Clean Fence

We're starting to work on our garden space for next year, and step one for us was to clean up this fence while there was still good access. We sprayed on a wood cleaner, then pressure washed it off. Aaron will go back and lightly sand to get off the fuzz and I'll stain it so it stays brighter longer. What a difference there is already. We had to stop when our neighbor got home and had people over, so just a little ways to go. 

The plan is for raised beds back in that corner.  The little fence will come out, along with some of the sidewalk.  I don't know how far we'll get this year, but either way it will be okay.
We got a bunch of siding put up yesterday, we're so close on the back!  We didn't have what we needed painted for those last few spots, so I'll work on that this week.

We had an action packed weekend, the best sushi we've ever had at Mame in Eugene.  I don't know how well you know my food preferences, but I'm not big on seafood.  I ate multiple raw sea creatures - and enjoyed it.  So fresh and good.  The chef does a special, you name your per person price and he makes up all sorts of different things to try.  Since there were 6 of us, we probably had 15 or more different things - having a friend that knew the owner well might have bumped that up a bit.  Stand outs were the raw scallops (tasted literally like butter) with sushi rice risotto (coconut milk and lemongrass), lots of things I can't remember the names of, seared ahi sashimi, and mango curry cheesecake.

Saturday we went to Corvallis with the intent of going to da Vinci Days, but never made it down there after some shopping and catching up with good friends.  I'm a little bummed about it, but we still had an awesome day.

Sunday we worked around the house.  We're gearing up for a long vacation, so I'm feeling the pressure of getting these summer projects wrapped up!

Siding

It's going up!

The Door

Oh this door.  It's been difficult from the beginning.  We wanted it to open on the other side, so we had to chisel in spots for the hinges.
Once that was done, we screwed in the hinges and hung the door.  But it wouldn't shut all the way.  After taking it off 5 or 6 times and making adjustments we (Aaron) finally got it to close properly.

Aaron likened this whole situation to getting off a bit on a quilt and then having it get worse and worse.  The concrete pad is sloped for water run off, the frame of the coop was slightly off because of this.  The door jamb is even more off, and so on and so forth.  The door is not straight at all, but it will work, and we keep reminding ourselves this is JUST a chicken coop.  

During the fun.

There it is in all its glory at 10:00 pm.  It still needs many things to make it a functional, locking door, but I think we can get the babies in tomorrow night.  I'll give them a night or two to get the hang of it before I mix in the older girls.  

Coop

I finished painting the door today and we got the nest boxes and the roof finished - yay!

We're trying to get everyone moved in before this crazy hot weather hits.  My poor cochins are panting at 80, they are going to be hurting at 100 :(

Coop

I just lost my whole post that I stayed up too late working on.  So not a lot of commentary from me this time.
Working on the door.

Color choices

Fish scales that we made!

Cute chicken door.

Lower roof about to be finished.

Everyone getting along.  Names have been decided (all but one) so stay tuned!

Work work work

We got a lot done again this week/weekend.  We finished installing all the windows, got some trim up, put the floors in, got the nest boxes mostly finished, worked on the upper roof and maybe most importantly...found a door!  We had been waiting for just the right thing for weeks, checking the Re Store, craigslist, every store that sells used/damaged doors.  

Aaron found this door for free on his bike ride home from work!  Total score.

It needs a lot of work, I got most of the old paint off one side today.  Luckily Aaron saw online that you can use a heat gun to get the paint off more easily.  

And, also luckily a heat gun came with the house.  It does work well, and made the process much less tedious.  

Lots of little helpers!  It turns out, I think all of my chicks are girls.  Good because they are all girls.  Bad because I was really banking on that Welsummer (bottom left) being a boy, and because of that got some extra chicks.  Now I have 9 birds, which is wonderful, but I think too much for our city lot.  I have a home for the brown one in the middle if it's a girl (it's the only one I'm still unsure of).  He/she is way too skittish even with all the people time I spent with it.  After having Bert, who we can't even get near, I'm not doing that again.  It makes it so hard when you can't catch them easily.  So I think Bert is getting the boot too.  Anyone want a 3 year old easter egger?  7 birds sounds much more manageable.  

It's really hard to take good pictures of the coop, it's really tucked in, both behind our garage and near the corner of our lot and next to a tree.  Kind of too bad because it will be hard to see once it's all done. But we like that it's not visible from the street.  

I'm hoping we can get everyone moved in by next weekend.  We still need to finish the lower roof, the nest boxes and the door, which is going to take some time since it needs to be cut down and mended in some places.  I'm ready, I miss my automatic door locking everyone in and letting them out first thing in the morning!

