Part Two - The Old Homestead Coop (or G.W.'s Fear of Change Orders)

When we last left you, I'd expanded the scope of the coop renovation from replacing one wall to replacing three. There was at least some measure of logic behind my request. Since we were already doing the work, why not fix up the other sides now instead of just patching them? Then we won't have to come back in a few years to completely redo those walls. Makes sense, right?

That kind of logic briefs well. But when your work crew thinks they are about halfway done and you turn around and add three additional days of work to the project, you better offer up lots of good home cookin' to smooth the way!

Once the guys had the walls torn apart we could see the frame of the coop. It is made from hand hewn wood. How cool is that? 

This is a hand-cut notch in one of the corner posts.

Here, Richard points to the marks left from the felling axe, a tool used to hew wood.

This means the basic structure of the coop was built before there were power tools.  Could be as much as 100 years old. 

It took Richard and G.W. an entire week to renovate this coop and that was with the use of power tools. Can you imagine how long it must have taken to build the coop using only hand tools? I'll bet it took a good solid month.  

But meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I forgot to mention that the guys had rebuilt the gate into the coop yard. It's solid now!

Richard had a great idea for added weather protection for the treated plywood we used on the walls.

Painting the walls with this stuff will add years to the life of the coop!

It was my job to paint the outside walls with it. It's thick like tar but not that difficult to work with. The rough cut lumber siding will go on top of this.

The window and door will have decorative painting on them. For now, they're left unpainted.

The guys were hard at work rebuilding the side of the coop.

With absolutely nothing square or even close to square, they had their work cut out for them.

Then it was my turn to paint with the asphalt stuff.

On the back of the coop, the very bottom of the boards had rotted out.

Rather than try to trim that off, the guys covered the ragged edge with treated plywood that had been painted with the water proofing. 

Then I was up again to paint the wall.

The last task for the day was getting half of the new roof on.  We chose the roll roofing because it's cheaper than shingles and easier to work with. 

Colorado building code doesn't allow the use of rolled roofing on homes. (But it's fine for barns and chicken coops) Some people apparently were using it on houses  anyway, so now stores don't sell it. G.W. got three rolls of it while on a trip to Wyoming a few weeks ago.

Although we had storms roll through in the afternoon and had to knock off "early" (meaning before it got dark), the coop was coming right along!

I believe all three of us took Advil before bed that night!  This kind of work seems to get harder as we're getting older.

Before any of us were ready, the next day dawned and we were at it again.

The other side of the roof went on quickly. I'm proud to say that I was up there pounding nails right alongside the guys.

While G.W. went to the sawmill to pick up the slab wood, Richard and I worked on the gravity feed watering system and the feeders.

Oh, that's right...we changed our minds about using rough cut lumber for the siding and went with slab wood. Nice looking and very inexpensive! More on that in a minute.

I'll do a separate post about the construction of the waters and feeders. For now, let's just say they are very ingenious, will save lots of time and will prevent dirty water and wasted feed.

Here's Richard installing one of the feeders. The gravity fed watering system is on the left (Blue bucket, hose and PVC with poultry drinking nipples).

Another feeder...

...and the second watering system.

The box fan in the window is to help keep air moving through the coop. It's a heavy-duty, rain resistant one.

Again, storms blew in by mid-afternoon, so we had to knock of "early". But thus endeth the seventh day of the coop renovation. Unfortunately, we did not rest on the seventh day.

The next day was crunch time, since all of the chickens were going into the coop at 5PM. 

I worked on wrapping the outside of the coop walls with chicken wire to prevent any critters from digging in. I only had to do part of the outside, since there is a concrete footer along one and a half of the walls. No digging through or under that!

G.W. and Richard started on the siding. I think it looks fantastic! Very much in keeping with the other old barns on the property.

Should I send this photo to the people at DeWalt?

The guys got enough siding up to cover the one corner next to the coop yard fence. Then they could finish the fence.

Just in time too, since the chickens were ready to move in! Not only did I have my thirteen to relocate, I acquired eleven more hens from a neighbor who is moving to Canada. Now I have two flocks to integrate. In my next post, you'll meet the whole gang!

The Old Homestead Coop a.k.a Fort Huevos

There's so much to catch ya'll up on that it's going to take me a while and several blog posts to do it!

It's been chickens, chickens and chickens!

Back in mid-May, I got my order of Golden-Laced Cochin chicks. The hatchery delivers the chicks to the post office. As soon as I opened the door to the post office I could hear my chicks hollering in the back. They were not happy!

The babies' first home was the "Little Deuce Coop", made from a large storage tub.

That's some food on a paper towel in the middle of it. Setting it up that way helps the chicks learn to eat.

Once they catch on to eating, they can use the regular feeder.

Of the sixteen chicks who arrived, one died within a few hours and two others died over the next month or so.  The remaining 13 chicks quickly outgrew the Little Deuce Coop.  

Thanks to my friend Kristi, who gave me a large box from her new patio furniture, I built the "Coop de Ville".

