"Good morning!"

One of our cockerels recently started crowing.  Then another decided to give it a try.  It's been an amusing few weeks of strangled squawks in the morning as I walk to the coop, but they would be very shy as soon as I pulled out my phone to get a video.  However, last week, I was victorious!

And this morning, he finally emitted a complete crow, with both notes at the end!  Good job, chicken!  I'll try to get that on video this weekend.

Of course, that also means that we have to hurry up and harvest the cockerels that we won't be keeping.  They're getting progressively aggressive with each other, and once they reach full maturity their meat gets tough and takes on a different flavour.  We'll give it a try this weekend, once we assemble all the supplies.

And sadly, this fellow is destined for the freezer.  However, I'm confident that YR and YO (the two we will be keeping; one for us, and one for Hal and Cathy) will soon pick up this morning greeting.  They are named based on the legbands they were assigned; I weighed each cockerel a few weeks ago and gave them all a yellow band as I went.  There were three over 5 lbs, who each got an extra band: YB (Yellow Blue) just squeaked over the 5 lb mark by less than an ounce, and YR (Yellow Red) and YO (Yellow Orange) were both over 5 lbs 3 oz.  Going back to my "large chickens make more large chickens" theory, those are the keepers.

This past weekend I also picked up a load of hay for chicken bedding over the winter.  I had hoped to get straw, but as there aren't many grains grown around here, I couldn't find any.  Luckily, Nicola (from the Rescue) has some hay that has too much clover for horses, so she's selling it at the low, low price of $1 per square bale.  There's two reasons this is awesome: 1. That's the cheapest price I've found; and 2. The money goes to the Rescue!  So I took the truck down to where they're being stored, and managed to stack 20 bales in the truck.  I've never stacked hay before, so I studied some stacking schematics the night before.  However, as I loaded the first bale, I noticed a problem: the diagrams were for long-box pickups, and ours is a standard box.  Hmmmm.......  Some quick refiguring and I was picking, tossing, and stacking again.  In the end, 20 bales is a fairly respectable number (I could have fit two more bales if I'd had longer straps!) and I made it home without any of my load shifting, loosening, or falling.  SUCCESS!!!!  To anyone who does this regularly, I'm sure you're thinking "Look, it's an ignorant city girl trying to hack it, how cute!" but I'm mighty proud of myself.

And Zim enjoyed the opportunity to jump and climb and sniff all the bales:

And of course, he had to inspect my work when it was done:

Apologies for the terrible lighting in our barn!

Now, for a bit of back-story:  Two years ago, we lived just down the road from the Rescue.  One fall day I got a text from Nicola, asking if I was able to come help stack bales.  At the time, I was having problems with my wrists (an old work-related injury) so I knew I wouldn't be any help.  However, it gave me a goal: get enough strength so I could help with haying.  This year, I have been thrice successful in meeting that goal: we helped Matt and Tessa get their hay in, then I spent an evening helping Nicola, and now I've loaded and unloaded a stack of bales for us.  So while it seems like such a trivial thing ("So you stacked some bales, so what?  I stacked 3000 this year.") it's a milestone for me, and one of the reasons I'm so darn proud of myself.

In other news: still working on the soffits/fascia, but we installed some pot lights (did I tell you this already...?) and they look amazing.  We noticed that our front window is no longer sealed, so we bought some thermal curtains to get us through the winter, with plans to replace it next summer.  We still haven't tilled in the garden, and we are supposed to be reaching lows around -8 this week, with snow at some point (I've stopped paying attention to the forecast - it's always wrong anyway).  I've plugged in the light in the pumphouse on a timer, as we woke up one morning to discover that it was +0.5 degrees in there.  Yikes!  The last thing we need right now it to have something go sideways with our water.  This morning it was a toasty +18 in there - about as warm as the house.  Awesome :)

Now, in order to encourage you to make this a two-way conversation (instead of just me, rambling into the wind): What is on your to-do list to get ready for winter (or summer, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere)?

