Moving day

In honor of Father’s Day, I made caramel pecan rolls for breakfast. Hilda provided the coffee, and we had breakfast on the deck. Afterwards, we made the final preparations on the coop. Terry put hardware cloth over the inside of the window to be sure raccoons couldn’t get in. We filled the new 5-gallon waterer and put it up on cinder blocks. Terry put a hook in the ceiling for a chain from which to hang the feeder. Hilda put food in it and hung in up. No more kicking pine chips and pooping on the feed! I filled the grit station and positioned it by the chicken door.

Hilda hangs the feeder

I spread bedding on the floor

The view from the chicken door while the coop is still poop-free

We had a lengthy discussion about how to move the chickens. Hilda thought we should carry them individually from the garage to the coop. I thought the risk of having one start flapping and getting loose was too high. I thought we should carry them all in the cage. Terry didn’t think the cage would fit through the door. In the end, we carried the cage with the chickens to the coop and parked it outside. I picked up the chicks one and a time and tossed them into the coop while Terry manned the door.

Moving the girls to the coop

We took the plastic tray from the bottom of the cage and put the cage outside the chicken door. The books say to leave the chicks in the coop for a few days so they learn that is where they are supposed to sleep. I was concerned, however, that it would be too hot in there. The cage was the compromise. The girls couldn’t go too far from the coop, but they could still get out if they needed fresh air, and having the door open allowed a nice cross breeze through the coop.

Ellie was the first to come out into the cage. She was very excited about the abundance of grass and clover. Others soon followed, and before long, everyone was outside.

Ellie was first out. Bridget and Jennifer are in the doorway thinking it over.



More chicks enjoy the grass and clover. The chicks put their tails up more when they are outside. Here Ingrid (the brown one) demonstrates.



Everyone in the cage.

As soon and the chicks were in the coop, I realized that planning everything for full-sized chickens was premature. The water was too high. I replaced the cinder blocks with bricks that were about half as high. The girls found the grit station before they found the food. Afraid that they would fill up on grit, I moved the station next to the food. I knelt in the coop for a little while, directing the chicks’ attention to the food and water until I was convinced that everyone knew where these essential items were.

And the perch was too tall. I checked periodically through the day to see if anyone was able to fly up to a 32” perch. The girls were settling into the coop nicely, but resting on the floor. Meanwhile, I helped Terry plant blackberries and raspberries. After lunch, I built a ladder up to the perch. Ina and Sara showed some interest in it, but didn’t get above the fourth step. At the end of the day I had not seen any chickens on the perch, I saw a poop at the top of the ladder. That didn’t get there by itself!

The ladder to the perch. If you look closely, you can see poop at the top.



Rain!

It has been raining heavily for almost an hour. If it would keep up for awhile, it could make a difference. Hilda's first comment when the rain began: "But I haven't finished watering!" Ha!
Before the rain started, I took off the masking tape Terry put up on the coop walls to make a clean line between the paint and the rubber. It was easier than I thought it would be. I had a razor blade ready in case the rubber below the tape pulled off, but for the most part, it separated cleanly. Terry has installed a latch on the people door and hooks to hold a 2 x 4 over the chicken door. We can now contain the girls in the coop and keep the raccoons out. Still hoping to move them tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to getting caught up on my inside work while Father Sky does the watering for a change.

The coop's home stretch

The coop is nearly ready for the girls, and not a moment too soon. We passed the 6-week deadline last Wednesday. When I began reading up on coops after we had the girls installed in the brooder, several sources emphasized having the coop built before getting the chicks. I was concerned, but thought certainly we could get it built with plenty of time once I was done with classes. Terry was retired, after all. Well. Terry’s inclination to build everything in the best possible way combined with Hilda’s virtually unlimited budget has given us not a chicken coop, but a Chicken Coop. Chateau des Poulets. If the chickens don’t work out, we can use it as a guest house.

No room for Sara! Only nine chickens will fit on the annex perches. Odd that they sorted themselves by color.

Terry put in a door for the chickens, insulated the chicken part of the coop, and covered the insulation with plywood on June 11. The next day, he built an internal wall dividing the chicken space from the storage space. He put a human door and a door to the nest boxes in the wall. He’ll build the nest boxes later, since the chickens won’t need them until fall, and one doesn’t want them to get into the habit of roosting in the nest boxes.

The chicken door

Insulation covered with plywood (left of chicken door) and uncovered (right)

The human door between the coop
and storage area

Next to the human door is an
access door to the nest boxes

Frames for the nest boxes in the coop side

On Wednesday, Hilda and I put a coat of primer on the chicken walls. Terry and I put a perch across the coop so we could paint it while we were doing the walls later in the day.

