes in and states 'its only the females that bite'. So great, I'm a ladies man, but to the completely wrong species, and I'm mildly allergic to them.

The bees!!!!

 Sitting late a night a few days we kept hearing a strange buzzing sound. We thought at first it was a mosquito we couldn't see somewhere in the room... well... ignored it until it came closer to us and we could squish it. Sorry for any mosquito enthusiasts in my readers, but, I don't like them, i react badly to their bites, worse than a wasp stings so in this house they are enemy number one and the first thing to get squished. So we kept hearing it...and hearing it... And eventually we decided to look for it and... No mosquito and worse the sound was coming from the walls.

Now not only have we had mice unwanted in our homes but also pet rats in England so we knew it wasn't a rodent. In the morning we called for some help to find out what it was. And... Well with some ears pressed to the walls it determined that there were bees in the wall... A huge hive of bees in the wall. And with bee allergy/fear of bees they had to move out.

Good news was that the wife's uncle kept bees, so we had someone who would come and get them. The problem was that they were getting in and out of some very small gaps in the wall...so we have to cut in to the wall to make a hole to get to the hive... There was no access from the attic and the hive wasn't up there which would have been a far easier. 

So sawing into the wall we began... And the suddenly thought, 'our roof leaks I bet bees can get in those holes' as the uncle sawed into the wall we rushed in and started blocking and taping any holes we could find as the idea of a swarm of enraged bees in a confined space was not enticing. Duct tape slathered gaps and and expanding foam sprayed in other places, towels and rags were jammed under the doors for the other rooms so if they came in one they stayed in one.

So the uncle outside in their bee suit was starting to scrape the nest out, he puffed them with smoke, and kept bringing the nest down. He was looking for the queen. If he found the queen then the whole hive would follow her to keep her safe, so, fingers were crossed for finding the queen....we had no luck...we got a lot of the bees and hive out in one piece but we never saw the queen. The bees we added to the hive stayed and joined willingly so we guessed she was there.

It took a full day but eventually all the bees were out. Stragglers that didn't come out willing were removed with a shop vac and the last remnants of the hive scraped out of the walls. The next job was putting the house back together.

Thankfully slats and boards had been remove neatly and so the drumming if hammers began as the the cut out was put back, loose nails and boards were put back on place and the few places where we saw them went in were sealed up. So the bees had now moved out.

And finally, over the next coming days we occasionally saw a bee that had flown from it's new home down the road to where it used to live and then buzzed off. None moved back in permanently...but I still watch as I've found out my home in the woods is susceptible to insect squatters...if only the bees paid rent...

First of a new skill set

Living here I have had to learn to do a lot more things myself rather than just paying someone to do it for me. I know that sounds kinda, I don't know, posh...but not posh...at least bloody lazy but that's not the case. I always have tried to do stuff around the house a bit of painting... Maybe lay some laminate flooring...but cars... Yeah mechanic all the way before, but here, and now, I on a steep learning curve. 

When we first arrived we rented a vehicle, as we were being gifted a car from a deceased family member. It has been sat around for a while so need some work.  

So I said I'd help, now prior to this my entire mechanic experience was holding a torch (flashlight) so my dad could see (I had no idea what he was doing), how to change a tyre (tire), and check the oil, aside from that it was turn key and car goes vroom.

So I arrive and see the cars up on bricks, well the front end anyway. And I'm faced with my wife's father and her uncle awaiting for me nearby. Now, I get the cajun louisiana accent, and by this time my jet lag was mostly gone, but the two of them have a slightly different style ones fast the other slow. So I struggled in translation, 

It hadnt helped that amy had told them I had worked on cars before so they're chatting away about  the engine or something... And I'm just nodding... Then I heard suspension...at least I knew where that was so I got prepped for crawling on the floor. Head under car looking I got the feeling I was missing the point. 

Turned out working on the car with Amy's uncle was a lot like working with my dad, I held things in placed, shone the torch, and occasionally put my weight behind things...but at least he explained the plan of what was going to happen each time. 

So my first seriously giving a car, I ended up with grease all over my hands, on my face, and somehow in my ear and to this day...I still don't know what we fixed on that car that day. Parts were changed, but I have no idea.

Arrival

We left England, my wife, two boys (3 and 5 at the time), and myself on Halloween in 2018. I have to give this simple piece of advice, if you are flying anywhere with children, go direct. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to do transfers from one plane to another with only a couple hours between, the stress is not worth it. But, ours could have been tainted by our entry, we came in through Chicago, which as a rule that's not very helpful to the family travelers and that's, all luggage needs to be collected between flights, and it took an hour for it to arrive. I'm not sure what happened between the plane a baggage reclaim but I'm pretty sure our bags went on there own holiday, only around the airport, but still there own short trip. So, I never recommend connecting flights, ever...

Once on the last flight we arrived in New Orleans, my favourite airport. When we landed the new terminal hadn't been completed and you can basically walk off the plane and out in to the street. Hardly any difficult security to get through where you begin to question your own existence just simple and calm. Except for one thing $5 for a baggage cart takes the piss. And it locks once out of elevator in the car park anyway... Seriously $5 for about 200 yards of travel...rude, just plain rude.

So, in NOLA, and as we walk out of the building...November 1st by a couple of hours... We get hit by a wall of humidity. We left England in jumpers and coats, and land wishing we were wearing shorts and t-shirts. Apparently, I don't know this but there's still insane warm fronts in November in south louisiana... Who knew...not me in 2018. 

Next is the hour and half drive to our new house... Seriously weirded out by the side of the road stuff and turning on a red light.

We get to our new home, almost a cabin in the woods, just a little bigger. And we can see the road from the window. The lights had been left on, it looked so welcoming after nearly 24hours constant traveling, starting in Norfolk and ending in Terrebonne parish. But those welcoming lights, didn't just welcome us, they also welcomed, what I believe should be the state animal... mosquitoes. Loads and loads. We pushed our way through the swarm with all the luggage, let at least a hundred into the house. We blocked off the bedrooms and trapped them in kitchen and living room. Then it was to my shock something I had a skill for...towel whipping... Of course I used to do that horizontal at my brother's or uni housemates but now vertical against mosquitoes I wasn't too bad either. After about half an hour of that we sent the kind cousin who collected us on their way (out the back door where no light brought the evil bugs closer to the house). 

Finally it was time to sleep, our two boys were unconscious, nut just sleeping that sweet child in a movie sleep but unconscious drooling all over the pillow. The wife and I finally lay down to sleep and a massive crash of thunder shakes the house. Literally shakes the house. The a wall of water slams on the tin roof, the white noise it creates was very soothing, until it was followed by another crash of thunder... And then... A slow dripping sound. We get up mobile (cell) phones in hand and start searching, we find the leak in the roof, and put a bucket under it...deal with the next day.

Finally sleep. 

Not yet...

Massive crash of thunder and then all the fans turn off and the window A/C units turn off....

We had certainly arrived and Louisiana welcomed us with everything it wanted to shows us what it was made of.

That night just as I was going to sleep I truly wondered what had I agreed to.