Life and Death and Pizza

We are well into the growing season here at Lick Skillet.

 

The garden is green and lush, yielding tomatoes and beans, corn and potatoes, bean beetles and slugs and flea beetles. 

At least this year the balance is tilting towards more vegetables than pests.
 
Our livestock is blossoming also.

Dale had more kittens (she finally has her date with the veterinarian next month). Current cat count is now at 5.

Mr. Gottlieb

Mrs. Claypool

Our two breeding does continue to be productive. Fluffy Black Phantom (I gotta stop giving the grandkids naming rights) had 9 fat kits who are now old enough to drive her nuts. Monster Bunny followed a few weeks later with 6 babies of her own.

And we recently harvested* eight rabbits. 
That brings the population at Rabbit Town up to 18.

The big surprise of the summer is keets!

One of our 4 guinea hens took herself off into the weeds for a month and came strutting back with 16 babies following her around. The noise level from 4 guineas is sometimes overwhelming, There just may be roast guinea on the menu at some future date if we want to keep our hearing. 
Guineas number stands at 20!

Our chicken raising hasn't been so successful. Our last two laying hens were attacked and killed WHILE IN THEIR FENCED RUN by what turned out to be a neighbor's dog. I came home a few weeks later from a poultry swap with three adult hens, two of whom died within days. The remaining Barred Rock is getting used to her surroundings but keeps looking for a flock to hang with.

So, on a whim, I ordered chicks from the Meyer Hatchery. 

This is a mixed bunch of peeps of indeterminate variety plus a free one. Meyers offers a free chick if you agree to donate its eggs to charity. Got my fingers crossed that it lives that long!
Chickens at this moment=17.

We were blessed to increase the human presence to 4 at Lick Skillet for a few days in July. Grandchildren Lizzy and Elias came to help out and keep us entertained.

 

They ran and climbed and painted and planted. We watched and listened and scolded and loved. In a few years we hope to add brother Oliver to the mix. A group of sheep is a flock, a bunch of sparrows is a host. Would a trio of grandchildren be called a frenzy?

A farm is a microcosm of the world; life and death and growth. Animals are born, some die. Crops grow and wither. Seasons come and go. But at Lick Skillet, one thing never changes...

Homemade pizza for dinner at least once a week.

*In other words, we killed and ate them. I was trying to be sensitive.

What a difference a day makes



Same hen, yesterday and today

 As a mother, all I can say is "ouch".

A Shocking Development

The roll of poultry electronet arrived today. It's relatively easy to put up and can be moved to provide the hens with fresh pasture. They are no longer free-range (see "Fences" ) but this is almost as good with more protection.

We precharged our solar energizer and hooked everything up. Before I could locate the current tester, Dale sniffed the fence and flew back a foot or so! Guess the fence is working!



Dale, aka "Fence Tester"



Fences

We finally met our nearest neighbors yesterday, but not in the circumstances we would have chosen.

We had been free-ranging our hens; they get a well-balanced diet, help keep the insect population in check, and get plenty of exercise. At night they are shut into their predator-safe coop.

Yesterday morning I heard a loud squawking and looked out the window to see one of the neighbor's dogs with the Rhode Island Red in her mouth. I grabbed a coat and ran out yelling but the dog took off through the weeds. Tom had by then joined me and we both hurried up to the corner house.

I had taken walks by the house and been greeted by their three barking dogs. Two of them stayed away, just warning me that I was a stranger. The third was a little, plump mutt that always came out to be petted. This was the one who had killed my chicken.

Mrs. Neighbor was home. She's elderly, walks with a walker. She apologized for the incident and wanted to make good but was firmly of the opinion that dogs should be allowed to roam free.

In the country, dogs trump chickens every time.

Mr. Neighbor stopped by that afternoon. He's a 78 year old preacher, long-time resident of these parts. He too wanted to pay for or replace the chicken. And even though he likes his dogs to run free, he would tie them if absolutely necessary.

There are so many factors in a situation like this.

We're the newcomers. We're from New York--and even though we always say UPSTATE New York, most Midwesterners think of us as city folk. We hope to be here awhile and don't want the locals thinking we're lording it over with our cosmopolitan ways, telling people who have been here for generations how we thinks things should be done.

These are our neighbors. These are the people we will see every day, part of our community, our local support system.

And although I'm not a dog person, I do understand that dog versus chicken is instinct.

We assured our neighbors that no recompense was necessary. That we would be installing more fencing. We also let it be known that we would be getting more animals in the future and the dogs weren't welcome.

It's real common around here for property owners to shoot trespassing dogs. I don't want to have to resort to that measure so will assume the expense of electronet and perimeter fence in the future. And we will call and talk to our neighbors if there is a problem.

Sometimes building walls can build relationships. As the poet said, fences make good neighbors.

Blame the Grandkids

We let our grandchildren name the chickens, so meet

Brownie, Stripey, Cinnamon,

and Hot Dog.

I named the cats--Penny and Dale, two Ginger Rogers characters in Fred Astaire pictures, but I bet you knew that.