Just a quick update!

Just a super-quick, text-only update, as it's been over a month (oops!!  Sorry everyone!!!!!).  It's been a busy month (when was our last NON-busy month......???) but we're enjoying our last few days of a 12-day vacation, so I am puttering, and jumping from task to task, and spending more time relaxing than has become the sad norm lately.

So, what has happened in the past month?

Chickens

Our birds are doing well.  Their last weigh-in was almost three weeks ago, and they averaged just over two pounds.  Two weeks ago, one of the cockerels started attempting to crow, which was quite amusing.  I tried to get a video but of course, he got a little camera shy and kept quiet as I peered out the pop-hole (chicken door) of the coop willing him to try again.  They continue to grow well, and are friendly and really enjoying the scraps from the garden harvest.

Garden

We've only got one thing left in the veggie garden: a shallot from Kim that I hope will give us some seeds before dying.  We got our first frost on Sept 16th, and what I believe was our first freeze on the night of the 25th (which was the night we got back from our travelling... more on that later).  Before we left, I harvested the potatoes and the turnips.  The potatoes were great (except the Cariboos) but the turnips should have been harvested much earlier, and were thus very large and wormy.  We had already eaten the few carrots that came up, and two harvests of peas (with lots left for seed).  On the 18th, I built a frame for the corn and draped a frost cover over top.  I covered the last of the peas (for seed), the three cabbages, and the lone, tall shallot (which involved pounding a long piece of steel into the ground to hold up the covering, providing the perfect opportunity to use the post-pounder my brother built for me - it works great!  If ever you need a post pounder welded up, Bob's your guy!).  When we got home, the corn was still half covered and the post and the tallest shallot spear had poked through their covering, but the peas and the cabbages were still snug under their frost cloth.  I harvested everything but the shallot: the peas were picked and laid on a pie plate to finish drying; the cabbages were chopped, blanched, and frozen for later; and the tiny ears of corn are in the fridge waiting for me to try to "make" baby corn out of them.

Roof

Our huge, ginormous project this summer was the roof.  I won't get in to too much detail, but we ended up doing more work than we anticipated (as we had hoped that the roofing company would do whatever work needed to be done).  However, this encouraged my whole immediate family to come up for a visit, so we had 6 of us here some nights, which was absolutely great, especially because I finally got to meet my brother's girlfriend, and I adore her.  Dad, Jordan and Bob did most of the work, with Mom, Larysa and I passing supplies, running to town, and doing odd jobs from the comfort and relative safety of the ground.  This roof has been a huge source of stress since it started leaking in January, and it is still not 100% done (as we still have soffits and fascia to install).  But the structure has been checked out (by three men congregating on the "falling" corner of the roof, and it didn't move an inch!), the insulation redone (and we are already noticing a huge difference!!!), the strapping and sheeting completed and the new roof tiles were installed on Thursday.  Yay!!!!  Once the last bit of work is completed, there will be many sighs of relief all around, and we anticipate not having to worry about it again while we live here (as the roofing tiles come with a lifetime warranty).

Vacation

As I mentioned, we are just back from a vacation to Ye Olde Stomping Grounds to visit with our families and take a break from the stress of the house.  The main focus of the trip was to attend Jordan's Dad's wedding, and it wasn't a dissapointment: the wedding was intimate and beautiful, and the reception was lively.  It was absolutely wonderful to visit everyone, as it had been over a year since our last visit.  And we got to visit Ikea!!!  We came home with an island for the kitchen (which we had been planning since our last trip), an entertainment unit (which we started planning two days before buying it), and an under-cupboard light for above the sink (which I have wanted since we moved in).  I also planned a dinner to get together with my friends, and it was a success, with friends from high school and one of my previous jobs coming to say hello and catch up.

I'd also like to send out a huge THANK YOU! to Tessa, Matt, Ellie and Caleb, who kept an eye on the chickens while we were away - they have chickens as well, so I didn't worry one bit about our birds while we were gone.  Sure enough, they did a fabulous job!

