Huzzah for Britain!

Wow, two posts in the same week.

British citizens have voted to leave the EU and throw the globalist agenda a curve ball.  Up until this morning, the polls that I had read and heard on talk radio stated that the sentiment was to stay with the EU.  This morning I was surprised to hear that the Brexit was a go!

Over the last couple of weeks I had heard reasons from both the stay and leave camps.  Outsourcing the management  of your country just seems to this American to be a bad idea.  When the EU can limit your manufacturing and control your economy without any 'skin in the game', I can see why the middle class and older voters would want to back out of the union.  Out of control immigration with high likelihood of terrorist infiltration.  Aggressive muslims wanting to bring in sharia law while the elites preach their multicultural excrement.  Britain (like the USA) has it's own culture and traditions and it is simply arrogant to tell the masses to accept a backwards foreign culture as valid.  Because wife beating and honor killings are no big deal, right?

From the 'stay' camp you had the wealthy and powerful expounding frightening visions of how leaving the EU will leave the county weakened militarily and encourage radicalized muslims to more terrorism.  But the UK never gave up control of  their military and after dealing with the IRA terrorists, my money is on the Brit's - Margaret Thatcher was a leader with FAR more balls than our 'wimp in chief' and had the metal to make the hard decisions in the Cold War and IRA conflict.

This will cause some instability for Britain but their destiny is back in their own control.  A message has been delivered to the elites and politicos with a big red bow on top of it.  Much like the success of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US presidential race has thrown our political elites into utter fits.  While I am not a big fan of Mr Trump, I will be voting for him for simple reasons. First - I could not possibly bring myself to vote for a Democrat in the first place. Second - given the choice of a successful capitalist, an admitted socialist or a (as yet to be convicted) criminal, I'll take the capitalist every time.

In 2004, I had full knowledge that a black person could be a good president just not the man that was running.  It's 2016 and after Margaret Thatcher, I know a woman can be a great leader, but Hillary Clinton is not a great leader.  She has used politics to enrich herself without a care about the people and live destroyed in her wake. Rant, rant, rant...

Good luck to all of us!  To quote from the movie Gremlins 2: “Well, it’s rather brutal here. Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they’ve got into canned food and shotguns."

Power to my Peeps

Have you ever finished a project that has been so long in the opening phases that it seems will never get off the ground?  This weekend I treated myself to a set of Ryobi battery power tools - A Father's Day gift to myself!  I have finally moved forward on a backyard project that has been stalled for longer than I want to admit to.

My chicken coop is made from a 10x6x6 dog kennel with a chicken wire top to keep out the hawks and lower surround to keep their heads away from the cute little backyard predator - My dog, Chelsea.  Keeping chickens and my dog in the same yard was a learning experience as she is a very smart dog as most cattle dogs are.  My final solution for keeping the dog from killing the chickens was something made to withstand a dog's abuse.

In the first year I learned something about having a small flock (3) as opposed to the dozen chickens we had growing up and that is in the short days of winter egg production drops from 2 to 3 eggs a day to as little as 3 eggs in a week.

When reading up this subject on the Backyard Chickens website, the best solution for this was to have a timed light to give the birds those extra hours of light to keep up the egg production.  My solar power project was launched.

More than a year ago I purchased the lumber and stored it on top of the coop.  Next was a solar panel from Harbor Freight which actually has had some use over the last year to drive a small fan to make a breeze for the girls in the heat.  I picked up all the other sundry items needed for a charging a battery and timer for the light.

Anyways, the design is simple in that the end boards hold the frame to the sides of the coop and a pair of 2x6 make up the sides.  The new battery powered circular saw is sweet!  As long as gravity keeps on working the frame will not move.  A small pallet on the end makes a shelf for the battery and the electronics will be mounted on the side opposite of the panel.  I've left room for additional solar panels if the single proves to not be enough.

Other possibilities have presented themselves with the addition of a power source in the back yard as well - Automated irrigation for the garden is the first thing that comes to mind.  Sticking with my geek background it will probably be a clone of the system I have in the front yard using a low power PC to control a relay board.  Weather proofing will be the next challenge for the electronics.  Also in the event of a major power outage I'll have a charged battery to connect my inverter to, keeping some of the house lit up when the rest of the neighbors are in the dark.

Thanks for looking.

How I Broke my Broody Girls

In the past I would have locked the broody hen in a small cage with nothing to use as a nest with and after a couple of days, she stops clucking and gets back to normal.  This time around a thought struck me - Since their little house has a hinged roof to it, leave it open.

Their little safe space suddenly being a convertible with the top down was not so private anymore.  After the first day the two broody girls were out and about but would try to find a place to setup a nest but there are no other hiding places.  By day four, one had stopped clucking and seems normal and both are sleeping on the common perch again.  Gotcha!

I've closed their house back up and I'll see if this has actually worked or needs to stay open a little longer.  Fresh eggs are the best!