The New Chicken Run

Now that we're no longer dealing with snow, we've begun work on the exterior of the old chicken coop. The interior got a major overhaul (minus a few details we still need to address) last late fall, which served the chickens well through the long winter. Now we are onto removing all of the exterior OSB siding (and ants, which the chickens eat happily), adding house wrap and all new 30-year exterior plywood siding, painting it and then building a large 12-feet by 24-feet run wrapped entirely in hardware cloth. This will provide the chickens with a run three times the size of their current hoop house run. I've been painting the coop and the run structure in Valspar's 'English Tea Party 6004-2C' and we all absolutely love the way this color looks both sophisticated and gorgeous against all the green. I'm sure it will be just as gorgeous against winter snow.







Also worth noting-yes, we want our chickens and ducks to have as much fresh air, sunshine, bugs, space, and green as possible, but we are not okay with free-range birds. First, there's the busy road and lack of perimeter fencing, and second, we have bald eagles, hawks, owls, raccoons, fox, probably coyote, and any number or poultry predators also roaming our land looking for a tasty meal. We've invested a lot of time and money raising our birds and do our upmost to provide them a good life in exchange for eggs, and we're not about to let them become disposable animals. We feel it's our responsibility to do whatever we can to ensure they get to have long, healthy lives.















On the west side of the run stood an old smoke house that Alex tore down (also infested with ants). All of us have been out there in long sleeves and bug baffler hoods because the black flies are also out and they are vicious. I paint, Alex constructs, Olivia and Adam help applying all the welded wire cloth, and the chickens cluck at us constantly. They are so curious about what we are doing (and they want to know when their next batch of rotten wood and ants will be arriving.) Also, many of them are broody, despite being rooster-less, and they are cranky. Very. Cranky. We're hoping this new run will be a distraction and much needed change of pace for them.




Avis, a Dominique


Doris, a Silver Gray Dorking


Blanche, a Jersey Giant

Oh, and in other news, one of our sweet Buff Orpingtons, who has been a house chicken since early February due to a touch of frostbite that led to the others picking on her, has successfully transitioned back to the flock. Welcome back, Ethel!


Ethel becomes a house chicken


playtime with Alex


settling in


hugs for Ethel

May Days

Now that spring really does seem to be here for good, it feels so great to be outside, making plans, digging in the dirt, and working on things that don't involve snow removal or walking through snow, or thinking about snow in any way. We picked up our Fedco order and proceeded to do like we do annually, which is spend the next week planting everything. We put in some Oakleaf Hydrangea, Ninebark, Higbush Cranberry, and PeeGee Hydrangea along the front of the house with the idea that it will create a lovely hedge along a future stone walkway to the front door. With the snow finally gone, Alex and I measured and drew up a design for the new chicken run, and we'll continue the coop restoration on the exterior this month. Of course, while we were doing that, we got to talking about the old dead elm nearby that seemed a bit hazardous, so Alex went and suited up in his swanky safety gear and sawed that sucker down. It feels good to get things done. Definitely.

Chickens Get New Digs : Yule : Day Two

Alright, so maybe this post isn't about cookies or egg nog or mistletoe, but it is about peace on earth and goodwill to, well, in this case, chickens. And us, really. After #snowvember, we became quite concerned about how winter ready our chicken were (they weren't) and we began the project of overhauling the existing coop. While we had hoped to get them moved in by Thanksgiving, we had to wait until today. For one, we had to wait for the weather to clear for us to get a couple of yards of sand delivered, since we are using sand as the bedding in the chicken coop. Getting the sand delivered was extremely affordable and easy. Getting sand from the driveway to the coop was a bit more of a chore via wheelbarrow over choppy ice and snow, a job Adam mostly handled. Once that was done, it was a matter of installing a roost, hanging waterers and feeders, installing the nesting boxes (the ones from the chicken tractor, just to keep the chicken stress to a minimum), and it was time to move the chickens. So in the chickens went, two by two, into their old brooding bin, and they were carried to the new coop. The chickens acted like the sand was lava and flew to the roost and nesting boxes, including the slant roof that was meant to deter roosting, and all congregated there, initially. It wasn't until the ever-daring Speckled Sussex pair, Edie and Edna, began to explore, that the others found their courage to do the same. Soon enough, everyone was happily eating scratch grain off of the unfamiliar sand.