Eggs-elent!

Picked up four layers Wednesday evening.

Had our first egg Thursday afternoon.

Yippee!

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!

Cooped Up, Part 2

After we finished the walls, it was time to start the roof.

From my point of view, roofs don't make a lot of sense. Usually, the rafters are nailed into the back wall and the front ends are notched (birdmouthed) so they stick up and you have to put in soffits if you don't want an opening. We fudged this and screwed in both ends. We know this roof won't have to bear a lot of weight so are (mostly) confident it will hold.

There's no getting around the fact that to put on a roof, someone has to climb onto the roof. In our case, that would be me. We hoisted up 2 panels of osb, secured the corners from the ground and then up I went. I love the view from up there.

We added furring strips (found in the garage), and then metal roofing (also found).
To cover the walls we did some serious salvage.
Remember the shed at the beginning of the project?

The original floor was reinforced with T1-11 panels--2 full 4'x8' and several partial pieces. It took hours and some sore muscles, but eventually we pryed them up. Even with that we still needed a few more pieces; Tom suggested the dog house that came with the place. We have no plans to get a dog, so

One deconstructed dog house later, we gained just enough T1-11 to finish the siding.

Next time: chicken door, painting, fencing.

It's a good thing I'm retired.

Every project we start takes twice as long as it should to finish (and costs twice as much, but that’s a thread for another time).

Here’s how a typical chicken coop construction day runs.

Tom and I have different internal clocks, so by the time we both get up and are ready to tackle building, it’s almost 9:00. We’re almost out the door when I remember we’re out of bread and I was going to bake some today. So I throw together the dough, knead it, and set it to rise. This gives us one hour to work uninterrupted.

We grab work hats and gloves—and the kitchen timer—and set off for the garage to cut wood. Oops, where’s the tape measure? Back into the house, find the tape measure, stop to pet the cat, back to the garage. Can’t see the markings from this pencil, where’s the marker? Back into the house, find the blue marker, stop to pet the other cat, back to the garage.

Somehow, we finally manage to get all pieces for the east wall cut and only one of them is measured wrong. Lay them out and get some screws in. The timer rings. Back into the house to punch down the bread dough and shape it into loaves; we have 45 minutes this time.

A few more pieces attached. The phone rings. It’s a dear, and chatty, friend of Tom’s. Thirty minutes later, he’s back working.

Most of the wall is assembled except for figuring out where the window will go. We discover we’re running out of screws. And nails. The timer rings; inside to bake the bread which gives us another 35 minutes.

We work on the window. The bread is done and it’s lunchtime.

We decide a run into town is necessary. Town is 11 miles away so this will take an hour or two. And every trip must be for multiple errands to justify the time and gas. So we clean up and head towards Salem—bank, lumber yard, grocery store.

Back home and into work clothes again. We finish the wall! Well, kind of. I realize later that we’ve forgotten the support under the window but that can be added.  The forecast calls for rain so we cover our creation with tarps and rocks and wrap up another more or less productive day of building.

It’s a good thing I’m retired; I can't imagine how long this would take if we only had weekends.

Cooped Up, Part 1

At first we thought we could fix up this shed for a chicken coop. A realistic look at the work involved caused us to chicken out of that idea.

So we hit the lumber store and started building. For the record, even though this is the 6^th shed we’ve constructed, we’re still making mistakes and figuring it out as we go.

First we scrounged cement blocks from around the property. We did our level best to get them even but still had to reset them later (I know, in a frost area they should be dug in. But we've never had a problem with heave and the chickens won't mind if their home is slightly tilted). The coop is 8’ by 6’ so we could square the corners using our old geometry friend the 3-4-5 right triangle (Kids! Math does come in handy).

We used 2x4’s for the floor base. If the structure was going to be any larger we would have gone for 2x6’s and hanger joists. Everything is screwed together; thank heavens for screw guns!



We did have some help along the way.

At first we used ½” plywood for the flooring. The voice of experience should have told us that wasn’t thick enough and sure enough, the floor bounced. So we added an underlayment of osb and the floor will now support the heaviest chickens we can raise. We also waterproofed the ply and beams.

This was going to be a lean-to type shed using the wall of the garage as a back wall. But the garage siding is ribbed and we couldn’t see a good way to close any gaps left. And having a healthy regard for possible tornadoes, we decided to make a back wall and bolt it to the garage. More 2x4’s to frame the wall and we sided it with any and every scrap of osb and ply we could find laying around, then painted it.

We weren’t sure we could lift it up into place, 2 senior citizens with bad knees and backs, but with a bit of grunting we got it up. It’s nailed into the floor and temporarily braced at the sides.

There is no rain in the forecast so today we’re giving our bodies a break. We do plan to pull some metal roofing out of the weeds, flatten it, and see if we have enough for the roof. And that broken down shed has an inner screen door we think will work plus an extra window (even chickens deserve a window). We’re still considering siding so we’ll make some calls today and see what we can rustle up.