Sick Chickens — Janet Szabo

I am hoping the carnage will be over soon. I came home from town yesterday to find three more dead hens. The current death toll stands at six. I would not be surprised if we lose a few more yet, although everyone was okay when the husband checked on them this morning. Baby spent most of yesterday tucked into a nesting box and Dave hung around inside the coop. I’d rather not lose any animals, but I am most concerned about my roosters.

I still suspect this is a virus, so antibiotics would only be useful in preventing secondary infections. In any case, the farm store does not carry chicken antibiotics, only horse, cow, and pig medications. I did pick up a bag of pig wormer to be added to the piglets’ feed. That was recommended by our pork supplier, and this is the week it needs to be administered. Some of the livers from last year’s batch of pork didn’t pass inspection because of liver flukes.

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I spent a frustrating two hours messing with the laser printer yesterday. About a year and a half ago, I finally gave up on the second of two color laser printers, the first an HP and the second a Xerox. They were hideously expensive to operate, and because I wasn’t printing knitting patterns any longer (everything is digital download now), we went to black and white. I really liked—past tense—this Brother printer. The toner JUST ran out last week, but replacing the cartridge has been a major headache. The first time, I ordered the wrong cartridge. I sent it back and got the correct one, but after putting it in, I am getting continual error messages instructing me to close the cover on the machine. It’s closed.

Judging by the YouTube videos explaining how to get around this problem, this is not an uncommon issue. I followed the instructions in the videos to reset the toner counter, which is supposed to fix the problem. I followed them about a dozen times but continued to get the error message. I called Brother support. Of course, the printer is out of warranty. Of course, the tech support person helping me was reading off a printed flow chart and had me do the exact troubleshooting I had done a dozen times already. Of course, it didn’t work. She concluded that the machine must be broken, and her only solution was for me to take the printer to an authorized service center. The nearest service center is in Spokane. By that point, I had had it, so I said, “That is unacceptable. I am never buying another Brother product again,” and hung up.

Within 15 minutes, I had a survey in my e-mail inbox asking me about my experiences. I gave it to them with both barrels. Interestingly, I put the old toner cartridge back into the machine and I don’t get the error message. The machine isn’t broken.

I’ll hammer at the problem a bit more today. In the meantime, I scrounged an old HP inkjet printer out of the storage container—left here by a kid—and I’ll try to get that one working just so the husband can print out some plans.

These are the kinds of stupid issues that make me feel like I am being pecked to death by ducks. Is it too much to ask that a replacement toner cartridge work upon installation? Yes, apparently it is. I miss the HP LaserJet 1200 that worked flawlessly for 24 years until a bearing wore out.

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The warnings about this impending heat wave continue to get more dire. Spokane and Seattle are both expected to shatter records with temps into the 100s. We’re on the eastern edge of the bubble, so I don’t think we’re going to get that hot, but it’s still going to be pretty awful. The tomatoes, cukes, and zucchinis are going to love the hot weather. I am hoping the lettuce doesn’t bolt. This hasn’t been a good year for lettuce, for some reason.

Every gardening year is different.

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I pulled out some of my sewing fabric for a quick project. I love this one—it’s the mice from Cinderella:

I am sure I’ll have a fair bit of sewing time next week while it’s hot. I’ve got a Firefly Tote ready to start, too, as Anna has just released the first video for the sewalong.