Duck house: plans

Today I start construction on my latest project, a small house for the ducks we’ll get in May, as mentioned in my first post on the ducks. Refer back to that for info about the ducklings we’ll be getting, and general info about my house design and where it’ll be located.

I thought I’d mark this occasion by doing an update with the latest plans. Again, these were drawn on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil, in the excellent Linea Sketch app.

Here’s the latest drawing of the external elevations. There are only a few minor changes from the first edition in that previous post; mostly that the duck door is a little higher, and the south wall vent door will now slide vertically, instead of hinging down:

Duck house plan

Having the vent slide vertically will allow more flexible opening sizes. It’ll be held at various heights by bolts that slot into holes on either side.

The updated top-down view. The main changes here are the aforementioned vent door, a pull-out inner floor, and a small hatch between the food cupboard and main area:

Duck house plan

The inner floor will just be another sheet of plywood on top of the base floor, that can be pulled out to aid cleaning, kinda like the poop tray in the chicken coop.

The new hatch could be used to toss in treats from the food cupboard, without having to open the north maintenance/cleanout door. A little more convenient.

Here’s the side cross-section. The updates include the new hatch and inner floor:

Duck house plan

The inner floor will be on thin boards that will act as runners to reduce friction, and to prevent trapping moisture between the two layers.

A new drawing, showing a different cross section. This one shows inside the food cupboard, with the food jug and tube, the treat hatch, and the nesting boxes below:

Duck house plan

That is also a screenshot of the Linea app, showing the palettes. Such a great app.

Lastly, one more new drawing, showing 3/4” and 1/4” 8×4’ plywood sheets, and cutting plans for the various components. I may not stick to this, since I can probably cut many of the smaller pieces from leftover scraps from previous projects, but this shows that I can get all the bits I need from the sheets I have on hand:

Duck house plan

Let’s get started!

Cat update for week ending February 9

It’s a snowy Caturday!

We got a trace of snow last Sunday. The area around the cat house is somewhat sheltered by trees:

Cat with trace snow

Looking across the small pond to the cat house, with a dusting of snow:

Cat house across the small pond

Lots of cat footprints in the snow on the path to the cat house:

Cat footprints

Another angle of the cat house through snow-covered branches:

Cat house with snow

A view from the driveway through the fountain garden, with the cat house visible through the trees in the middle:

Snowy landscape

Some snowflakes on a cat in the feeder:

Snow on cat

More snow overnight:

Cat in snow

A bird making poor life choices, snacking in the cat feeder; fortunately for it, nobody was home at the time (I do have bird feeders too):

Bird in feeder

Porcini looking from feeder:

Cat looking from feeder

Pommie with her tongue out, drinking from the heated water dish, about the only non-frozen water available:

Cat with tongue out

Cat tracks in the snow across the driveway:

Cat tracks in snow

The cat house with lots of cat footprints out front:

Cat house with cat tracks

The side of the cat house, through snowy trees:

Side of cat house

A cat on the front path, watching me:

Cat on front path

Just for fun, I made a couple of very rough mini-snowmen by the cat house. Here a cat is poking at one:

Cat poking snowman

A rare sighting of a cat-head snowman:

Cat head above snowman

Three cats:

Three cats

Five cats toasty inside the heated shelter overnight. That makes me happy:

Five cats inside shelter

We had more snow overnight:

Cat in snow

Likely more snow on the way over the next few days, so there will probably be more snowy cat photos next week. Stay warm out there!

Berry cage: finished!

This post has been waiting for a few days to be published, since the blog has been busy with snow photos this week. Hence the lack of snow in these pictures. With the snow on the ground this week, it’s almost hard to remember what the place was like without snow!

I have now completed the berry cage project.

The last step was to replace the old fencing wire with the new, narrower gauge stuff.

So I started by removing the old wire:

Fence wire

I left the nails that were holding the old wire, so I could reuse them to attach the new wire:

Fence without wire

Here’s the berry cage portion of the fence without any wire:

Fence without wire

I could then add the bottom course of new welded wire. I also kept the second layer chicken wire at the bottom, which is to keep smaller animals like rabbits out of the garden:

Adding wire

Attaching the wire:

Adding wire

The bottom course completed. The wire curves out onto the ground, anchored by rocks, to avoid any gap at the bottom:

Adding wire

A close-up of the wire and nails after adding the second course:

Closeup

The door area, with the completed fence:

Door

The completed berry cage fence:

Finished berry cage

It is always very satisfying to complete a project. On to the next one!

Sunny snow

We haven’t had any more snow for a couple of days, but it’s been below freezing most of the time, so what’s here isn’t significantly melting. The forecast calls for more snow this weekend, so the current stuff will solidify into a layer of ice, with fresh snow on top.

