To Move a Coop

This was easily the most difficult move I've made. Between the distance, moving the coop, the bees and the live birds, it was a doozy. It was a week ago and I am still recovering.

Can I just say I am so thankful for intelligent and generous friends. They made moving the coop a cinch. Aaron jacked up the coop with a car jack and put several 4 x 4s under the coop to act as skids. We bolted these to the coop for stability.

Our friend Howard brought over 4 logs which served as rollers. We literally just rolled the coop out of the backyard.

Aaron had to take out one panel of the fence to get it through.

The curb seemed like it was going to be a big obstacle, but it turned out to be no big deal.

Once we got the front of the coop onto the trailer, a Comealong was attached and with some pushing it made it all the way on.

The bee hives were locked up the night before with a screen, strapped up and carried to the back of the truck. That is our friend Rocky helping Aaron with the hives. Those were some unhappy bees I tell you what.

Moving the bees and the chickens in one day would not have been too big of a deal if we hadn't been moving all of our other earthly possessions the same day. I boxed up the chickens early in the day. Buffy and Camila were in a box in my front seat the drive up, the other three were in Aaron's front seat. Whenever I got on my phone and the chickens heard my voice, they would talk to me, begging me to let them out of the box. I could hear that their throats were dry from being without water all day and it about broke my heart.

Aaron drove the UHaul up, towing the coop and bees. People waved at him on the way up.

We got in just at dark. The first order of business was to get those birds out and get them some food and water. We set up a temporary pen in the garage, which was perfect because we could put them in a lighted room. It had already gotten dark, so they would have just gone to bed without eating, and we still had to move the bees and figure out how we would get the coop off the trailer without any help. Aaron stuck a rake through the fencing to act as a roost. After they ate and drank I gradually dimmed the lights and they all went to bed.

We dropped the bees off and were just debating how we were going to deposit the coop in the backyard when our landlord drove by. Thank goodness! He jumped out, got on the phone and within minutes we had 6 helpers. They made fast work of moving it around the backyard and we were able to place it just where we wanted it.

We unloaded the UHaul, slept for 4 hours (forgetting about daylight savings) and drove back to Corvallis to clean the old house. Finally we are all in one place.

I am so glad last week is over!