Alaskan's Journal

[Alaskan]

Well... we have hit 40 for a week now!

So... SPRING! Which also means mud and an impressive carpet of goat poo emerging from the melting snow.

Time to decide what Dominique rooster gets to breed this year... and show off my mud pit.

no tail ... (tail loss was accident not genetic) I think he is too dark.. I don't like him, and the no tail might make breeding difficult so reduce fertility.

The old man... 3 or so years old... too beefy for a Dom, and his comb isn't good, his wattles too big, but he is otherwise good and has an excellent temperament with the hens, other cocks, and humans.

Too light dude. His barring is washed out on his tail feathers which is a huge DQ in the breed.... his wing is a bit low... but... I love his comb and wattles, his body form, his build... he rocks.

Then there is barf for comb who is crazy too dark and I am thinking a Dom cross that jumped in somehow.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

If it was me...I’d do half and half...two pens with selection for strengths and weaknesses accordingly...Old Man and Too Light. Each seems to have appropriate strengths and weaknesses to work with.

I might be tempted to give a couple (not sure how many hens you have) to No Tail to see what he is capable of. If fertility is reduced, the hit wouldn’t be as hard and you might get a replacement from him that has a tail.

I’m just getting into breeding barnyard mix for meat, replacement hens, and some fun egg colors for my kids. You have to do what’s right for your program more than anything.

 

[Bruce]

We hit 48 today, not too much above freezing yesterday. Supposed to rain overnight then snow all day Saturday until mid day Sunday (3") then rain through Tuesday. I guess that is spring.

 

[Alaskan]

We hit 48 today, not too much above freezing yesterday. Supposed to rain overnight then snow all day Saturday until mid day Sunday (3") then rain through Tuesday. I guess that is spring.

48 is spring! !!!

 

[Alaskan]

If it was me...I’d do half and half...two pens with selection for strengths and weaknesses accordingly...Old Man and Too Light. Each seems to have appropriate strengths and weaknesses to work with.

I might be tempted to give a couple (not sure how many hens you have) to No Tail to see what he is capable of. If fertility is reduced, the hit wouldn’t be as hard and you might get a replacement from him that has a tail.

I’m just getting into breeding barnyard mix for meat, replacement hens, and some fun egg colors for my kids. You have to do what’s right for your program more than anything.

I am thinking old man and too light

 

[Bruce]

Seems the choice of hen would be equally important. Maybe mate one with darker markings with the light guy??

 

[Alaskan]

Seems the choice of hen would be equally important. Maybe mate one with darker markings with the light guy??

I think all of my hens are the same shade... but yeah, I need to take a good inventory of the girls and decide who I want.

 

[Alaskan]

Had to drive my eldest up to the next town to meet a priest for a service. .. my kid wants to spend the weekend with him doing services, and tonight and Saturday morning the priest is doing services in a podunk. Saturday night and Sunday morning they will be having services in a big (for us) town.

It was a great day today.. so I took some photos.

Church from the front:

It is a very old church, so has a large cemetery around it.

The church is on a bluff overlooking some houses and the beach. The volcanoes across the water are part of the Alaska Peninsula. The church is on the Kenai Peninsula. All of the boat traffic going to Anchorage travels through this passage.

 

[Latestarter]

Nice view. Dormant volcanoes aren't nearly as exciting as active ones. Just sayin'. Just curious, but why are there three cross members on the crosses and why is the bottom one tilted? I mean there must be some significance to all that...

 

[Alaskan]

Nice view. Dormant volcanoes aren't nearly as exciting as active ones. Just sayin'. Just curious, but why are there three cross members on the crosses and why is the bottom one tilted? I mean there must be some significance to all that...

Many of our volcanoes are awake.

The top little horizontal on the cross is for the sign that was put on the cross "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" the middle long horizontal is where his arms were, the bottom little bar is where his feet were. Starting in about 700 they started depicting it slanted to remind us that Christ was fully God but also fully man, and in the agony of his death shifted the bottom cross piece, because at that time there was a heresy that tried to say that Christ, being God, did not suffer. Now that we have kept it angled for so long, we often also use it to remind us of the two thieves that were crucified on either side of Christ, and how one recognized Christ as God, and went up to heaven, and the other did not. So it is also to remind us of our daily choice to choose God, or to choose to turn away from God.