Buddies

Gavin had a chance to hang out with his old buddy Braden this weekend. Braden is a big fan of the chickens. He even brought along his book, "How to be the Best at Everything", which has a section about how to hypnotize a chicken. The hypnosis didn't go too well, but I think he made great strides in figuring out how to catch and cuddle a young clucker.

Raise the roof!

FINALLY... some nice weather. After a snowy week, we are thrilled to have had a couple of nice days in a row. Yesterday we got the girls out of their box for awhile and they seemed to enjoy their new stomping grounds under the trampoline. They're good sports when Gavin chases them, but they're not so accommodating that they actually listen to him when he says "STOP chicken!" Brandon has been working hard on the chicken house. The roof is finished, and three of the four walls and the nest boxes are up and insulated. The small door that Gavin is poking his head through will be the "pop door", which will lead from the house to the screened-in run via a ramp. We will put a door in one of the screen walls to access the run. The4th side of the chicken house (the side that's not yet installed) will have a large access door that we can use to refill their food and water and to clean the house out. We haven't figured out yet what we're going to use for doors - hence the wide open space. To see more photos, click here.

Chicken Update

Our six little girls are still living in their big box in the shed.

I'm working on getting the base of the trampoline enclosed so they can spend a little time outside in the sunshine and fresh air, but progress (on anything around here) is made slow by a certain 2-1/2 year old (I won't name any names).
Today Brandon made some headway getting the chickies' house framed in. The smaller box that's jutting out toward the foreground will be divided into three next boxes with a lid that flips up for easy egg access.

Bring on the apricots!

In the fall of 2008 we planted three fruit trees - two apples and an apricot. This year it looks like we might just see some fruit!

Before & After

Adios, old orange. You were fun for awhile.
Our century-old shack looks good in black, don't you think?

Chicken Update

Our six little chicks are growing fast! Last week we moved them from their plastic tub in the house, out to a bigger 'brooder box' (borrowed from our kind neighbors) in one of our sheds. [Note: for 10 years we've been calling this particular shed "the chicken coop" - this is about to get real confusing since the chickens are ultimately going to live elsewhere] They've got real feathers now and we're starting to supplement their feed with veggie scraps from the kitchen. After lots of reading and planning, we are ready to start construction on their chicken house.

The chicken house building site.
Brandon and Gavin worked hard getting the four corner posts in and making sure they were straight. The cement will be plenty dry by this weekend, when we hope to do the framing and get the walls up. Then come the details like the doors, vents/windows, and nest boxes.

Random Cuteness

Muddy buddy.
Tube slide.
Chicken wagon.
My cute hubby installing our cute new shutters using a not-so-cute (SCARY!) ladder-holder-upper.