Perch (left) and painted walls

We had thought and thought about ways to cover the floor to facilitate power washing. Terry came up with the idea of using a liquid rubber coating. (The bucket said something like “foundation sealant.”)While I helped Hilda with the morning chicken chores on Thursday, he went around the coop filling in the larger gaps. He and I put the first coat down. It was slow going. He thought the goop was going to be the consistency of frosting; it turned out to be more like ganache. Thus, it ran down cracks that Terry expected it to fill. “If we did this every week,” I said, “we’d know exactly what to do.”

Terry spreads goop on the floor

So I slopped the stuff on the floor, filling the holes and cracks as best I could, and Terry got busy stuffing filler into the cracks he skipped the first time through. We had only one brush, but there wasn’t room for two people. We traded off when our knees couldn’t stand it anymore. At the end of the job, however, we weren’t satisfied with the coverage. So we put on a second coat today. That coat went lickety split and looked great. Nothing but the hardware left. The books recommend airing the coop for two days after painting. We are on schedule for a Sunday installation of the birds.

It’s hot and dry again. The gardens are irrigated by a system of drip lines and are doing fine. The only hard part about that is remembering to switch the water from one set of lines to the next. Terry has to water his trees with a hose, if it can reach, or with watering cans, which is loads up into the back of the Gator and takes to where he needs them, splashing water all the way. I am experimenting with a few native plants in the wetland and on the bank of the creek. It seemed like a good idea when I didn’t know we’d have a drought. Every other day, I carry two full watering cans to my cardinal flowers, spiderwort, downy foxglove, and turtlehead plants at the edge of the wetland. Then I take the empty cans to the creek, fill them as best I can, and water the lupines, ginger, cardinal flowers, and jack-in-the-pulpits back there. I trudge back to the house through the grasses and clover that somehow continue to grow in soil so dry it is riddled with deep cracks. I rinse out the mud and dead leaves from the creek water and return the watering cans to Terry’s collection by the rain barrel. The whole process takes an hour. I try to get it done before the day gets beastly hot.

While I was trimming the flowers off the asparagus this morning (to keep the stored energy in the roots for next year instead of having it diverted to fruit—Terry’s idea), incessant chirping drew my attention to one of the lower branches on a nearby oak tree. There was Mrs. Oriole feeding her chicks in a pendulant nest. I’m delighted that they are nesting on our property. They certainly eat a good deal of our grape jelly!

The rest of my morning was spent weeding. Weeding is a task that requires intense concentration (so as not to pull the plants you want to keep) while being at the same time mind-numbingly dull. It’s a bad combination. The beans were the easiest, being generally larger than the weeds. I thinned them as I went down the row and was pleased to see the development of numerous root nodules, a sign that nitrogen-fixing bacteria have established that happy relationship in which the bacteria get sugar from the plant and the plant gets nitrogen fertilizer from the bacteria.

Root nodules on a green bean seedling

The beets were the hardest because at this point they are pretty much the same size as the grass and smaller than the amaranth. It is hard not to catch a beet leaf along with the grass leaves and pull everyone out of the ground. I thinned and weeded the cabbages too and gave the culled cabbage sprouts to the girls.

We also gave the chickens worms for the first time today, dropping them into the annex where they wouldn’t get lost in the pine chips. As with any new food, they didn’t quite get it at first. Nigella, presumably by chance, got a worm in the right orientation on an early try. Once she’d eaten that one, she was quite enthusiastic. While her sisters were still tentatively pecking and puzzling, Nigella grabbed a worm, ran to the farthest corner of the cardboard box to dine in peace, then ran back to the annex to get another. Chickens are a hoot!

June 10, Day 40

It is hard to eat with no hands. I first observed this many years ago while watching a snake eat a toad. It was hit and miss at first—the toad was not a willing participant—but when the snake had a good grab on it, it had kept at it, working its jaw around the toad millimeter by millimeter. It was agonizingly slow. The chickens don’t have any trouble with the “crumble,” as the feed is called. These little bits of food don’t need any handling. The greens are another matter. They are most adept at grass. Through several iterations of picking up and dropping, they are pretty good at orienting it so one end is in their mouth. Once the blade is in position, they slurp it down like spaghetti. Broad leaves are another thing entirely. They peck and shake to dislodge the leaflets from the clover and break up the dandelion leaves. It is a lot of work to feed yourself using only your mouth.

