Chicken coop

Referenced the coop in my last post and then realized I never loaded any pictures from the building project so for your viewing pleasure....

Can you believe how serious they look?

Brooke always wants to help Dad.

What mother lets her child paint in her school uniform.

How did we do?  Do they match up?

Again - lots of concentration.

measure twice, cut once

Wow, another mom who lets her child paint in a school uniform

The house is even big enough for an eight year old.

RIP Ann

We have never fully enclosed the chicken yard and as the chickens have gotten bigger they are able to either fly out of the yard or climb the chicken wire.  They love roaming around the house looking for food.  I guess you could say they are "free range" chickens.  They stick together and never venture too far from their coop.  If one gets distracted and separated from the group it will chirp and chirp until it is reunited with the group.

The past couple of times that we have been out at the house a strange dog has come onto our property.  We have been worried that it might hurt the chickens so we were always quick to shoo it away.  Looking back we should have been more careful.....

We don't know for sure that it was this particular dog, but now I wonder at what point we talk to the neighbors about their wayward dog.  I realize that we live in the country, but it's not okay that my neighbors dog visits whenever it likes.

Yesterday the boys went out to clean up trash around the yard so that there would be a full dumpster when the trash men arrived today.  What they found was a sad thing for all of us.  Ann, my chicken, was found on the side of the house mangled by some predator.  All of us were very sad.  We have all grown to love the chickens and their funny personalities.  The only positive is that it was my chicken and not one of the kids.

Number one on the to-do list.....finish the predator-proof chicken yard.

PS  I asked the boys if they buried Ann - you know give her the respect and proper burial she deserved.  They both looked sheepishly at me and said, "yes, yes, that is what we did."  I could tell they were fibbing, so I pressed them.  They admitted that she was tossed in the dumpster.  Ouch, my heart is breaking.

Yardwork - Will it ever end?

We found out that once The Bunny House was purchased back in 2006, no one ever moved it, so in addition to all the work inside, the yard needed as much, if not more work. Michael and Jacob spent many hours weeding the flower beds and pruning bushes and trees. Rex rented a sod cutter (to cut the weeds where the grass once was) and then as a family we spent as many evenings as we could last week rolling the "sod" and hauling it to an inconspicuous space on our property.

We became overwhelmed and were rescued by our painter who suggested that we rent a Dingo to finish the job. Rex fell in love with the rota tilling attachment and stood behind the machine for eight hours prepping the soil for sod to be laid tomorrow.

I honestly can't remember time as a family "pre-house". I don't remember what we did with our time.  We spend most nights out there working after Rex gets off of work.  We've laughed a lot, the girls have created things to do without any toys and we've enjoyed the sounds of birds chirping in the rafters of our dilapidated deck.  I can't wait to move in and not refer to it as our "new" house - it will just be OUR house.

Moth Update

The contraption worked. We left it all night and look how many we caught.

The birds - I mean the moths

Friday night I felt like I was in a remake of The Birds.  It was dark outside when we finished up at the house - I was removing wallpaper in Michaels room and everyone else was outside helping Rex remove the "grass" from the yard with a sod cutter.  The stuff growing in the yard is definitely green, but not something you'd like to picnic on.

Michael and Brooke came upstairs to let me know that they weren't sure if I should come downstairs.  A million things crossed my mind that I wouldn't want to see - a dead mouse, an alive mouse and snake?  I wasn't prepared to for the sight I would see in our beautiful living room with vaulted ceilings.  Hundreds if not thousands of Miller moths swarmed the room.  With all the lights turned off in the room and only a flashlight for illumination there was a creepy feeling with all those creatures flying around.  Thank goodness we're not sleeping there.  When I got home I researched ways to get rid of moths.  It seems that the consensus is to prepare a bowl with soapy water and then put a lamp near the bowl.  The moths will be attracted to light, fly towards it, bump into the light, stun themselves and fall into the water.  Does that sound hokey?  I'll let you know how many we catch.

But for now see if you could sleep in a house that had the following going on just below you....

Introducing the newest members of our family

Once we were under contract on The Bunny House we went to Ace Hardware where you can buy chicks.  We let each of the kids pick out one chick.  They each chose a different breed which made it easy to tell them apart.  Rex got so excited about the chicks that the next weekend he went out and bought four more - each one a different breed as well.  Some of the chickens were named right away and others had their names changed after a few days.  For several weeks they lived in the garage of our "old" house, but when they started to roam around and we couldn't keep them contained they moved to their coop at The Bunny House.

So here they are - our chickens.  Hoping for some farm fresh eggs!

Lunatic - Michael's chicken who flies and is very hard to catch.

Mitt - Jacob's chicken who used to be named Honey Boo Boo Child

Rockie - Brooke's chicken who I think is the friendliest

Pochie - Erin's chicken, the biggest

Chicken Little - the only chicken with feathers on her feet

Ann - Bekki's chicken

Red - one of the second bunch we purchased

Rock - Rex's chicken

Wallpaper woes

 

Though I would love to hire someone to do everything that needs to be done, we will have to put in some sweat equity for our new home.  For me the past week I have spent several hours taking down wallpaper in the entry and formal dining room while everyone else was working on the chicken coop.  It's come down without too much problem with a product called DIF.  I still have several more hours of work to do before the painter starts.

Michael and Jacob have been working hard, too.  They are really hoping that we can have their graduation party at The Bunny House.  The inside of the home has LOTS of work and the outside has at least as many hours of work to do.  Today they had a day off of school so they went out to the house with Rex at 5:00 a.m. to start working.  They are amazing young men who work hard!