That's the majority of our news.  I'm sure I will discover more when I start sorting through the pictures, so watch for another post in the near future (hopefully not a month from now!).

Proper update

Okay, time for a proper update.  Sorry for the delay, guys - it's definitely project season, and we got a big one crossed off our list a week ago.  That's right, the chicken coop/run is finished!

This year we are focusing on fixing up the house, so there's been a lot of "make do" when it comes to other projects.  When we decided to do chickens, we knew we could set up a brooder in the barn, and that's what we did.  But we knew we couldn't keep them in there forever, so shortly after we got them, we had to come up with a coop and/or run.  I searched the internet (wonderful tool that it is) for something sturdy, affordable, simple to build, and big enough for about 25 chickens.  That's a tall order as far as chicken runs are concerned - most of the projects online are great for 8-12 chickens.  However, I was able to find one, made out of conduit tubing.  (We made a few changes: it would be 3 feet tall instead of two, and we'd use the chain link fencing I picked up at an auction instead of the landscaping wire and chicken wire.)  It looked easy enough to build, and we easily found the parts we needed at Home Depot.  Once I started building it, things started going sideways.  The chuck fell off the drill press as I was setting it up to use it for the second set of holes.  The cordless drill ran out of juice after drilling two holes.  The heavy-duty corded drill Dad gave us could easily drill the holes, but I needed to start them with the cordless drill because I couldn't hold the big drill in one spot long enough to keep it from wandering off the side of the pipe.  We went through three drill bits trying to drill the holes, and by the end of it, we couldn't get the chuck of the big drill to hold the bit to drill all the way through the pipes, because the drill bit was tiny (we just needed to pre-drill the holes for the self-tapping screws... which will easily self-tap through sheet metal, but are a little harder to get through electrical conduit).  When we got enough holes drilled to start putting it together, the conduit elbow plates weren't strong enough to hold it square, so there were saw horses and scrap wood and wire and a few blue words involved.  By that point, I was realizing that this design just wasn't going to work for us.  So, plan B: we'll follow the same plans, but use 2x4s instead of conduit.  This added a few days needed to stain all the pieces, but once everything was ready, we were able to get the run together in a day.  It's not perfect, but we know what to do differently next time (for example, use plate brackets instead of mending plates to build the frames for each side of the run).

We also picked a pre-existing structure to modify instead of building a new one.  After surveying what we had available, we picked one of the old grain buildings.  It still has the feed tag stapled inside: Coop Poultry Premix (oh, the irony - from chicken feed to chickens for feed).  This also gave us a chance to practice framing, without a whole structure depending on our skills.  We sorted out the modifications we needed to make, measured everything three times, cut all the materials, stained what needed it, and started piecing it all together.  We ran in to a few snags (of course), but a quick change of plans and a few more pieces of 2x4 and we got it put together.  This took about a day.  All told, we had  the pre-cut and stained pieces together in a weekend.

So, we started with about a dozen 2x4s, three sheets of plywood, some chain link fencing, screws, fence staples, a salvaged window, some screening, and a few assorted hinges and latches.  Oh, and this building, which is about 70 square feet:

Sorry for the terrible picture - I didn't bother to take a photo of the building before we started, so this is a still shot from a video.

And after a few days of measuring, cutting, staining, hammering, and screwing, we had this:

We added a tarp for a few days because it was +30 in the afternoons, and that side faces west, right into the sun.

The waterers and feeders inside the coop.

The chicken door on the bottom, and the window on the top.  The window has screening, and I'll add chicken wire too. I can also add a ramp for the chickens, but they're enjoying hopping over the sill. 

"Sup?"

Of course, the chickens LOVE it.

