I made this book stand in December of 2004 and graffitied it with pen, paint, and pyrography as an homage to Terry Prachett’s Disc World book series, specifically the wizard’s university library.
I finished the wood with a clear coat of urethane.
We will be taking in two additional family chickens since work is taking their current family out of state. I hope the new hens, who are about the same age as our hens, but a different breed, will be able to join the flock with few ruffled feathers, but to start, we will keep them in a separate area. The easiest way to accomplish this was to get or build a smaller coop in the current run. I have doors lined with chicken wire to separate the areas, and both flocks have plenty of outside space. I did not have time to build a small hutch from scratch, so I ordered one on Amazon for about $150.
It was not a beginner build project, but I’m not a beginner, so it worked out. The wood is thin, but solid, not particle board. The directions were sparse, but my eldest and I were able to get through it. We built it on the back porch where we had a stable flat surface, then carried it to the run. The roost bar was a joke; a 3/4 inch dowel two inches from the bottom of the hutch. I found a 2 inch cedar branch and cut it to length and secured it with screws higher in the hutch.
When we went to install the hinged roof of the nest boxes, there was a significant gap that made attaching difficult, so we cut a section of scrap trim (from the garage) to fit before attaching the hinges.
We placed the hutch in the most shaded part of the runs. The run itself is entirely encased in hardware cloth and I have not had significant animal incursion in the five years it has been standing. We did make sure it was out of reach of questing raccoon hands. We’ll have a chance to see how it weathers storms this week.
I learned something new when I snapped a picture of a lady bug resting on a Gregg’s mist flower leaf and uploaded it to iNaturalist. The name of my friendly neighborhood native is the Convergent Lady Beetle, because of the “two short white lines on the black pronotum (shoulderlike section behind the head) that converge toward each other.” (Mdc.mo.gov) The markings are harder to see in my picture, but these are the most common of the 500 lady beetle species in the US.
The Gregg’s mist flower is doing its job of attracting pollinators and helpful insects. Our front garden bed is full of the mist flowers and Common Yellow Wood Sorrel, which are also native and edible. The yellow and purple are nice together, and the density of their leaves is blocking out other unwanted growth, which means less weeding for me!
Our two female cats had their vet visits, and since Thor the cat’s visit is coming up, I wanted to make sure he would fit in our current carriers. I was not hopeful, but I poked him in one and he was able to turn around and come out, which is one of the criteria to show the carrier is big enough. The crates are rated to 20 pounds, which has to be liquid cat measurements, because there is no humane way our stiff, dense, 20-pound dog would fit.
Later, my eldest was in the right position to snap a picture when Thor crawled into the carrier on his own, turned around, and laid down. Yay.
If you’ve read my blog for even a short while, it is clear that I am a dabbler. Many things catch my inquisitive attention, I like a puzzle, and I’m easily distracted. Making music takes more concentration, but I still can’t focus on just one instrument. My latest enamor is the ukulele. My kids gave me a tenor uke for Mother’s Day a couple years back, and I recently changed out the strings to make it a low G ukulele. I love it! I would like to build a small repertoire, to expand past the dabbling a bit, and my fingertips are reflecting the work. I feel that this fits in this blog because music is craft, even though it is hard to capture in photos.
Critters and Craft 