Ingrid slurps a blade of grass

Ina eats some clover

Ellie pick lambs quarter from the top of the cage

The entertainment value of giving greens to the chickens has changed the way I pull weeds from the garden. I walk the row first and pull up all the tasty treats before I start in with the hoe. Today I found two enormous lambs quarters growing among the peas. I tied them to the side of the annex, which seemed to help them get the leaves off the stem. In a few hours, the stripped and wilted stems dangled forlornly from the strings.

Jennifer and Ellie graze on lambs quarter from the perches while Bridget forages on the annex floor

The potato experiment is done. The sprouts that I left above ground never did turn green. They sprouted new growth from the base, but otherwise failed to develop.

Original sprout from the pantry, seen in the bottom middle of the picture, never amounted to anything.

The evening primrose I bought in May is blooming now. It blooms in the morning. Go figure.

Evening primrose blooming in the morning

We should be picking peas in a day or two. I’m getting a little panicky that the harvest is starting and I haven’t got my syllabi done for fall yet. I must get into work this week.

Peas approach harvest

New portraits

Jane suggested that I post new portraits of the girls because the group shots I put up after I got back were hard to see. The chicks certainly look a lot different now that they are growing up. They are not particularly willing portrait sitters, however, and what you are about to see is the result of an hour of work and 4 separate trips to the garage to be sure I had everyone, and everyone in focus. Which reminds me of something I read last night that suggested that instead of a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, Hoover's 1928 campaign would have been better off to promise a chicken in every garage (Smith, Jane. 2012. In priase of chickens: a compendium of wisdom fair and fowl. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press.)

Bridget (Aracana)

From left to right, Giada, Ellie, and Sara (Dominique)

Ina (Aracana)

Ingrid (Aracana)

Jennifer (Light Brahma)

Julia (Aracana)

Nigella (Aracana, back) and Clarissa (Light Brahma, front)

Roofing

The coop roof is shingled. We got lucky on the weather. There was little wind, which made putting the tar paper down easier. We started by nailing metal strips along all the edges. I held the roll of tar paper while Terry lined it up. My stapling skills were found to be lacking, so I lost that job after having to hammer some of my staples flat.

Stapling tar paper shortly before I was fired as a stapler

It warmed up quickly today and was especially hot on the roof after the tar paper was installed. It was uncomfortable, but the tar strips on the back of the shingles really stuck them down. We had to be careful climbing around on the roof, which I didn’t know until I tried it and was reprimanded. I helped nail the first several rows, but after that Terry took over, and I just delivered shingles and held Terry's ladder. I got pretty good at cutting them. Each row took 3 and a third shingle. We had almost no waste. Terry did not even claim to have planned it that way. As we worked, I remembered when we shingled the ag shed. It’s slow going. The shingles are big, making one think that it will be done in an instant. In reality, however, half of the shingle gets covered up in every row.

Every row we had to lean in a little farther

Terry did the very top rows from above

With the rows of shingles done, I set to work cutting shingles for the ridge. Again it worked out perfectly to cut the shingle in thirds crosswise and in half the long way. It was a good day’s work. I don’t think my clothes will ever be the same.

Preparing to deliver the ridge shingles after cutting them with an Exacto knife

Terry finishes up the ridge

7 days, 3600 miles

Just before we left to go to Mesquite, NV for a wedding, we fixed up an annex to the brooder box. We guessed correctly that the girls were going to keep growing rapidly. I brought up the cage that has served as the infirmary for Della (the cat) when she is recovering from surgery and/or needs antibiotics. She is not a good patient, and I’m not about to drag her out from under a bed every time I have to give her medicine. The cat cage makes a very good chicken annex. The girls were hesitant at first, but with the inducement of a little fresh clover, they all found their way through the opening and out into the fresh air.

The annex attached to the brooder box



The braver girls venture through the hole in the box for fresh clover.

Our road trip to Nevada can be summed up in one word: ZOOM! We both wanted to travel the historic Route 66 at some point, and Terry suggested that this trip would be as good a time as any. I ordered a Route 66 guide from Amazon. The guide said to plan on spending two weeks to go one way. We had three days. We weren’t going to start in Chicago or go all the way to L.A. We were going from Bloomington/Normal to the end of Arizona. We would not have much time for site seeing. Still, we drove for at least a little bit on the old Route 66 in every state through which we passed.

