One more wall done: I’ve raised the front wall framing, and built and raised the back wall framing.
Here’s the back wall sketch:
The front wall raised:
Starting the back wall:
Back wall framing finished:
And raised:
Month: April 2017
Chicken coop: front wall framing
Today I built the framing of the front wall of the new chicken coop (on the north side).
Here’s my latest framing design drawing:
And the result, still lying on the floor for now:
Tomorrow will be rainy, so I’ll do consulting work, but Tuesday is looking like it’ll be fine, enabling me to stand up the front wall and start on the back wall.
Progress!
Mower & beehive
It’s raining today, and the canopy is rather out of commission, so I spent some time today replacing the blade drive belt on the big zero-turn mower, and assembling one of the two beehives.
The belt had become derailed and damaged while cutting really long grass on the field — we’d left it a bit longer than we’d liked for the first mow, due to the lack of sunny days recently. So I needed to remove the damaged belt, and feed in a replacement. Not a trivial operation, but I’ve done it a few times before; takes about an hour.
(I also cleaned off the mower, of course.)
Next, I started assembling one of the beehives. I didn’t have time to finish, but I got the two brood boxes and the honey super done. Some other day I’ll finish off the frames and roof, and set up the second box.
Nice while it lasted
We’re having very high winds this morning (gusts up to 56 mph reported), which has knocked out our power, unsurprisingly. And thousands of others around the region. Here’s PGE’s outage map, showing the zip codes with outages… pretty much everywhere:
Unfortunately, the wind has also taken out my canopy:
It’s pretty much destroyed; several bent poles and broken connectors:
Not sure yet if I’ll try to repair it, or get replacement parts, or buy a new one, or just do without it. I was going to have to lift it up once I got the front wall raised anyway, as the canopy was 6′ inside at the edge, and the front wall will be about 9′ off the ground, but I had planned for that.
Chicken coop: finished rafters
Another day working on the new chicken coop.
In case you’re wondering, I’m not spending all day on this (it’s Thursday; aren’t I supposed to be working?!). I spend a bit of time in the morning doing Dejal support, then I spend a few hours working on the coop, with a break for lunch, then some consulting work in the evening. Definitely slower than if I were devoting all of my time to one or the other, but keeping everything moving forward. Being self-employed definitely has pros and cons, but being able to arrange my time as I wish is certainly a big plus.
Safety first:
Cutting OSB gussets for the rafters:
Scraps of wood nailed to the floor to ensure the rafters are all the same angles; there are also lines drawn on the floor to help align things:
Construction adhesive on a gusset:
The gusset nailed to the rafters:
Completed rafters:
Next up: the front wall!
Canopy
After a long weekend away, and the first mow of the year, today I set up a canopy over the chicken coop floor, so I can work on it even if it is raining (as is forecast for the next week).