With the extension fashioned from part of a large moving box, the Coop de Ville measured six feet by just under four feet.  

They looked so small in it at first. 

But just five weeks later, they were HUGE and ready to move into their permanent home.

This is the chicken coop that came with our homestead.

 Someone had used particle board on the exterior of the coop. Not the best choice of material for outdoors. The particle board was crumbling apart. The roof was a mess, too. Lots and lots of work to be done before the chickens could move in.

I started the demo work a few weeks ago. First to go were these particle board patches.

Next, off came the door and window cover. I saved the old pieces in case we needed them as templates for the new ones.

Then came the frustrating process of getting all that rotten particle board off the front. 

Whoever put that stuff on used screws in some places and nails in others. Some of the screws were small, 2 1/2" ones and others were four-inch monsters. Same for the nails, with a few of them worthy of spiking railroad track to ties. 

Slowly, bit by bit, piece by piece it all came off.

This huge mouse nest was in the wall above the door. Gross!

All of this old chicken wire, which wrapped around the coop to keep digging predators out, had to come off as well.

Then it was time for the big boys to step in and do the heavy work.  Enter Richard and G.W.

While I was at work last week, they were hard at it on the coop.  By Wednesday, they'd completely rebuilt the front of the coop as well as the door and window cover.

Considering that nothing was square on that old coop, cutting all those pieces to fit was a nightmare! They used treated plywood, which will be covered by rough cut lumber as siding. 

The original scope of the project was to rebuild the front of the coop, make a new door and window, replace a few rotten boards on the other two sides and put a new roof on. Then I said those fateful words..."could we do the other sides the same way you did the front?"

And so it began....more demo work....

Tearing off the old boards from the side...

...and from the back of the coop.

Once the outer layer of rotten boards were removed from the back of the coop, we found a second layer of boards that was in very good shape. This meant the guys didn't have to cover that part with the plywood. We'd just put the rough cut lumber siding over it.

I've got to give Richard and G.W. credit. I tripled the amount of work I was asking them to do and neither of them said one word of complaint!  Bravo, guys!

And they worked until it got too dark to see!  G'night and come back tomorrow for the next chapter.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Oh goodness, I'm exhausted! It's been a crazy, mad dash to get the garden together and everything planted before it's too late in the season. Even so, I'm afraid that my short growing season will prevent me from harvesting some of what I've planted.

Remember this little low tunnel/hoop house that trucked along bravely through the entire winter?

I took the whole thing down to replace the hoops with ones made from 3/4" PVC. 

To make it look nicer, I've spray painted the PVC with Krylon Fusion paint. You know, so it doesn't look like a bunch of plumbing pipe.

The first color I tried was a brushed steel, but rejected it since it looked like metal conduit. Still looked like plumbing pipe. 

So I went with a hunter green.

Looks a lot better than the white PVC.

The next project was going to a rabbitry and an alpaca ranch to pick up poop to add to the garden. Both of those animals' poop will not burn plants so you don't have to compost it before you add it to the garden. You can just mix it right in.

I got about 300 pounds of rabbit poop. The lady who owned the rabbitry called them "Bunny Berries". She had it all neatly bagged up for me. Stunk to high heaven, though!

Bags o' Bunny Berries

Then it was on to the Silken Suri Alpaca Ranch.  This was a 'shovel your own' deal. 

I didn't even make a dent in the poop pile at the alpaca place. She has about sixty alpacas and the pile of poop was huge!  The lady invited me to come back any time to take more. 

After these two poop runs, the truck was a bit fragrant. A poo-pourri, if you will. 

I also added some store-bought compost to the planting mix. This one apparently thinks "no poop" is a big selling point.

 Makes me laugh...I just finished unloading two truckloads of it but this particular compost is poop free. Maybe there are people who don't want poop in their garden? Not even composted poop, which has no germs?

In between the poop runs and painting the PVC, I started planting.

Silver Queen sweet corn.

Some of the tomatoes and the eggplant safely sheltering in wall o' waters. The night I planted these, the temperature dropped to 32 degrees. The wall o' waters did their job and the plants are just fine.

A tomato plant inside it's wall o' water.

I also put in some carrots and a couple varieties of lettuce. 

Two days later, a deer discovered a hole in the deer netting and got into the bed where I'd planted all the lettuces, spinach and green onions. Once it was inside, I don't think it could figure out how to get out and panicked. It eventually got out, but between what it ate and what it tore up while trying to get out, the entire bed was devastated.

I replanted everything, patched the hole in the deer netting and am starting all over again. I'm kicking myself though because I knew that hole was there and put off repairing it. All my fault!

Over in the perennial garden things are coming right along.

The lilacs are in bud.

Iris

Columbines

Hollyhocks

Not sure what this is. Peony, maybe?

The whole valley is beautifully green!

Time to wrap this up. I'm pooped! (pun intended)  I've got to get up early and plant more sweet corn and two varieties of beans!  

G'night all!