One of my goals was to go to the Cozy Drive Inn where the “hot dog on a stick” a.k.a. corn dog was invented. My Route 66 guide was not helpful here, but I found the address at the Funk’s Grove rest area and punched it into my GPS. We got to Springfield, IL at 10:30, which seemed early for lunch. Luckily, the Cozy Dog was open (and had been since 8:00 a.m. I didn’t ask why.) It was the most outstanding corn dog I have ever had in my whole life.

The original corn dog with Route Beer 66 (root beer) made with "real cane sugar."

In Missouri, we detoured from the interstate to see limestone cliffs in Pacific and Devil’s Elbow, so named for a sharp bend in the Big Piney River where logjams were once common.

Limestone cliffs in Pacific, Missouri



Bridge over Devil's Elbow of the Big Piney River, MO

We pulled into a Waffle House at 4:30 for supper. I love their hash browns “all the way”—cheese, tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, mushrooms, and chili. I was surprised and disappointed that Missouri has not yet banned indoor smoking. Ug. The place was nearly empty, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We spent the night in Mt. Vernon.

Up early and on to Oklahoma. We kept to the interstate most of the day, getting off only once to follow what the guidebook described as one of the best drives on 1930’s concrete 66. Note that it does not say most scenic. It took us awhile to figure out that it was the best preserved original pavement. Otherwise it was a pretty boring stretch. It did have a cool old bridge over the Southern Canadian River called the Pony Bridge because it used 38 small pony (small) trusses in its 1933 construction.

Pony Bridge, Oklahoma, on an original stretch of Route 66

It was now apparent that we had a very long way to go to be in Mesquite Friday evening. Consequently, we pretty much put the pedal to the metal, landing in Albuquerque (is there any more peculiar spelling of a name?) at 8:00. Or was it 7:00? Did we change time zones? What day was it, anyway? We had a nice Mexican dinner at a restaurant within walking distance of the motel.

The next day was the same hard driving across the rest of New Mexico and Arizona. We stopped briefly at an overlook near the Nevada border by Hoover Dam. We ran into a little rush hour traffic in Las Vegas, but  got to Mesquite at 6:00. We found the family hanging out by the pool. It was 105 degrees.

Scenic overlook just before we got to Nevada

There were no organized plans for Saturday morning. I didn’t set an alarm and planned to sleep a little later. However, with the time changes, I was bright-eyed as a marigold at 4:30. Terry was awake an hour later, and we got up and left for the Valley of Fire state park. At least we would get there before it got too beastly hot. We got bakery goods and lattes at the Starbucks in the hotel to take with us. It was in the upper 80’s when we set off at 7:00. It was nearly 90 by the time we got there an hour later. It was largely a drive-through experience. My geologist friend Kate told me before we left that the Valley of Fire was a must-see. It was filled with geological awesomeness. Also, we saw lizards, desert plants, birds, and mammals. I was particularly thrilled by three families of Gambel’s quails with chicks at various ages. One family’s offspring were fully feathered and about half the size of the parents. One set of chicks was still downy but fairly good sized, and one group looked like cotton balls with legs. So cute! I only got a good picture of the middle family. The cotton balls ran for the shrubbery and stayed there.

Cool rock formations in the Valley of Fire

Gambel's quail parent with babies following behind

The wedding was at 6:00 Saturday evening. The temperature was 106 and the humidity was 4%. FOUR PER CENT. By this time I felt as if my face might crack and fall off. The minister was brief, praise be, and we were back in the air-conditioned meeting room for a nice buffet and open bar before long. The only picture I took in Mesquite was of the ice machine down the hall from our room.

Whats wrong with this picture?

We had a big breakfast at the resort Sunday morning and were back on the road by 8:00. We stopped at just one scenic overlook in Utah and soon afterward were climbing the Rockies. The father of the bride gave us a tip that we could save a bunch of money on a room if we went beyond Vail to Silverthorne, which we did. We stopped at a Wendy’s somewhere for chili and a frosty. This week had to be a junk-food record for me.

Utah overlook

We took a detour through Dillon before we got on the highway in the morning and happened upon a mountain lake. After that, there was nothing but prairie. We spent the night in Lincoln and got home at 4:00 Tuesday afternoon, so ready to get out of the car. Illinois is so wonderfully green. A cool breeze refreshed me as I walked around to check on my flowers and the gardens.

The girls are so big! Hilda reported that Ellie is an attention hog. During bonding time, she cut to the head of the line and had to be held as many as three times. They love hanging out in the annex. We leave the garage door open as often as the weather allows.

Big girls hanging around the annex

Today Terry got the door put on the coop. Tomorrow we shingle.