CompostaBlog

Roof Going UP!

From the chicken run side closest to the house you can see how much progress we’re making! I will be able to go in the gate and be out of the rain and they will have some shelter from the rain and still be able to be outside… so long as the rain is not blowing sideways. LOL

We’ve stacked so many things off and on through the time we’ve been working on it that the wire is starting to sag in the middle, Errrr. But I think I can run some wire through it and it will be alright. Remind me, if I EVER build another chicken coop to NOT use ‘chicken wire’ it is a pain in the BUTT. Baby chicks get right through it, animals can push right through it.. it’s sort of good for nothing.

Ryan thinking out the chicken coop roof.

I rather liked this photo of shadow, thinking, trying to get things right. NOT being a carpenter I can only appreciate knowing how to build something like this easily and without SO MUCH EFFORT. Ryan had one semester of carpentry in high school VoTech and he’s done a fabulous job. I will be proud to say he built it for me for a very long time…

This weekend, at the beginning, when we thought we were going to be finishing up (ha ha!) he said… “I wish this could last a lot longer…” Awww… I’m such a lucky mom! But I quickly informed him that I had PLENTY of indoor projects to keep us busy over the winter!

Squeezing the most out of the sunlight left!

We got a bit of a late start. Work comes second and the family is first. The babies just had a tough day today… we did have a bit more help than usual though! Remember the girls, my daughter and her friends that talked me into this chaos? While my daughter is in Oregon away at school, one showed up to help!! Yeah! She played with the babies, fetched and towed water, tools, held things, lifted stuff, I had surgery this week on my leg and she was truly appreciated, as I was not much help on some things.

We got one door up, the $1 door from the garage sale. And the lights up for the babies to spend their first night in their new home.

Half chicken coop half garden shed

Mind you, the chicken wire is not up linking the run to the coop and (clearly) the roof is still not on, so there is still a bit of work to do but just getting the walls up, and one door on to get the chicks in a more stable cover (they are still only BABIES after all!) makes us feel like we made real progress today! We slapped on a piece of plywood for a makeshift roof until next week. Not expecting any rain, it feels safe enough!

Sooo… NOW you can see my cool idea to make one half of the building a chicken coop and the OTHER half, a garden shed. I can keep feed and bedding for the chickens, all my shovels, and hand tools hanging on a peg board. I am REALLY getting excited. No more trucking things back and forth from the garage. THIS is starting to look really GOOD! Our little urban homestead is just coming along nicely.

Framing done!

What a long day, getting things square against all odds. The entire chicken coop frame was off square from the chicken run due to the fact that I wanted to use the 4×4′s from the garden fence to build off of… seemed such a shame to let all that wood, cement, and hard work go to waste.

You can see the autumn leaves are starting to really fall. Another reminder that we don’t have long to go before it gets cold and the chicks still don’t have a place to get out of the cold. Errrr.

From the garden side. Seems we didn

My son works during the day, goes to school three nights a week, has two children, one newly born August 28th and his brother will be two in November. His wife is taking online classes so she can stay home with the children, but ooooooooh do they have their hands full! Can anyone say “You should have WAITED on the family?” LOL Well, ‘Life is what happens while you’re making other plans” I suppose, it is what it is. And being a grandmother is SO way fun.

So, we have devoted our Sundays to working on the chicken coop… it’s the one day we can all get together. Ryan and I work on the coop. Amanda does her homework on the laptop in the lounge chair (our chair count just keeps growing) Aiden runs around chasing the rooster (who is loose in the yard while the baby chicks in the chicken run if you’ll recall) and the dog, pulling up my strawberry plants, watering the fall garden, and generally just having a ball pushing his trucks around.

Our first night outside. Covered, warm, and safe.

Removed part of the garden fence to place coop close

Well, my middle son Ryan, his wife Amanda, and my year and a half old grandson, Aiden had a fine 4th of July today! We worked on the chicken coop. All of us together and we had a ball! Well, okay, Aiden only kept the dog occupied, but he had fun watching his dad. This has been such a fun family project.

It is going to rain tonight, so we got the left over wood we didn’t have time to use covered up. I opted to not use treated lumber for the inside of the coop since it will all be covered and closed in … the 4×4′s are treated as they will be touching the soil, but the rest is above the ground.

It sits up off the ground about 8″ and we’ll use the old lattice from the garden fence to cover up the bottom of the chicken house from the ground up to the house.

The tree view. The whole sloppy shebang!

In the back, by the raised beds (above), you can see an old tree trunk piece I rolled out there after having a tree removed that was ruined after the ‘big ice storm of ’07. (any of you in the midwet of the US will know what I mean) and it has turned into a nice sitting spot when I have company visit while I garden.

Can’t wait till our next work day. It has been making for nice family get together with my son and his family. We’re really enjoying it!

It’s a bit of a mess here, and you can see the whole run, the chicken wire doesn’t even look like it is there, but it is all around and across the top of the run. You can barely make out Red, but he’s in there. He watched us work all day long.

As you can see below, we have some trimming to do and we miss judged a few things about the electrical pole… didn’t want to be so close to that. Okay, we’re not professional carpenters and it’s ONLY a chicken house, right?

Now, we’re in and waiting for the rain.

The south view of the floor.

This will have to do for a bit. We’re not making really great progress on the chicken coop. Red is still in the chicken run and I don’t trust the dogs to leave him be. The babies are so small, they can escape through the chicken wire. I’m going to have to use smaller wire around the bottom so if we have baby chicks later, they will be safe and sound inside the run.

Still in my small living room. Last time, in the spring, we only had five, this time, there are eleven. This is going to get old really fast. LOL!

The heat makes the smell stronger, faster. At least they are safe from the dogs and cat. Strider (the cat) does like the warmth from the lamp, he sits on top of the crate during the night. He’s SUCH a baby. Sometimes he sits and peeps through the holes. And when the chicks see him, they get really cheepy and run to the four corners. Can you imagine being stuck in a box with two big eyes staring at you? It would creep me out too.

I still haven’t gotten tired of watching them, their cuteness has not warn off… yet.