The Girls' New Digs

Tina Wynecoop and I have spent the spring working on publishing a book of memoirs written by her husband Judge. We both love chickens and in the course of our enjoyable work days together she mentioned the fact that one of her banty hens loves to set and is happiest when she has eggs to set on or just-hatched chicks to manage. I said I'd been thinking of getting a few chickens.... They are such wonderful recyclers!! They will eat anything and turn it into compost wonderful for every garden and flowerbed. Plus they are so social. I love their quirky little habits. After various thoughts and discussions (including starting the project to close in the back of the shop shed for a small coop), I ordered the minimum order of specialty chicks online and prepared to pick them up June 8th for delivery to Tina's banty. I decided on Black Australorp and Speckled Sussex. I've had Buff Orpington's in the past and I loved them. The Australorp is supposed to be just a black variation of this bird. The Sussex I have never heard of but it has a nice description and reminded me of my favorite hen, Henrietta, in color.

Australorps are the Australian take on the Orpington breed. They are calm and friendly, and excellent layers of light brown eggs. The Australorp's exceptionally soft, shiny black plumage has hints of green and purple in the sunlight. Peaceful and dignified, Australorps are an absolutely delightful bird which we highly recommend to anyone who wants a pet chicken that lays dependably.[www.mypetchicken.com]

The Sussex have everything: they are great layers of tinted or light brown eggs--and they lay right through the coldest weather. They are dual purpose birds, though fat-bodied and not prone to flying when mature, so they are easily fenced. In England, they used to be THE standard table bird, before the modern Cornish Crosses came along. They forage well and are economical eaters that are friendly and easily handled. Their curious nature means they will often follow you around the yard if they think they can beg a treat from you. The "speckled" variety offered here has plumage that gives them some camouflage from predators, too. Many tend to get more speckles after each successive molt, so they just get prettier with age. Seriously, what more could you ask for in a chicken? [www.mypetchicken.com]

The post office requirement is to pick them up personally, they cannot be delivered to one's house in our area, although I believe this rule varies by locale. They were shipped in a small carton, with a wee bit of bedding and one of the hot-hands packets used for warming your hands while skiing. What a cool idea! Here we arrive at Tina's and she and Judge transfer them to their new mom - Yellow Legs.

The banty was happy to have them and did a great job of raising them to the obnoxious teenager stage.

Judge and Tina's coop is beautiful and very spacious!

Meanwhile, back at home I spent LOTS of time working on my chicken shed, which kept evolving. I purchased a 4x5 3/4" stall mat for the floor, but other than that everything is "found" or discarded or re-used. Linda Yeomans donated about 15 pieces of cedar siding, which you can see I used to make a solid front wall toward the road. I love the smell of that stuff! Several of the 2x6 pieces came from our front porch project which is finally winding down after a full year of stagnation and creeping progress. The church down the road at the corner of Rich and Evergreen gave me a green light to pick up a big pile of wood they were planning to haul off for destruction at the waste-to-energy plant. Inside that load were some old cedar fence boards, which became the siding on the south side of the coop with a good coat of grey to match the shop. Their pile had a good 20+ usable 2x4's which became the door, some of the framing, the interior walls in the new yard storage shed, etc. It was terrific! The only drawback is that working with used wood requires a flexibility in one's design ... something that Skip hates. He was great though ... he just watched and kept his comments to a minimum as the project progressed. Today it remains "almost" finished, and I'm still spending my weekends on it, but he has agreed that it is "coming along."

These next pictures are from today:

The end of the run alongside the shop is now a small storage shed for our lawnmowers. It will have a wall and finished front gates, but no roof. The boat stores up there perfect!

Still need to finish the walls and gate to the shed, build a fancy iron and stained glass gate to the coop itself to replace the temporary one I put up for now, haul in some straw to line the inside of the coop itself, plus put on the sunroof section of the coop roof plus add the roofing shingles to both sides along the recycled shower door (their new sunroof). We'll keep you posted as things progress.

Christian's Sleepover Weekend

August 6th Christian came over for his sleepover weekend. He was planning on "guy things" with Skip and Ryan. We had been reviewing his Cub Scout handbook for various projects he could tackle over the weekend and ended up picking out a few different things. Friday night he tripped over the tipi in its storage bag (where it has been for quite awhile) and said if we would put it up he would sleep in it. Skip heard this and it prompted an immediate push to get the thing up. Altogether it was about 2 hours of work for Skip, Ryan and I. They did most of the lifting. I was in charge of reading the how-to book and measuring, neither of which I managed to do to Skip's satisfaction, but !@! we did get it up and we're all happy with it now. It is quite beautiful ... in the rain, at night, in the day ... it is a mystical, magical presence. Christian took lots of photos, but I'm not sure where they went. Here are three he took the following day.

He and Ryan spent the night out there and had a great time. Apparently they went to bed about 3am after Ryan's buddy, Ben, came over and then left. They also stayed out there Saturday night, but ended up transferring to the shop floor half-way through the evening of comraderie with two other friends because someone saw a HUGE spider headed for Ryan's hair. All four boys moved their blankets to the shop floor and slept out there instead. Saturday Ryan, Skip and Christian worked on his cub-mobile, which would have gone better if they had gotten decent sleep I think. In any event, the work progressed amid various loud, passionate communications and by the end of Saturday it needed a seat cushion and paint, plus steering cord. Sunday morning I got Christian out working on it and he did the painting while I made a seat cushion of black-and-white checkered (think nascar) contact paper and foam on my sewing machine. Merri showed up and we added the steering rope and Skip took him for a spin.