The coop exterior will have to remain a terrible, hideous mess (PSA-never, under any circumstances, use OSB board as exterior siding). It does, however, have two new storm windows and a new, salvaged solid door with real doorknob. The inside has had all the old, moldy, mouse feces-infested, insulation and packing peanuts removed, new insulation and painted walls have been applied, and there are two hardwire cloth vents. Alex built a partition so that we have some storage space inside, for grain and supplies. We plan to do a bit more interior painting and work in the spring, also, and we will be replacing the windows on the south wall. The coop should be reasonably warm and well-ventilated, bright, and roomy for our fourteen chickens. We will be moving their run (hut) over to the side where the chickens will be able to access it from a pop-hole. In the spring, we will build a big, permanent run off their coop.

With this coop remodel, we've given the chickens spiffy new digs, but the gift of peace of mind to ourselves for the winter, as well.

Even Amongst The Weeds, Life Is Good

One of these days I'm going to have to combine our farm blog with our family blog, simply because the two are now the same. It's something I am just in the earliest, tentative stages of doing, but it's most likely a project better suited for winter months. So for now, two blogs.

These last couple of weeks have flown by with projects, growing animals with growing needs, visits with friends, and days on the pond. Our garden is doing well despite the weeds, which we admittedly do not have much of a handle on this year. Next year we'll be in better shape for putting the garden in earlier, and at least this summer we're getting a feel for what it takes to ensure a successful garden, here. Still, the potatoes have been hilled, the corn is shin high, the kale is lush, and we've begun harvesting radishes and soon, greens. The beneficial flower beds are beginning to bloom, too.

Pests? Well, we have some, yes. Potato bugs, which we're trying to convince the ducks to eat (it's the herding them into the garden without freaking them out that is the issue, less so the bug munching.) And we have quite the population of ground hogs, though they so far only seem interested in the rampant bishop's goutweed (which is not in our vegetable garden, thankfully), which means they are allowed to stay. We have lots of chipmunks, too, but they are darling and important to forests, so really, it's only the holes they dig that are an issue. Alex said a chipmunk did wander into the duck pen through their run, today, which they were most displeased about, but Alex saved the day by shooing the confused creature safely out of their pen. I have nothing nice to say about the deer flies.

The chickens are five weeks old and the ducks, eight. Alex completed the chicken hut over the weekend and the chicks seem to love their newfound (protected) freedom, and the ducks seem to enjoy having neighbors. We're letting the ducks out in a protected run and they really enjoyed the nearly four inches of rain that Hurricane Arthur left us, and they've been billing puddles and talking as they do about their engineering. We know some folks let ducks range all over, but we're not comfortable with that and we want them as safe as possible from predators, so they get plenty of supervision. They really are entertaining, and if they think you aren't getting on with things quickly enough or visiting with them enough, they'll make this goose-like honk as if to say, "Hey, what's going on? Come talk to us!" The best, though, is the their happy, grunting, muffled quacking when they are enjoying themselves.

We're having some good, productive, summer days, here on the farm. Come see!

Husband: Yule : Day Five

I joke hinted that he should work on the daybed we have planned for the living room, before heading out the door with Olivia. I thought Alex would instead opt for baking, knowing that he had already softened butter this morning and he was inventorying ingredients for cooking and candy making. Yes, we still have the baking to do. The house projects continue all around us, not caring that the Yuletide season is in full swing. So we keep plugging away at renovations, mostly because we are stubborn.

We discovered when we arrived home, that he and Adam had spent the hours we were away working in the garage, however. They had dug around in the shed and found fir lumber that Alex's own grandfather had harvested from the land and had milled. They measured and cut, planed and sanded.











Soon, it will all be assembled into a sturdy and comfortable daybed, and it will be just one more thing in this new home of ours created with Alex's hands and mind. I think, if I were to inventory the ingredients for this project, they would consist of a desire to create and a whopping dose of patience. Oh, and cupfuls of love. That's the best part.

The Painting of the Farmhouse

My last update was at the end of August, oh dear. Which means, of course, that we have been continuing work on the farmhouse. And it's official, we moved to the farm. While we are still living with project messes and the inability to unpack completely, our pets are here, and our lives are now here. It is so much easier to do work, now that we live at the farm full-time. You know, little things, like getting the house completely painted.

