Over the last few mornings I’ve been attaching 14-gauge welded wire fencing to the chicken run framing:
The lower course flares out a little below ground level, to prevent animals from digging under the fence:
Fenced gates:
From inside:
And outside:
A close-up of a U-shaped nail (for once nailed by hand, instead of using the air nailer):
I cleared out the run, in preparation for chickens gaining access soon:
And added a little temporary shade:
You know when you have big gaps in fences, intended for people to go through? Traditionally those are filled with gates. Call me crazy, but that seems a useful idea.
So, over the last couple of days I built gates for the chicken run; a small one for people to go through, and a big double gate for vehicle access.
Here’s the small gate, after being built:
Wondering about the bit at the bottom? Here’s the gate installed, so you can see why; it’s to allow for the bottom board of the fence when mounting the hinges:
The view from inside the run:
Next up, the big gate. Here’s one side assembled, but not yet mounted:
And both sides installed:
From another angle:
And from inside:
Open:
Next up: installing the fencing wire!
Back to work on the chicken run, after the festivities of the weekend (and thanks for all the kind words about the coop).
Yesterday I installed one of the posts and horizontal beams for the small gate west of the coop:
Then today I did the couple of posts and beams on the other side of the gate:
And added a sill below both gate openings; the small gate as above, and the big gate:
We’re having record heat this week, with highs over 100°F (38°C)… what better time to work outside on the new chicken run?!
My latest toy is very useful to dig the 2′ deep fence post holes — an earth auger:
Digging the holes:
Posts temporarily placed in the holes:
Starting to install them properly:
The east fence frame, with space for a large double gate on the left, big enough to drive through:
The north fence frame:
Reverse angle; the poles leaning inside the run will go into holes in the center, supporting beams and a bird netting cover:
To be continued….
I have a couple of taps by the old chicken coop, but wanted to add some by the new one too.
So first up, I dug a ditch for the new pipe, intercepting an existing pipe:
Then I laid out the parts:
And assembled them:
Looking closer, there’s a valve to shut off the pipe after this point (water flows from right to left), since that isn’t used, plus a capped expansion point for possible future use:
And a two-headed tap, so so I can have both a hose to refill the chicken water, plus a timer and irrigation for the window boxes:
And another expansion point inside the chicken run, for a possible tap there:
I also wanted to replace an existing junction next to the old coop, that had a valve with a broken handle:
The new multi-valve system, that lets me shut off water to different areas of the garden, and includes an underground tap that I could use in winter, when the rest of the taps are off:
Here’s the overhead view, showing the valve box:
We inspected the beehives today. Usually Jenn does this by herself, but this time I helped out, since we were anticipating adding honey supers.
Here’s a frame with a bunch of brood (worker cells), and a little honey in the upper corners:
A bunch of honey. Note, all of this honey isn’t stuff we’ll harvest; it’s in the two brood boxes, for the bees to eat over winter:
Look what we spotted — the queen! I circled her on the picture. It can be tricky to spot the queen, amongst the thousands of other bees (plus she likes to hide away from the light); usually we just see the eggs she lays:
A foundationless frame, where the bees make their own comb, with a little honey:
Lots of honey, with some damaged cross-comb, where the bees connect two frames:
Another great-looking foundationless frame of honey:
Adding a honey super. This is a Flow box, designed to make it easier to harvest honey; we have one Flow hive (for liquid honey) and one regular hive (for comb honey):
Both hives, each with a honey super:
Lots of young koi, and three bigger ones, swimming in our pond.
Elk are magestic beasts, fun to look at… but they are also (literally) big menaces, particularly frustrated males.
Recently we found some of our apple trees damaged by elk rubbing on them:
And not satisfied with that, last night one broke our new oak tree in the field:
Since it wasn’t completely broken, I thought I’d try repairing it. No guarantees it’ll recover, but it’s worth trying. Several sites recommended putting bolts through the trunk, and using caulk to seal up the breaks, so that’s what I did:
I also added a bit of fencing around it, to make it harder to get to, though it won’t slow down the elk much:
Hopefully it’ll recover!
Oh, and I also saw a coyote in the field:
I just got back from another trip to Home Depot (the 7th for this project), to get some more supplies for the new chicken run. Wire fencing, posts, nails, gate hardware, etc.
At the back of our workshop building is a small bathroom, with a toilet and shower, and space for a sink, though there isn’t one there currently. The previous owners ripped up some of the walls to fix a leak, so it’s a bit of a mess.
Anyway, last winter I left the water on (foolishly) and a pipe sprang a leak behind the shower enclosure. So recently we’ve been working on ripping out the enclosure, so I could get to the pipe. We have plans to remodel the bathroom at some point, including installing a tiled shower, so having to remove the old enclosure wasn’t too dismaying.
Here’s the enclosure as we worked on getting it loose:
And removed:
This tool, a reciprocating saw (often called a Sawzall, though that’s a trademark), was particularly useful in removing the enclosure:
In particular because I needed to cut a chunk out of the base, to fit it around the door to get it out of the bathroom:
Thusly:
Here you can see the leak, from the bottom pipe (cold water) in the corner:
I chopped out a chunk of the corner:
Then replaced it; it was quite fiddly, tucked in the corner between two studs like that; I needed to remove part of a stud to give me room to fit the pipes together:
All good now, so the bathroom can be used again!