Chicken Coop Details

We finished up the chicken coop and put a nice detail on it.

This sunflower quilt block was the trial run for the larger ones we have planned for the side of the shop. This was really easy to do so now we are excited to tackle the larger ones.


We picked up the new girls on Thursday evening.  We got 5 new hens and one rooster.

 After our poor experience in the fall of trying to introduce new birds we decided to keep the old and the new separated for the time being. Our plan is to raise our own chicks in the future as getting a new flock every few years can be expensive. The Buff Orpington's are supposed to be good mamas so sometime in the future we will let her go broody and raise a few chicks. Just another adventure here on the homestead. We will try to get a few good pictures of the rooster in the next few days.  He is still a bit skittish of us but he has beautiful iridescent tail feathers

Home Improvements

People frequently ask us what we would change about the house if we built it again.  We can honestly say there isn't really much we would do differently.  That doesn't mean that we don't continue to improve with little creature features.  With that in mind Patrick improved one of my kitchen drawers this past weekend.  My silverware drawer, much like most peoples, was a catch all.  With as many cabinets and drawers as I have I thought that was unacceptable. So pinterest came to the rescue;  after all I am not very original but am a great idea modifier.

We found some thin birch plywood that was leftover from his clock project.  I was the perfect amount that was needed. He used his table saw to cut out the right sized segments and then we glued them together. It fits in the drawer perfectly but it is actually removable.  The only reason he made it that was is he did not want to nail into the thin wood dividers as it would most likely split.  Instead of the traditional way silverware drawers are set up, this is divided so that each slot is the width of the drawer. There is no wasted space. Thanks pinterest. 

Coop additions

We have continued to make some progress on the chicken coop addition, installing the rest of the hardware cloth and painting the exterior to match the other half of the coop.  I figure we've got another 4-5 hours to complete the rest of the work and have it ready for the new inhabitants.

Not exactly a mirror image of the existing coop  but enough additional space to house some new layers and occasionally raise some meat birds as well.This is timely as our current flock no longer lays many eggs.  We're actually down to one egg a day from three birds: not good  from an economics perspective. So we've talked with our friends at Blue Bird Farm and arranged to get six of their new birds that have just started laying and a rooster to boot. Roosters aren't necessary for egg production but they will keep the girls in line so they aren't pickin' on each other. It will also give us a chance to raise some of our own from eggs.It's not like we need another adventure or anything...

Generations of Canning

Last month, after almost 68 years, Pat's parents broke up housekeeping.  The siblings went to the house to prepare it for sale.  My sisters thought I would enjoy having some of her kitchen items so this pressure canner and cooker ended up in my care. I can not even begin to imagine how many quarts of food have been canned through the years.  I spent a little bit of time cleaning them up and found a few needed replacement parts like gaskets on Amazon. I will treasure them as the tradition continues.

Let the growing season begin

We started seeds for 3 kinds of tomatoes, 3 kinds of peppers, celery, kale and 2 kinds of basil.  Most everything else gets direct sowed into the garden at a later date. All these are in small starter pots and as they grow and get transplanted into bigger pots they will fill out several shelves and all the grow lites will get turned on. Yesterday's beautiful temperatures made us itch to get into the garden.  Today we had frozen rain, sleet and snow flurries........just a reminder that winter really isn't over.

Chicken Duplex

Lisa and I were able to spend the weekend working on a project  here on the farm. Lisa has always enjoyed our chickens, but as they have grown older, their egg production has fallen off.  Because of this, Lisa wanted to increase the size of our flock to ensure that we always get enough eggs.Her goal is to have ten chickens living on the farm with us, happily producing eggs for us.  Unfortunately,  our current coop, as cool as it is,(see above) is not large enough to handle the new demands. Hence, the addition to the chicken palace which has now become more of a duplex.  Surprisingly, we were able to get it all under roof over the weekend, a feat we were only hoping in our wildest dreams to accomplish.  In fact, we were able to do all of that and install much of the hard ware cloth as well.  Of course, this means we're about 75% completed with only another 75% to go.

 Starts with a first block

 Critter barrier in place

 The framing goes up quickly

 Roof supports in place to finish Saturday's efforts, now off to church

 Roof in place along with a shelter for the birds while they roost

 We got some hardware cloth installed in most of the panels, the size of the addition approximates the existing structure which will give us twice the space.

Another view that gives a better, overall view of the progress. We'll try to get some paint on it this week before we go off to Doug and Amy's to help with their coop. 

We're Adding On.....

To the chicken coop, that is.  

As our flock dwindled this winter (for reasons beyond our control) we felt the impact in the kitchen.  With only 3 birds, the egg production greatly reduced and I had to resort to purchasing eggs at the grocery store.  Now that is okay if you are baking and won't really see them but for eggs on weekend mornings...there is no comparison to a home grown egg.  Therefore, we are adding to the flock.  Pat also wants to raise a few meat birds; so between the two we need a bigger coop.  Thus we started the addition this weekend.  What a glorious weekend to start.  Sunday is expected to be even better. Stay tuned for further progress.