Bigger, Better.

We worked our butts off this weekend and made good progress on the coop.  Thank goodness for sun breaks in all the rain we've been having.  Two more sections of wall to put up and all the windows but one (along with lots of other things).  I didn't get a picture of the window we put in tonight, it is to Aaron's right in the photo.  

The babies are already loving it!  And practicing laying eggs!

Slowly but surely.

Progress has been slow, but we were getting somewhere until this bad weather hit.  We found all the windows we needed in Junction City at a place called Discount Windows.  They must have had an acre of windows, it was crazy.
Hoping for this rain to let up this weekend so we can get some work done and move the chickens into better digs.

It's Happening.

It's happening and there's no going back now.  The big chickens will be sleeping in the garage until further notice.  We're planning as we go, so hopefully this will turn out well and go quickly!

Coming Soon...

Coop upgrade and expansion project!

Plans

We finally got the city to set a time to inspect our chicken coop for today, it only took 3 phone calls and Aaron visiting the office twice.  In one day.  Nobody seemed to be able to give us any answers and the person we needed was out of the office and would never call back.  We're kind of wishing we had just gone illegal, but hopefully this will all work out.  I am ready to move them over this evening, hence the large box, but just reread the fine print and the inspections will have to be approved by "the City".  I'm not sure what that means but I'm guessing it's going to be more waiting.  

Meanwhile the girls are holed up in the barn.  I speed over on my lunch break to let them have some fresh air for 45 minutes, then speed back.  I'm ready to have them here.  It's dark before and after work so lunch is the only option.  I'm not willing to let them out over there with no supervision and a raccoon on the loose.  

Hopefully after that I'm making a few quarts of apple pie filling.  I ordered some Clear Jel online, I'm excited to see how it turns out.

The Coop Has Landed

We have been plotting about how we were going to move the coop the last 20 feet.  I was surprised to come home yesterday and Aaron had already moved it.  By himself.  He felt awful about Olive and took off from work early, bought a big ass chain and wrangled it onto the cement pad.  I didn't even get a picture of the pad to show what a nice job he did.

Here is how we moved it across the yard - the day before the rain came.  We pulled it as far as we could.

Then pushed it, with amazingly little damage to the coop.  I love our farm truck.

This shows how far he moved it - to where the stakes are.  He ended up using a post from the chain link fence for leverage.

There she lies.  We strategically placed the coop behind the garage so it can't be seen from the street, but it can be seen from our dining room table.  Next project is to rearrange the coop so the people door is on the nest box side and the chicken door is where the people door is now, to give them more run space and so I can look out and see if the door is open or closed at night.

Meanwhile I am too afraid to let the hens out without anyone watching them.  So they are on lock down until we can move them here.  I have applied for a license with the city (I don't even want to get into how I feel about having to do this - I'm just playing by the rules).  They said they would get back to me this week, but so far, they have not.  I'm really hoping to not have to keep them in over the weekend.  I'd have moved them over already, but it's a $250 per day fine.

Chicken Coop

It was time to tackle this awful green room this weekend.  Really the pictures don't do it justice.  It was radioactive green.

I primed the walls and I think we have decided on a color...test patches are up.  If they are good in they daylight, we'll get the walls done tomorrow.  Then we can paint all the trim and move back into this room and out of my sewing room.

But our big project this weekend was to get a concrete pad poured for the chicken coop.  Our new concrete mixer and bags of concrete ready to go:

The chicken coop spent 6 months in my parent's driveway while we were busy buying a house.  We moved the coop to the south end of our yard, then used the pickup to pull/push it to the north end closer to where it will stay.
We staked out an area the size of the coop, then dug it out and added gravel.

While Aaron finished putting the mixer together and building the forms, I raked up the leaves from the two big maples in our yard.

He tamped down the gravel.

Then it was go time.

Aaron would pour in the 80 pound bags of concrete while I added the water.  Then he would rake and smooth as we went.  He worked concrete construction to put himself through college, so he had lots of experience with this.

I, on the other hand, had no concrete experience.  It is messy business.  Sometimes the concrete would fly out of the mixer, at one point into both of my eyes.  I had to go inside to dig the rocks out of my eyes.  Safety glasses all the way after that.

22 bags, 1,760 pounds of concrete later we had a 5 x 8 pad.

Aaron leveled, smoothed and brushed it to make it look nice.  

We're hoping the rain holds off so it can cure tonight.  The next challenge will be getting the coop onto it without destroying the edges.  Getting closer to having my girls here!