Zim likes it too :)

As you can see, the chickens continue to do great.  They are averaging a pound and a half, and they love to be outside - to the point that we have to pick up each one and put them in the coop each evening.  Mind you, it's not that dark out when it's my bedtime, so maybe if it was darker, they wouldn't be so reluctant to head in?  Either way, they've been stuck in the coop for the last few days, due to a bear in the area and a few days of thunderstorms.  Hopefully this will also impress on them that the coop is home, not just the run.

In other news, the gardens are doing good.  Strawberry season ended last month, but the raspberries are still going strong - I've harvested at least 8 pounds of raspberries this year from the pre-existing canes.  The veggie garden is starting to produce well too: the corn is flowering, we've already had a side of peas with dinner, the turnips are ready to come out (judging by Tessa's), the cabbages are starting to form heads, the few carrots that sprouted are getting tall, and the potato plants are huge.  I planted eight lettuce seeds and none of them sprouted for weeks, then suddenly *tada* one lettuce popped up in a row.  And Kim gave me a shallot that she found sprouting in her cupboard, so I'm hoping to get seeds - it's huge!  (And yes, I'm practicing "lazy gardener's cover cropping" - it's working well!  Clover actually makes a good ground cover between rows, and we can just till it under when Fall comes, where it will compost directly into the soil to energize it for next year.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself!)

Click to make it bigger :)

We've had two days of 'severe thunderstorms' - on Sunday, it hailed for 10 minutes, and it was good-sized hail too.  Most of it was pea-sized, but some pieces were the size of a nickel in diameter.

Sunday

Sunday.  10 minutes after I took this, the sun was out.  Go figure.

Our poor cabbage!

Other than that, there's not much new here.  The Exhibition came through town last weekend, and Jordan and I met up with Kim and David on Sunday to watch the first three-abreast draft horse pull in Western Canada.  The teams were beautiful and powerful, and the two best-behaved teams were the final two in the running, with the winners pulling 14,500 lbs.  I spent the whole time swooning over one team, made up of Percherons - they made it up to 13,000 before the teamster pulled them from the competition.  And they were so well behaved!!  After the pull, we caught the pig and duck races and the dog agility show (and they invited kids to run the course as well at one point, it was awesome).  Jordan picked up a '77 Caprice to restore, he's been enjoying tearing it down.  Almost all of the interior is out (including the carpet), and Kim found us an engine stand at a garage sale that we picked up for $30.  We just need a hoist and then he can start taking the guts of the car out.

We are hosting a BBQ for my coworkers this coming weekend, and then my parents are up for a bit (hopefully they are bringing my brother too).  We are working on sorting out a problem with our roof - you'll hear about it when it's all sorted out and taken care of.  And, hopefully, we find some time to relax in the coming weeks.

Quick chicken update

Just a short post to get us through until I can put together a proper one...

The chicks are now officially chickens.  Many have lost all of their fuzz, and a few just need back feathers.  Tuesday is weigh-in day - I put the scale on the floor, watch until a chicken climbs on, and record the weight.  After I get 5 weights (with caveats: the same weight will not be recorded twice, and the weight of the biggest and the smallest birds will not be recorded) I average them.  Last night, at the age of 6 weeks, our average weight is 18.14 oz - just over a pound.  Awesome :)  Then, out of curiosity, I tried to weigh the biggest looking birds I could - the largest cockerel is 23.8 oz, and the largest pullet is 23.9 oz.  That's a solid pound and a half each!

I've been mulling over which ones to keep - Hal and Cathy (the great hospitality, advise, raspberry and other assorted plant providers) would like a rooster and three or four hens, and we are thinking of keeping a few to regenerate a small meat flock when desired.  I'm thinking of keeping the biggest chickens (tall people usually have tall children, so logically, plump chickens should hatch more plump chickens), and breaking any ties by factoring in attitude as I don't want angry, unsocial birds.  Even now, some birds are friendlier than others, although I try to interact with most of them when I pop in every day.

And they're getting friendly with Zim:

Most of the time both Zim and the chickens are moving - these are the best three pictures I've gotten in the last two weeks.  The bottom two are from last night.