New galleries of the chickens and the ducks

Galleries posted for the chickens and the ducks and the coop gallery has been updated.

Move in day for the chicks!

We've finished up the clapboarding and built the internal wall and door to keep the chickens out of the grain area, so today is move in day for the chicks!

Internal wall and door finished

View of the internal door from the outside

Putting in the shavings

All ready!

Getting ready to release the chicks

Releasing them!

Chicks getting used to the new digs

Got to stick close together!

Even more clapboards... almost there!

Laurie did another stint clapboarding the coop, Max even helped a bit!

Front of the coop

Max and Laurie working on the coop

End of the coop

More clapboards on the coop

Laurie got some more time to work on clapboarding the coop, so more progress!

Clapboarding the coop

Laurie's been hard at work getting the coop clapboarded, making good progress.

Clapboards on the back of the coop

Clapboards on the front of the coop

Chicken doors

We built some doors to cover the chicken door holes, installed them and trimmed them and finished the trim around the main door today.

Trimming the new chicken door, plus you can
see the new trim around the bottom of the main door

Other chicken door in progress

Polying the coop floor

We decided to try to poly the floor in the coop to try to protect it and make it last longer. Laurie is the queen of poly application, so she's been hard at work.

Poly - waterproof = good?

Latches and some plexiglass

I cut down a piece of plexiglass to cover the window in the coop's door and Laurie installed it with some silicone and a couple of metal brackets. Plus Laurie installed the latches on the coop's door.

Window covered and latches on

Chicken coop gallery updated!

Laurie has posted more pics of the coop construction in the gallery.

Big and little doors in the coop

Amy, Sam, and Esten were visiting Max and Sharon from the west coast, so they all came over to help out with the coop and visit. We got the door framed and installed, moved a big granite rock over to serve as the front step, and cut out the chicken doors. Lots of progress!

Max checking the fit on the door

Max framing the door

Laurie hanging the door

Laurie and Sam picking out the step

Laurie cutting a chicken door

Step and door in place and a chicken door cut out

View of the other chicken door

Or is it a Max door?

Nana and Max peeking out of the window in the door

Now Amy and Esten peeking out of the window in the door

Trimming the coop!

Laurie and I got the trim for the coop's soffit in place while Max played in his ExerSaucer, then Laurie got the rest of the trim up on the coop while Max and I explored the yard. After Laurie was done with the trim, I installed the new eave vents that we picked up at Home Depot. The coop is really coming along. It looks cute as all heck!

Trimming the coop

Another angle of the trim

End vent in place

Ain't I something...

All done for the day!

The coop now has windows!

Max had his crew pre-trim the windows for the coop for us, it made installation a breeze and they look awesome! We think the coop is looking great and couldn't be more excited!

Max hanging one of the side windows

Laurie and Max working together

Coop with windows installed

Chicken coop construction gallery posted..

Laurie created a gallery of pictures from the construction of the chicken coop, you can check it out here.

More weekend work

We Typar'd and tar-papered the coop today. We planted our new basswood tree down by the river, 3 new sugar maples on our property line, and a weeping willow on the other corner of our property. Our whole Fedco Trees order is now in the ground, yay! I managed to get some of the old tomatoes raked out of the big garden and got the rest of strawberries planted in the end of the cranberry bed. We're talking about expanding the big garden this year to allow for a multiple year rotation with cover crops to enrich the soil in the off years. If you're going to dream, dream big.

Tar-papering the coop - leftover tar-paper from the roof
and some Typar that Max had in his barn, thanks Max!

Can't you just see this full of low-bush blueberries???

Pussy willow bloom

New American Basswood - we can't wait for this to grow up,
their blooms smell heavenly and bees just love them

Weekend work

I finished up preparing all the raised beds, turning them and adding composted manure to each remaining bed as well as adding peat moss to the new blueberry bed. Laurie finished shingling the coop, planted the cranberries, prepared a bed and planted some flower seeds down by the river (where we're going to be married) and planted pak choi, swiss chard, cilantro, and beets in the first raised bed.

Work in the raised beds

Laurie finishing up the shingling

Daffodils in bloom

Hyacinth in bloom

Peonies coming up

Gardening!

Laurie got the rest of the raspberries planted today and I did some work in the raised beds getting them ready for the cranberries and the rest of the strawberries.

The well-documented seedlings

New high-bush blueberries

New strawberry plant

New raspberries

View of the coop from the compost pile

More work on the coop...

Paul's son and his friend came over to work on the coop again today, working on trimming out around the roof, shingling almost all of the roof (until the shingles ran out), and last-but-not-least cutting us a door hole! It's looking really good!

Coop raising (day two)

Max, Paul, and his son Brandon came over to do some more work on the coop today. They made amazing progress: getting the rafters up, both end walls up and sheathed, and the roof sheathed and tar-papered!

Rafters all in place

End walls framed and sheathed

Roof sheathed and tar-papered

Coop raising

Big Max, Brandon and Dede came over to help us out with the coop building today. We're thrilled with the progress! It is so exciting to have things progressing on the coop, we're sure it's going to be wonderful when it is finished!

Framing up the sill for the floor

Finishing off the deck

Back wall in place

Front wall in place

Little Max was grateful to have Dede's assistance supervising!

Materials for the coop are here!

Yay! We received our delivery from Hancock Lumber today! Everything we need to get the coop going!

Preparing for the coop

We spent the day in the yard today preparing the site for the coop. We stripped all the sod away and took away enough topsoil to try to level the ground up a bit. Then we added a layer of gravel to improve the drainage, to hopefully prevent the cement blocks from sinking, and to make an inhospitable environment for rodents. The sod was deposited in a pile to use in the next compost pile. This all may seem silly bit of extra work, but even if the rest of it doesn't work out to be useful we got a bunch of decent loam for the compost pile this way from a location where it wouldn't have provided any benefit otherwise.

Very gratifying to get the gravel on Friday and actually have it in place the very next day!

Before we started the "excavation" work

Finishing up removing the sod and doing some smoothing

Almost done with the gravel

Gravel for the coop

We picked up two loads of gravel from Dayton Sand and Gravel today. The gravel is going to serve as the "foundation" for the new coop. We're planning to strip away all the sod from where the coop is going to be and then lay down several inches of gravel to help with drainage, stabilize the cement blocks that will support the coop, and hopefully discourage mice and rats from trying to chew through the floor of the coop.

Pretty granite gravel

Changes in the raised beds..

We've got big new plans for the raised beds this year! We're moving all of the vegetables down to the big garden in the field and converting the beds to perennials. The first bed will be next year's garlic bed (instead growing them in the back flower garden), then asparagus (moving it out of the back flower garden), then low bush (and two mid-bush) blueberries, then cranberries, and finally strawberries. I recently cleaned out the hallway and one of the goat stalls in the barn and mulched the aisles and fertilized what will be the cranberry bed. I'm also going to take all of the soil out of the strawberry bed and compost it for a few years since it's most recently had peppers and tomatoes in it and then bring in new soil, compost, and composted goat manure.

Also, we've settled on a site for our new chicken coop, it's going to be in the back "courtyard" to the side of the clump of maples. We're finalizing coop plans and getting materials ordered for construction. We're hoping to have a very nice home in place for our 12 Dominique pullets and 1 Dominique cockerel by the time they arrive!

Freshly mulched beds.

Bed with compost awaiting new cranberry plants.

Me, Max, Rox and the goats in the (partially) clean barn.

Future home of our new chicken coop.