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.

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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!

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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).

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Chicken coop roof trusses

Today I cut the seven rafters for the roof trusses. The coop will have an interesting “saltbox”-style roof, spanning between a 6′ wall on the back to a 8′ wall on the front, with a 10′ peak.

It may seem counterintuitive to make the trusses as the next step after the floor, but it makes sense; easier to work on them on the floor than later when the walls are in place, and I can use the floor as a template for the sizing.

You may notice that three of the left-hand (back) rafters have extra bird-mouth notches in them; those three will go on the two end walls and the center wall, for a little extra support:

The rafters will be connected together with OSB gussets… some other day.

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Building chicken coop floor

Today I built the floor of the new chicken coop.

Here I’m marking where the joists are to be attached on the two long rim joists:

Measuring corner-to-corner to check that it’s square:

The rim joists laid out:

All the joists in place:

A joist hanger:

Me carrying one of the plywood floor panels with the handy Gorilla Gripper:

Construction adhesive:

Floor in place and nailed down:

Covered against the anticipated rain:

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Ducks in the pond

A pair of ducks stopped by our pond this morning.

One day we’d like to make a duck house and raise some ducklings, but the meantime we enjoy the occasional visitors.

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New chicken coop underway: footings

This morning I started work on the new chicken coop, by figuring out exactly where to position it, and placing and leveling the concrete pier footings. They aren’t quite perfect yet, but pretty close.

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Building potato planters

Today I built the potato planters. My first project with the new table saw and nailer; they certainly made the job easier.

I made three planters, for three different varieties of potatoes. I basically stuck to my design, except I decided the interior pole wasn’t needed, since the boards stay in place quite well without, more so with dirt inside the box.

The loose filler boards were cut a bit longer than the sides, to make them easier to grab and remove when harvesting potatoes. I kinda like the interlocking look, too. The boards will be slotted in as the plants grow.

Now we just need to get some dirt!

Potato planter design tweaked

A refinement to the design of the potato planters that I will be building as a practice project. (The sides will be filled in with 2×6 boards that can slot in as the plants grow.)