Flock Friday for November 6

I can’t believe it’s Friday already; it’s been quite a week, eh? What is time, anyway?

Since I’ve been posting hourly photos on my personal blog over the last few days, to help distract me and others from election coverage, you may have seen some of these pictures… but there are some new ones, too.

On Halloween I gave the chickens a pumpkin:

Chickens with pumpkin

Chickens with pumpkin

This is what a pumpkin looks like after they’re through with it; just the barest of shells:

Pumpkin

Some pictures of the ducks on the pond:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

This week I let the chickens into the veggie garden (video):

Chickens in veggie garden

Lots of tomatoes:

Chickens in veggie garden

Those recently planted lettuces never had a chance:

Chickens in veggie garden

Digging in the potato planters is fun:

Chickens in veggie garden

Tasty kale:

Chickens in veggie garden

A wide shot of the whole veggie garden:

Chickens in veggie garden

I went to the feed store, as I was out of duck food. The new coop storage area is rather full at present:

Coop storage

More pictures of ducks:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Chickens in the veggie garden again, a few days later; not much left of the green pumpkins:

Chickens in veggie garden

Chickens in veggie garden

Buffy jumping for high kale leaves:

Chickens in veggie garden

Chickens in veggie garden

Chickens in veggie garden

Ducks:

Ducks

The old chicken coop:

Old chicken coop

And new chicken coop:

New chicken coop

The chickens waiting for me:

Chickens

I discovered a soft egg, just the inner membrane, without a hard shell. Unusual, but happens occasionally:

Soft egg

Ducks on the lawn:

Ducks

Ducks

Finally, a GIF edition of the time-lapse video I posted yesterday:

Ducks GIF

Finished the project summaries project

Today I added the last project summary page, Deck, to the Project Summaries pages. The Deck one links to two deck-related projects (surprise surprise) from last year.

Firstly, a project to assemble an aluminum gazebo on our deck:

And another project to build a pool deck extension off our main deck, enabling easier access to our seasonal above-ground swimming pool:

So now my Projects pages are complete, summarizing all of the building projects I’ve done around the homestead, at least since I started this blog.

Over time, I will update those pages for any modifications as needed, and add new ones for new projects. These pages serve as useful references, more easy to find than searching through blog posts.

Adding an upper back door to the cat house

As mentioned on recent Caturday posts, we’ve had a few incursions by raccoons and even skunks inside the feral cat house. While there haven’t been any cats home at the time, with them hanging out more in cold weather, I worry it’s only a matter of time.

My concern was that the front and back doors of the cat house were on the lower level, so if a cat was on the upper level when a raccoon came in, they’d be trapped, and would have to get past it to escape. Not ideal.

To solve this concern, I purchased another cat door like the existing ones to install on the upper level. I did that installation yesterday.

Here’s a photo of inside the cat house beforehand, after sliding open the front wall, that serves as maintenance access:

Inside the cat house

(If I were to build the cat house again, I would do a simpler design, with a swinging door on the side, instead of sliding the whole front wall, awning and all.)

Here is the back of the cat house; the new door will be above the existing one:

Back of cat house

I started installation by cutting a small hole through the wall with my jigsaw, to check the positioning. The wall has five layers: batten boards, plywood, insulation, more plywood, and carpeting:

Back of cat house

The small hole from inside:

Inside the cat house

I then incrementally enlarged the hole to the right size. Here’s a cam shot of me peeking through the larger hole:

Inside the cat house

Me mounting the inner frame of the door:

Inside the cat house

The completed inside frame (I planned to trim the loose flap of carpet on the ceiling, but forgot; no biggie):

Inside the cat house

(Another thing I’d skip if redesigning the cat house is the vents, which I keep permanently covered; I had thought I’d open them in summer, but the cats prefer a cozy house even in the heat of summer.)

The back view of the inner frame, before adding the outer one. The battens were removed with a hammer and chisel, and the hole cut with a jigsaw:

Back of cat house

The outer frame and flap installed. I could touch up the paint to make it tidier, but probably won’t bother, since it’s sheltered under the eaves, and hidden behind shrubs:

Back of cat house

A view from further back, of both back doors:

Back of cat house

The new door is intended only as an emergency exit, so there isn’t a platform to jump onto; they can easily jump from that height to the ground.

To let them know that it’s a door, I temporarily propped it open with a bit of wood; I’ll remove that after a couple of days:

Back of cat house

Porcini was of course the first one to check out the new door:

Inside the cat house

Peeking out:

Inside the cat house

It didn’t faze them; the feral cats are cautious, but quickly adapt to changes:

Inside the cat house