The soap opera that is our flock!

Several of the hens now have names.  It is hard to not give them names when we get to know their personalities.  And all the drama of them trying to establish a pecking order is like watching a made-for-tv-mini-series.

Ron the Rooster, the smallest of our flock, is, unfortunately, at the very bottom of the pecking order, though he doesn't know it.    Yesterday most of the chickens were in the coop.  We hear, "CACKLE,CACKLE,CACKLE!"  Out shoots Ron at top speed!  It happened several times.  Then when they went in to roost last night, Ron wanted to roost on the highest rung, but it was already full.  So, he climbed on top of the hens already up there, then down he came in a flurry of feathers.  I have to say he is persistent though. This morning he was on the top roost.

 

We  have one very beautiful girl who is almost all white that we named TAPS...white/ghost/ghost hunters...  Shofar has a little bump for a comb, like a horn. She is very friendly and likes to peck at my toes.  Hillary is named after Sir Edmond Hillary, since she is the adventurous one who often goes off by herself.  Jezabel is the big, golden bully who is shooting for top hen.  She enjoys putting Ron in his place.  Penny, as in Henny Penny, is the littlest golden and just a little dingy and scatter-brained.  She is always running around in a tizzy.

The four others haven't been named yet.  I'm sure the kids will come up with some crazy names.  I'm just hoping we don't end up with a "Barbie" or "SpongeBob". 

 

Here come the girls

The girls arrive tomorrow.  The coop is almost ready.  Keith and I were on a roll a couple of weeks ago. We had our plan, materials list and tons of can-do.  After lots of reading, research on the web and discussions with everyone who had an opinion, we started. 

The first trip to the lumber yard went very smoothly, but notice I said "first."  We got a good start by finishing the floor that first day of building.  I was feeling very confident as a foreman.  The next day went just as well.  The front wall went up and the front wall was framed in with a door and window.  I actually got the math right!

Then we realized that the material list did not account for framing in more than a door, so back to the lumber yard.  Then I cut a board wrong, so back to the lumber yard again.  But it all came out fine, until I found out I needed advanced trigonometry to figure out the angles of the side walls.  That one "whoopsie"  threw it all out of square.  The walls were up, but none of the rafters fit right!  Ugh! 

Thanks to my brother, Joe, who came to our rescue, we actually got a roof on.  I didn't even want to look at another nail.   He and Keith got the roof on, felted and the shingles started just as a huge storm hit.  Keith and I holed up in the chicken house for half an hour while the worst of the storm came through.  Not a drip of water! 

So, now we have it moved into place and only a few finishing touches until we are ready for the girls to move in!  It isn't pretty yet, but chickens don't care if the siding is color coordinated.  I do, so it will be cute by the time it is finished.  We have a recycled door from an old farmhouse and great arched windows.  I think we will do board and batten siding.  American Gothic meets Foghorn Leghorn!

And I have to say that even with the little mistakes, I am proud of us.  Without any building experience, I think we did pretty good for our first try, and thanks to my brother's tips and tricks, the next project will go much smoother.

Tonight I dream of fresh eggs, little "ladies" gossiping under the apple tree, maybe some meat chickens next spring, and being that much closer to a self-sufficient life.

Roots

Keith and I went for a drive one evening last week and ended up on a winding dirt road far from our usual trek. Around one curve we came upon a broken down barn and an overgrown farm yard. Back in the brush was what was left of the farm house surrounded by an over-grown garden of flowering trees and bushes.

It made me wonder about that homestead. Who had built the house? What hopes did that farm wife have when she planted her yard with forsythia and roses? I wondered about their dreams for a good life, their family, their marriage. I wondered why a home that had been so obviously loved had been abandoned and not passed on.

It made me realize how blessed my husband and I are to live on the farm my grandfather and grandmother purchased in 1930. We live in the house my aunt was born in, my great-grandmother died in, we have all gathered in for holidays and birthdays. We preserve fruit from the orchard my grandfather planted. We grow and can vegetables just like my mother taught me. Even my love of the homely arts comes from my grandmother. (Someday I will learn to weave baskets in her honor, since it was something she always dreamed of doing.)

Keith and I have our own dreams of a more self-sufficient and sustainable life, but those dreams are built on the dreams of others before us.