Starting Over and Building up!

A few months ago we said goodbye to our barred rock chickens so that we could start over and make a better bigger chicken barn, with the hopes of making some more egg money.

This was the set up that we had, a fenced area for Nova on one side and the chickens on the other with a freezer and food storage in the open area and a larger storage room to the side. 

It's a bit hard to describe in words... how we took everything out that we had set up, plywooded the ceiling, added a wall and made the storage/service room accessible from the outside... so I drew out a before and after layout. 

Jared spent many hours rewiring the barn to suit the new layout . We didn't keep any of the old wiring when we plywooded the ceiling so he had a clean slate to work with.

Daddy's little helper! IF he wasn't making to much noise :)

Jared was able to install a barrel in the chicken coop so that we could have a water line for the chickens. The barrel is filled from a large tote that is the service room, so water supply is much easier to manage for the chickens. The garbage bags are full of sawdust.

Jared installed a vent and fan so we can get some better airflow in the barn.

A vent, a fan, a waterline, nesting boxes, a feeder and heat lamp all installed!

Hazel making sure the water line is working!

The long awaited day arrived, our day-old chicks arrived at the post office, 50 of them!

Most of them were happy to hang out under the heat lamp, but one was warm enough to explore. Hazel was pretty excited to see them especially when they were moving around. Hazel liked the idea of holding them, but changed her mind once she found out they had "pokey" feet. 

Can you hear Hazel saying "there's a chicky!" in this photo? 😅

Absolutely love these cute chicks!

Once Jared got home he was able to adjust things better for the chicks and install another heat lamp, as the weather was still a bit cooler than we where hoping it would be. It was so neat to see Jared quickly evaluate the chicks and change things that made the chicks so much happier so quickly, I'm really glad Jared knows chickens!

We even let Nova meet the chicks as she was going a bit bonkers trying to get into the barn and see them. She was really good with them! Even herding them if one went out of the group 😅

I absolutely LOVE watching the chicks! (we even set up a lawn chair so we can just sit and watch 😍) Though they don't do much they are endlessly entertaining to watch and listen to, they move from warmth to water to food, they chirp, peck at the food, and tap the water line. I tried to capture their movement and sound on video as heat lamp pictures just don't really cut it!

We are really looking forward to seeing if we can make chickens and eggs into a side business and how far it will go!

Making Progress

 Jared got a extra Monday off! And WOW did we make good use of it! It was also the best we have every work together before and truly a wonderful bonding experience. 

Our project corner for the day! Our goal was to clean it up so we can fence it in for the cows. 

Before:

The picture is a bit deceiving as there is a bunch of firewood in the tall grass that can't been seen very well. It took us about 3 hours to move it all closer to the wood shed...with the help of the tractor!

The boat is officially a toy boat and got moved to the play area to be. 

Anyone want to guess what we found when we moved the boat? More garbage!!!! Surprise Surprise!

We cleaned out the A frame, so the cows can use it for shade. We also removed as many board hidden in the grass as we could find, there were a few odd piles here and there. There was also two stacks of beams hiding along the side fence, some of which got added to our ever growing junk pile and some which got moved closer to the garden to be used for future raised garden beds. 

The ugly pole that hasn't had much purpose since we took Nova's "zipline" down  was removed!!! It was very exciting brainwave to realize we could just pull it up with the tractor! We also learned that all but one of tires are movable so now the play area is open for ideas and imagination! 

So far I'm not thrilled with the current rearrangement and am back brainstorming. 

After: just beautiful rolling green hills for the cows! 

We took a break as Hazel went down for a late nap, and I had promised a friend to help move a few things to her new place. But once we had rested a bit and had dinner we were both itching to get the fence started that we had planned, so that evening we got 10 posts into the ground, which would be about 100ft of fence once we get the wire up. 

The next evening we got 10 more posts in going toward the side fence. Just have 4 more posts to put in but Jared needs to do some weed wacking and dirt moving before we can get them in. 

Harvest

Harvest was a pretty busy time. Not necessarily due to the amount of food harvested, but more of getting back on top of everything since our summer holidays were done. Though we didn't get tons out of the garden, overall I though it did really well. This year was quite the experiment for me. Test one was to see if any animals would come and eat my garden, thankfully they all seemed content to stay in the forest. Test two was to see how the vegetables I wanted to grow would do up here. That test went well too, though there are a few things that I will need to do differently next year. 

The first potato! I was super excited to find this one as I had tried to steal a potato once and a while but never found any. The potatoes were a lot deeper then I expected, but there! We had a lot fun harvesting them. 

The Yukon gold harvest 

And pick some beans to go with them! 

Washed and ready for cooking.

Even cooked some homegrown chicken to go with the potatoes and beans. A whole homegrown meal! 

Green beans all ready for the freezer. Got quite a few fresh meals of beans, but suddenly there was a 2 week span were there was lots, so in the freezer they went. 

The chickens are doing a good job of supplying us with eggs! When we have extra we share or trade them, which I find is a lot more fulfilling then selling them.

Hazel helped with harvesting the rest of the potatoes. 

We found a few teeny tiny ones that kept her entertained most of the time. 

This one even got taste tested 😅

The full harvest of red potatoes and russets. 

Mommy's little helper who LOVES digging in the dirt!

Brushed clean and stored away. 

I picked all the tomatoes as the frost killed the tomato plant. So far most of the little ones went bad, so the chickens got them and one of the medium ones finally ripened. 

So this is all the corn that I gathered from my "very over planted, almost died twice" corn plants. 

And once I shucked them, these were what remained. The one on the right was super tasty! 

Really enjoyed having a garden this year and I am looking forward to starting one again next year. 

 

Building up and Tearing Down

Finally I have had a week and a bit where Hazel's naps, good weather and motivation have all lined up!!!

So over the last few weeks our privacy fence has slowly been going up! This has been a really fun project for me and one that I have been able to do mostly by myself. 

Once I got everything done on the front that I could reach from the ground, I had run out of stained boards. I got a bit smarter and set up some shade and a spot to stain that wasn't on the other side on the yard from my wood supply so staining went a lot quicker and once I got a rhythm going it as also quite enjoyable.

Chantelle came over earlier this week and helped me finish the fence!!! (Next 2 pics) In typically Mama fashion we put up the last four board with both babies crying...

It is so nice to have it done so that we can enjoy it for a few months before winter hits!!!

90% Finished... now it just needs a gate and the posts need to be trimmed down, I'm hoping to put lighted posted caps on them!

While I was on one side of the yard building the fence, Jared has been on the other side of the yard tearing things down and making things worse before they get better, as is typical with overall projects. 

Step number one, tear down the "play house"! It took very little effort for the tractor to pull down the "play house" which made me even more happy to be getting the safety hazard/ eye sore out of the way.

Video's of the playhouse coming down below:

 Step number 2, chop it all up into smaller/ movable/ burnable pieces, eagerly waiting for the burn bans to lift, as you can see there will be a few bon fires in the near future..

Part of me is trying to keep or salvage stuff from the pallets and the play house and feels bad just cutting it all up and burning it or getting rid of it, but the other part of me is starting to realize if you are trying to clean up a mess you just have to be ruthless and get rid of it or else it never gone!

Believe it or not, this chuck of the yard is actually part of the gravel drive way... which Jared is in the process of finding back with the help of the tractor and a borrowed box blade. 

Hazel loves tractor rides!

It took a while, but eventually Jared did find the gravel back!