Here are a few more snowy pictures, from yesterday and today.

Gobs of snow on a dogwood tree:

Snow on dogwood tree

Snow on the beehives, with icicles hanging off the roof. The snow is melting above the brown one in the foreground, which is a good sign of warm bees inside. It isn’t melting as much on the other hive, which may mean they aren’t doing so well, or the roof might just be a better insulator:

Snow on beehives

Looking up at the ceiling of the berry cage. It’s holding up nicely so far, though I worry about its capacity to cope with lots more snow. But I’m not going to try cleaning it off; I want to see what it can handle, and will repair later if needed:

Snow on berry cage

A close-up:

Snow on berry cage

Some interesting graupel patterns on the frozen pond:

Pond

The pond and snow-covered trees beyond:

Pond & trees

Me shoveling the snow from the driveway, so Jenn could go out (the car is parked inside the shop, for now, though she’ll start parking it in the breezeway next to the shop, so I can work on the duck house in there):

Clearing driveway

Snow shovel:

Clearing driveway

Icebergs sliding off the hoop house:

Snow sliding off hoop house

Morning sun through the trees:

Sun

Sparkly snow:

Sparkly snow

Frozen garden ornament, with the brown gazebo in the background:

Garden ornament

Interesting morning light, with sparkly snow, and snow-covered trees beyond the field:

Sparkly snow

Frozen small pond:

Frozen small pond

Hummingbird feeder heater

With the sub-freezing temperatures recently, I have hooked up my hummingbird feeder heater, so the hummers have some non-frozen sugar water to drink.

This consists of four parts: a thermostatically controlled outlet, a small waterproof heating pad, paperclips to attach to the feeder, and an extension cord to connect the outlet to the heater.

Here’s the thermo outlet, that switches on the power when the temperature drops below 35°F, and off when above 45°F, so the heater is only on when it’s cold enough to need it:

Thermal power outlet

And the heating pad, originally designed to heat engine blocks, held below the hummingbird feeder by paperclips:

Hummingbird feeder with heating pad

The heating pad gets really hot, enough to keep the sugar water liquid. I use the clips to avoid melting the plastic base of the feeder.

Here’s another angle:

Hummingbird feeder with heating pad

A customer on the feeder:

Hummingbird on heated feeder

It’s a bit of a hack, but it works really well.

Another snow day, and no power

We got a few more inches of snow overnight. This morning we lost power… still off a couple of hours later as I write this, though predicted to be back on soon. Hopefully. We have UPSes powering our internet, but no water, since we’re on a well. One day we want to get a whole-house generator, or Tesla Powerwall, but those are expensive. We do have a portable generator, but that doesn’t help with the water, and isn’t needed unless the power stays off for a long time.

Anyway, this morning Jenn and Rory joined me on the rounds, and I took a few more snowy pics.

This is the tree by the chicken run. The branches are usually high enough to walk under, not touching the ground:

The pond is frozen today; unsurprising with the temperature below freezing:

The brown gazebo and chicken coop:

Jenn taking a picture of the snow by the pond arbor:

Rory:

A view of the frozen pond from the pond deck:

Rory enjoyed some off-leash scampering in the field; she loves to run in the snow:

The apple orchard in the field, with the white gazebo in the background:

Rory sniffing deer tracks by the bird feeders:

First snow of 2019

Although much of the country has had lots of snow this winter, we haven’t had any… until now. Yesterday morning we had a brief dusting of snow, then overnight we got about three inches, with a forecast of more throughout the day.

Naturally, I took a bunch of photos while on my morning rounds.

Here’s the brown gazebo and trees covered in snow:

Snow on brown gazebo

The pond wasn’t frozen, yet anyway:

Snow on the banks of the pond

The flowerbeds, with the pond deck on the left, the brown gazebo in the distance, and the veggie garden on the right:

Flowerbeds under snow

The chicken coop:

Chicken coop with snow

As usual, the bird netting on the roof of the chicken run collapsed under the weight of the snow. I plan to replace that with welded wire, like the berry cage, but was hoping to defer it; now I guess I need to either repair the netting, or do the wire after all:

Chicken run

The welded wire on the berry cage held up just fine:

Berry cage with snow

The beehives:

Beehives with snow

The cat house, somewhat sheltered by the trees:

Cat house with snow

Cat update for week ending February 2

For this Caturday, I’m doing something a little different: sequences of photos. So there are lots more photos than usual, but most of them are very similar, so you can skim through them quickly. Sorry if this is too much; I’ll almost certainly go back to the usual format next time. But I thought this could be fun.

First up, a bunch of photos of cats arriving for dinner one evening; see if you can count how many (note, some visited multiple times):