Tar without feathers

Last weekend I spent part a sunny spring day trying not to be covered in tar.

The roof of our new chicken coop, see Chicken Coop, leaks (I may  have mentioned that building roofs is not our strong point). We might have to redo the metal panels but decided to try covering the nails and seams with yet more roofing tar first.

I climbed up onto the roof and wielded the putty knife with as much precision as possible, which is to say, not very precisely at all.What is it about this stuff? No matter how careful you are, it gets everywhere you don't want it to. At least this time I didn't end up sitting in a glop of tar.

Tar is useful, if smelly, stuff. Pine tar is good not only on bats but can be put on wounds on animals--on chickens it will keep other birds from pecking at the sores (but it also sticks to feathers and coats and fingers--I've switched to Bluekote which also stains but at least it isn't sticky).

And everytime I use tar, I come away thinking of the LaBrea Tar Pit or Brer Rabbit. I'm hoping this dinosaur won't need the stuff again anytime soon.

Cooped Up, part 3--Chicken Eve

Penny: "I heard we're getting chickens tonight."

Dale: "Wow, that's great! What are chickens?"

The coop is done, finished, completed. Whew!

All we had to do after the last post was:

    

     Add the chicken door

     Glaze the window glass

     Caulk

     Add drip edge to the roof

     Put polyurethane on the door

     Fence a small run

     Add a gate

     Add nest boxes

The chicken door is Episcopal church door red--ever notice almost every Episcopal church has a red door? I thought the coop needed some color and it was the only other outside paint I had.

We made a miscalculation on the roof (for some reason, we always have trouble with roofs) so added drip edge to cover a small gap.

We decided to not only fence in a small run area but also fence around the base of the coop to discourage whoever might want to dig under and take up residence. We got it all secured, made sure we hadn't fenced in the cats, looked five minutes later and Penny had managed to get under somehow. Sigh.

The nest boxes are two plastic cat litter buckets I retrieved from a recycling bin. The roost is a long dowel we found in our garage.

I didn't keep track of how much the project cost, I'm guessing about $150 and a lot of sweat and sore muscles. Here's a rundown of what we bought and what we "repurposed":

• Lots of 2'x4's--we had bought about 20 on sale back in NY and brought them along, we did buy about 10 more and there were a few in the Lick Skillet garage.
• Cement blocks--found here
• 2 sheets of plywood--bought new
• 4 sheets of osb--bought new
• Primer, white paint--bought new
• Waterproofing--brought from NY
• Siding--T1-11--found here
• Metal roofing--found here
• Screws--some we had, bought more
• Roofing nails--found here
• Roofing tar--bought new
• Door--found here
• Gate--found here
• Fencing and posts--brought from NY

Our heartfelt thanks to the previous owners who left such great stuff lying around! New metal roofing and T1-11 would have easily cost another $200.

I'm picking up four layers tonight; we're more than ready to get back to fresh eggs and are sincerely hoping NOT to tackle another construction project for awhile--I'm tired!