Still here

Wow. I have been the anti-blog this month. And with good reason. It has been dizzyingly busy here. Work, chicken coops, work, chicken runs, work, and a big ole round of speed-camping-prep.

The chicken coop now looks like this:




It was finished at 8pm on the night before we were supposed to leave for camping. This was not really a big deal, because who doesn't want to stay up until the wee hours packing and pre-cooking and organizing for a trip on which you will not sleep well for three nights straight. Maybe next time I will plan a little farther ahead. That shouldn't be too hard, because two days before we were supposed to leave, we were still trying to track down (and purchase, at prices not at all consistent with the whole "cheap vacation" scenario that camping used to represent to us) all the necessary supplies. Like a tent. And bug spray. And maybe some food.

I am beyond pleased with the coop, though, as are the biddies. They still have no names, but they come zipping out the chicken door every morning like their tiny yard is the best playground EVER. Then, they suddenly scurry back inside because some blade of grass waved the wrong way and freaked them out. Loud noises set them off too, but they now know that I often bring goodies and they scoot right over to see me when I come visit. At night, they all crowd onto the same corner of their roost. Sillies.

We almost had an unplanned addition to the fence. Here is El Husbando engaging in more underpaid manual labor:



He slaved in all weather conditions to dig the holes for the fence posts. The boss from &^$$ insisted that the posts needed to be buried 2 feet deep. Our soil is nothing but rocks and the poor man was armed with nothing but a manual post hole auger and a giant pry bar. Plus, he was given a tight schedule for digging because the boss insisted that the coop had to be fully functional before we left for camping.

Once the posts were in, it was time for some big heavy pressure treated 2x4s. The strong man was engaged in other necessary work at this stage, and it was necessary for me to be marvelously creative in order to keep the boards in place while I was nailing them in. Enter The Ladder. It made a great set of extra hands and you can see how nicely it holds the board for me.



A little too nicely, in fact. Here is the moment where I was punished by the fates for excessive pride:



Can you see it clearly enough? I nailed both ends of the board without removing the ladder and thereby earned myself a tremendous amount of abuse from the parts of the family who were not busy being boneheads. The picture is nice and big to represent the extent of my humiliation.

Next time I build a chicken coop, I'll know better.