Thrifty Mom in a Consumer World: Excesses and shortages

Not much to report here. Got rid of the last of my culls (except three v. small bucklings who will go to the sale) and made a cool $200 in doing so.

I've run out of hay, found a local bloke with oat hay, and finagled a few round bales from him. He's a really nice chap but no one has any hay. Everybody in the state is desperate for hay and a few shysters are selling the oat hay for upwards of $35 a round bale.

First the frost knocked it (the coastal hay) back, then, since then, we've had no rain. It's dry as a chip and folks are having a hard time getting even the oat hay baled.

Feed is also sky high around here - a 50lb bag of whole corn is over $7 - so I've bitten the bullet and started buying our feed by the ton. I get a 10% discount when I do.

This is a small portion of the junk part of the sale.

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The guineas and turkey poults are doing well; I mysteriously lost two of the sex-links who are in with the turkeys, though.

The eggs I put in the incubator are a bust, I think. I have the incubator set up in the pump house and the temp has being staying pretty constant. Then, one day this week-end I went out and the temp was up at 105 which, I'm pretty sure, scrubbed the hatch. I'm letting them stay in for the whole 21 days, just in case, but I have no hopes of any hatchlings.

I think I am going to just have to set the thing up in the house (which I don't want to do) because it's the only place that stays a reasonably constant temp.

What I don't understand is why it jumped. It wasn't even a hot day. It's been staying even from the chilly night to the middle-of-the-day heat. It's a head scratcher, that.

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On the home front I got the dubious honour and distinct (lack of) pleasure of replacing the wax ring on our upstairs toilet. It was leaking into the subflooring and dripping into the downstairs hall. One word on the swap and the leakage:

*GAG!*

I did manage to blister myself removing and replacing all the screws with a hand screwdriver: