Christmas Colors

I have been working on this coop to make it a bit more weather tight. After painting the primer on, I thought the colors were appropriate for the season.

Happy December 21st! The days will be getting longer!

Huge Egg

This is the largest egg I've ever seen. I can't even close the carton partway. It was laid on a day when I collected fewer eggs than usual and the temperatures haven't warmed above freezing. This is one chicken that likes cold weather!
(This is Anna writing-when Vince is out of town you get non-scientific blogs such as these.)

Freeze

The last two nights have been clear and cold and it makes for a beautiful sunrise. We have had frosts already but this is the first freeze.

The chickens take a little extra care with this weather. Some of the openings in the coop need to be closed and the waterer needs to be cleared from ice and replenished with H2O in its liquid state.

Chicken Drag

Anna on the Kubota pulling the coop and run.

I was repairing one of the chicken coops this weekend and it occurred to me that it was about a year ago that we had all kinds of coyote problems. Those coyotes caused us to build an enclosed run which we have used for the whole year without need of any major repair.

We built those runs out of PVC pipe and did not expect them to hold up as well as they have. A few of the glued joints came apart, but we just ran a deck screw through the pipe to hold it together. We drag these coops each week with the PVC run attached. The chickens are always excited on the weekend when we drag the coop forward a few yards to expose some fresh vegetation.

Starting a Greenhouse

Anna brought Pieter down to help with the construction of our first greenhouse.

The structure is made up of 6 ft posts of 1 1/4" galvanized pipe driven into the ground two feet. These posts are tied together with boards of wood at the top and base of what is to become the side walls. The actual hoops are 1" galvanized pipe that neatly fits into the pipes of the sidewalls. Each hoop is fastened to a purlin that runs the length of the house at the peak.
After all of the bolts are tightened and the hoops set plumb, we pulled a plastic covering over the top. These structure are relatively cheap and strong. If we go much wider than 16 feet, the little snow we get could collapse the structure without a bunch of extra supports and purlins. We also know that if we go much longer than 60 feet, it is hard to keep the temperature regulated with one heater and one exhaust fan. This size and length is popular because of its simplicity and efficiency.

This House Is Getting Old Part III: fixing mistakes and roofs

The concrete cured and when we were able to inspect it, we found a rough surface with a large number of flaws. The concrete was dyed and suppose to be the finished floor. I wanted a glass surface and after speaking with the concrete flat work contractor, I decided to apply an epoxy to give us a smooth surface.




The floor was cleaned with muriatic acid and rinsed with water and baking soda to neutralize the acid. After the floor dried we applied two coats of the epoxy with a paint roller. The end result is a glossy floor that accented the flaws in the concrete. It is not what I pictured but we will call it "character."




Before the rains got too serious here in the northwest, we rebuilt the front porch and re-roofed the front half of the house.




I will re roof the back side when I remove the deteriorating brick chimney and add vents for the water heater, plumbing and exhaust fans. That will have to be next summer when the rains quit.

Gladiolus

We both like flowers so Anna and I decided to put gladiolus in the garden last spring. We pulled the plants this fall and should have twice as many flowers next summer. Each gladiolus corm shriveled up and produced a couple new corms and a ton of cormels (the little bulb looking growths). The cormels will not flower next year but we could put them in a "nursery" and allow them to get large enough to flower in a few years.