Here's a reminder of what the house looked like a year ago.


 




Pretty bad, right?

In order to begin, however, we had to decide on a color. We agonized over this a fair bit. Even as Alex began caulking around the new windows, we were still trying to decide on a color. We had a number of things to consider, too. The roof is steel and dark brown, so whatever paint we chose, had to compliment the roof. The new composite window trim in an antique white was chosen by Alex's mom, and we didn't want to either paint or cut in paint around the new window trim, so as with the roof, the rest of the house needed to work with the trim, and we wanted to choose something that would be sustainable, as in, easy and affordable to maintain. Hmm. Eventually, we decided to paint all the house body and trim an exact match of the new window trim (Valspar's Marble Steps ar816). While we felt this was, at least initially, a rather boring choice, we felt it would make our work much easier, now and in the future.

So we began in earnest, in the third week of September, and we worked nearly every day from breakfast to sundown. Alex did all the high ladder work, and I did all the bottom to middle work and all the extra stuff, like doors and bulkheads.


 






















To make the house look fresh and a little fun, we did choose an earthy red-orange (Valspar's Fireside CI 100) for all the exterior doors (all of which have been or will be replaced).


 


In October, the ladybugs came and the wasps were wicked, so we had to get creative with our painting routine. If the sun was shining on the side we wanted to paint, we had to wait until the side was in the shade, or else fight wasps for real estate. This was especially a concern up in the east peak, as the wasps were living inside the fascia. Alex worked around them as long as he could, but in the end, he used as natural a spray as we could find to kill the nest. We definitely didn't need Alex up that high, defending himself from angry wasps.


 




As the other side of the kitchen, on the west side, had not been sided, Alex took on that project as well. He got that done in two days and we had it all painted two days after that. But first, he replaced the door. We sure weren't sad to see the old door go.


 











The rusty old bulkhead, and the formerly teal doors on the non-matching, pale mauve garage, also got repainted in a mushroomy brown color. The garage is still a bit of an eyesore, but with the freshly painted doors, and now exterior lighting, it's looking much better. It is, right? As is the house. And that red-orange. We love the red-orange (which does show up a bit more intensely in photos. It's not quite that vibrant). See, better, right?



 







We do have plans to restore the front door, but it's an entire restoration project on its own, so it must wait. Until then, we live with the false wall, storm door combination. And the stoop, we have plans to rebuild that as well.


 






















So other than this one section on the north side, all the windows and siding have been replaced, and the house is painted.

 

The north side, incidentally, is the home of the ell chamber. Remember?


 




The ell chamber happens to be our future bedroom. That's probably our next big, big project (to be juggled around the upcoming holiday season, of course.) We have to replace the window, wrap and side the exterior, paint it in the spring, unless we get a warm stretch of late autumn or winter weather, and then there's the whole continued purging, ripping up the floor and building a new floor, scraping the popcorn ceiling, running new wiring, building the closet, moving a closet, rebuilding a closet, building an entrance, and painting the room thing. That's all.


As the days grow colder, we're rushing to finish some projects, too. The east door is painted and ready, but it needs installing and finagling, of course, in this not-plumb house. Alex has also, just this week, wired exterior lighting over both the east and west doors, which is something this house has never had, so those will get hooked up this weekend. There is a new doorbell, though, and the stoop was painted over the summer, and there's a new doormat. And we decorated for Halloween, which felt great. The little things count, too.


 


We are also working inside. Always. The downstairs bathroom renovation is still going and was largely put on hold during the house painting. But, we're getting there. The sink is installed and Alex is building the vanity that we both designed. We are using salvaged barn boards, too, so we think it's extra spiffy.


 





(Why is Alex wearing a headset? Oh, no big deal, he just manages to do his full-time paid work while he's working on the house. My husband is just a little bit awesome.)


 





I'll have more bathroom photos to share, soon. Otherwise, that catches us up on all the renovation work. It's certainly been a labor of love and we're proud of the work we've done. We have so much more to go, but we've accomplished a lot, too, so we're pretty content. I have more updates planned, but regarding our autumn and the land. Stay tuned.