Tamper

On February 2, 2019January 31, 2019 By CarynIn Tools

Our soil here is clay. When clay gets wet, it doesn’t just get muddy, it turns into a slimly slippery sole sucking mess. (Sorry, that was #punintentional.) Walking through the yard after rain usually results in 3 extra pounds of clay sticking to each foot.

When we have chickens, we will be heading out to the coop rain or shine, so I decided we needed a fairly mud-free path to the coop. I dug in bricks as a border, then filled the path with decomposed granite. The fines in the decomposed granite will settle down and make a firm base for the path. To help the compacting and settling of the path, I used this 10″x10″ tamper. This is also a good workout. Starting to think the title of this blog should be “Of Chickens, Craft, and Calories”.

I’ve made the half of the path that leads to the gate. When we know exactly where our coop doors will be, I’ll lay the other half of the path.

Guess what this is

On February 1, 2019January 31, 2019 By CarynIn Wildlife

Time to play “Guess What This Is”!

If you said a molar, points to you! If you said opossum molar, then you get the star. We found what we believe is an opossum skull in the back woods and this is one of the teeth from the jaw.

Opossums are omnivores, as you can see from the sharp incisors for tearing meat and the molars for grinding. We have seen these guys on the trail cam pictures too!

Cats

On January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 By CarynIn Wildlife

Not really surprising that a cat will eat a chicken, or chicks given the opportunity. What is surprising is the number of outside cats that prowl the neighborhood. Our neighbors have a clowder of cats to keep the snake population down, especially the copperheads (yikes!). I’m all for those cats doing their job (although I think there is a speckled king snake on our side of the fence, and I hope he stays because he (or she) also keeps away the poisonous snakes), but it means that we have to plan on protecting the chicks and chickens both from stalking cats and slithering snakes. Here is a photo from the trail cam.

One of our neighborhood snake patrol agents. His name is Rusty.

Cute, but deadly! Hence “Chicken Fort Knox”. We are planning on putting 1/2″ welded wire along the bottom of the runs and skirting the coop to keep the smaller critters out, and 1″ welded wire along the upper sides and top. We will also bury welded wire mesh all along the outside of the coop and runs to deter digging.

We’ve had a gray calico adopt us as well, so we really want to make sure we protect the chickens and still be able to enjoy our outside felines.

Siding!

On January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 By CarynIn Uncategorized

We have siding up! Getting closer to closing in the coop, hurray! I’ve read many articles on not insulating coops for winter, so my husband put up asphalt paper first to keep moisture out. We will put hardware cloth along the top and make hinged covers so we can open up the top of the coop in the summer to help with ventilation, since the heat of our summers is more of a concern than the “cold” winter.

Bow Saw

On January 29, 2019January 25, 2019 By CarynIn Tools

Today my favorite tool is the Fiskars 24″ bow saw.

I have been clearing paths in the back woods so we can have nature walks. Last summer I finished the large loop and started on an inner loop, but had two downed trees across the path I wanted to clear. My long handled pruners and my small pull saw were no match for those trunks. So I purchased a bow saw (about $10) and was able to saw through an 8″ log (which is as large as this saw can handle) in about 6 minutes. Not speedy, no, but the location of the log made me hesitant to pull out the chain saw, and it was great exercise!

So now part of the inner loop is no longer a dead end! Hurray!

I am also becoming obsessed with land art so am encouraging the trees to grow in a couple arches over the path. We’ll see how they do.

Here is the first land art installation in the yard. I keep adding sticks as I pass by because art is a living thing. 😉