Oh the quandary! To be able to sit with the chicks, but not have the seat covered in chicken droppings.

I had an idea for a fold down seat. I used scrap 5/4″ decking for one seat, and 2x4s for the other, chain, connectors, eye screws and bolts, and heavy duty strap hinges. To keep the seat in the upright position, I used a carabiner to hook it to the poultry netting. All the hardware is rated for a load of at least 320 pounds, so it should hold up to people sitting on it.

I set the first one a little high, but both my eldest and husband are taller than I am, so that is probably OK. I set the second one a little lower for my youngest and I. The poultry wire back is surprisingly comfortable.

Seats folded down

Update:

The carabiners were not holding the benches upright enough, and the chickens were roosting on them, so I replaced the carabiners with gate hooks that catch the eyes I used for the chain. Much better!

When you have a child with special needs there are many people at school who help and interact with her daily. I love that my daughter wants to get them all a present, but making that many things is hard for her, so we come up with things we can do in steps. For this year’s thank you cards, she picked a bold outline font from a filtered list, and I printed them on card stock. We then set her up with watercolors and turned her loose painting! Because the print is bold and water colors are light, they came out readable every time. She started out trying to color carefully, then quickly moved to broad strokes. All of them came out lovely, and unique!

To write in each note, we will do a few at a time so it isn’t overwhelming (for either of us!!)

Say what? Yup. Poop aprons. My eldest and I both want to have the chickens be lap chickens, but we don’t want to have to change clothes afterwards. We tried laying a cloth across our lap, but it was difficult to handle both the fabric and the chick. Hence we need poop aprons. I used some scrap blue cotton and blanket binding to make two simple aprons we can wear in the coop.

I had blanket binding in my ribbon stash, which makes a very quick, rather fancy sash. I cut the ends at an angle and used a match to melt the edges so they don’t fray.

Then I put a small hem on three sides of the fabric. (My hem foot is my favorite accessory ever; it makes it so easy to do tiny hems!)

I then ran a basting stitch across the top edge and pulled one thread to gather the top of the apron. Matching centers, I sewed the fabric between the layers of the blanket binding.

The aprons do their job! Although I may make longer versions later. These don’t quite cover my eldest’s knees. But hey, not bad for using scrap cloth and an hour of time.

I’m luring them onto my lap with meal worms. Can’t be too bad, one fell asleep!