Chicken Coop Update - and a beginning on a root cellar

     I posted way back when about that dang coop.  What happened?  Life happened.  We actually broke ground on the coop within days of doing the string line.  In less than a week, Pa, with a little help from me and Little, got the foundation walls laid.

We had to put the little one to work, or he was a perfect nuisance.  Give the kid a shovel, tell him to dig a hole, and he’s thrilled. 

We didn’t get much done on the first day, visually anyway, but we were all pretty dang tired. 

After that, things seemed to progress a bit more rapidly.  That first wall, though you can’t tell it, is actually two blocks deep.  We dug down to both create a more stable foundation and to deter creatures from digging in. 

By day 4, we had four walls.  We’d taken away Little’s shovel in exchange for a trowel and set him to filling the cinder blocks with sand and dirt. 

By the end of the 4th day, everyone went to bed with a sense of accomplishment!

And then the rains came.  Ha!  Of course they did.  For a solid week, it rained, and it flooded the pasture, and the fence that Pa had been trying to mend got knocked down again.  The runoff undercut the walls, and since we hadn’t had a chance to actually fill them and tamp them, and it was a hollow box just asking for filling, there was quite a bit of undercutting on the taller walls.  So the blocks had to be pulled out, it had to be releveled, relaid, and actually filled. 

So we did some math, and made an executive decision. 

Progress will be made!

And progress was made!  In just a single afternoon, Pa was able to scoop out a decent start on our root cellar and fill most of the chicken coop foundation.  In about 5 minutes he was able to triple the slow and tedious work we’d been laboring at by hand for a few weeks.  At the rate we were going, we wouldn’t even have started the walls of the coop till next spring, but in one afternoon, he has the foundation nearly filled. 

We’re still trying to convince this one to work for his supper and set him to stamping on the loose dirt to pack it down.  Fun and purposeful.  No, he doesn’t usually run around without pants, but this was just easier for playing in a mountain of dirt.  Besides, at 3, who needs pants?

     Tomorrow will see the coop foundation filled, and hopefully the cellar mostly dug.  We’ve got the thing for a whole week, and we’re going to use it to the fullest.  There are doings being done on the farm this month, and I’ll be sharing once the work is done. 

Until next time!  

VROOM! VROOM!

Chicken fever!

Hey, y'all! 

     I’ve been bitten by the chicken bug.  I’ve got it bad.  I’ve wanted to have chickens for close to 20 years now, but the town I lived in wouldn’t allow anything considered to be a barnyard animal.  The regulations on post were the same, no barnyard animals allowed, with the exception of horses that were boarded at the post stables.  One of the first things I asked for when we moved to our little farm here were chickens.  Goats and rabbits are tied for second, but chickens... they’re like the gateway animal for all little start-up farms, aren’t they? 

     Well, here we are, a year later, and no dang chickens.  The barn had a lovely little coop built into the side of it that was easily big enough for a small flock of 8 or so hens and a roo.  It just needed to be cleaned out.  But, if you read an earlier post about the floods, it’s actually a good thing we didn’t immediately get those chickens.  They would’ve been soaked.  The roof leaks, the barn itself if partially below the floodplain for the little creek that runs next to our property line and over half the wood is rotten.  I would’ve felt guilty housing much of anything in there. 

     Rewind a few weeks ago and Little Bell had a tick.  I hate ticks.  They completely skeeve me out the way they just burrow their nasty little heads into you and hang on, and you never feel a thing!  Gah!  So gross.  Pa Bell was pretty displeased by it, too.  He made me pull it out, after we tried a few different methods of suffocation with no success.  He’s this big furry man’s man, and he made *me* pull the tick off our little guy. 

     Two days later, he’s asking me just exactly where I want my new coop and to decide how many chickens I want to order from the local farm supply.  Ha!  I’m gonna get my chickens!  Probably this summer!  Pa Bell decided the coop needed to be pretty close to where Little Bell’s play area is, and he wants to encourage the chickens to come hang out under the pecan tree where the swing is.  I guess that tick lit a fire under his butt that all my eyelash batting, sweet entreaties, and flat out bribery couldn’t manage. 

So here we go!  It’s a small start, but we’re finally getting started.