While awaiting our tax return to wrap up our bathtub/shower installation in the mudroom and to start other projects on the house list, we’ve been blessed with a rather mild winter this month. So we were able to redirect our efforts into some sweat equity outside! A lot of demo was done in a room in the barn and attached shed that would become the chickens’ new coop and run. For  2 weeks, I would basically rip rotten or unnecessary wood out during the week and Nathan would burn my massive pile on the weekend. I finally got it all cleared out and the remodeling began.

The rectanglar shed attached to the back corner of the barn where the small coop room is located was covered in corrugated tin. Nathan cut it down to quarter walls of tin on the north and south side walls and we popped the larger pieces off. The bottom portion will serve as extra protection since it is buried.

A lot of shelving was removed from the shed, but some framework has been left behind to give the chickens some activity on non free ranging days. 😉

Next, a continuous wrap of chicken wire will cover the exposed studs and we will need to create some kind of door. That’s still on the drawing board.

It worked out wonderfully that the room closest to the shed is ideal for a coop! Much of the items needed for roosts and nesting boxes were already in place with ample room to add more in the future! I even have a tentative plan for building in a brooder instead of a tub brooder in the house.

All that is left in here is finishing the chicken wire “wallpapering” for extra protection on the non solid walls. 👍🏻 I’m anxious to get some more birds! And with the way things are going, I may be placing my order next week for 15 variety female chicks to go in a brooder in the mudroom. 😍

While things have been coming together with the chicken accommodations, I was able to get a composting area constructed! We needed something that we could keep Skye out of or she would be dumpster diving on the daily. Conveniently, there was a crude structure at the end of the chicken run that I was able to take down to posts and attach some of the corrugated panels from the shed around! Repurposing for the win!

The pallet operates as a door at the moment, but it enables me to get in there for turning purposes and wheelbarrowing ability.

Now that we were composting…wouldn’t it make sense to have a garden as well?! I mean it’s not like we have a lot to do without tending to a garden daily already. 😜 But when you commit to farmlife, you FULLY commit! Haha So off to a rental service I go last Friday and come home with a “tiller”.  I use quotations because it was basically a weed eater motor with some blades attached. BUT I was able to pick it up by myself and it fit in the back of my Expedition. Friday was definitely my learning curve day. Lesson #1: I initially wanted waaayy too big of a garden! Once I got half way through what we actually ended up with, the tilling and raking was whooping me! I thought to myself, “how am I going to maintain this DAILY?!” So we settled on about 2/3 of what we initially planned for this first year out the chute. Lesson #2: rake the got dang mother effing leaves out first! I thought, “oh these will just till right in and be compost!” Ergh, wrong! They only bogged down the tiller, blocking it from even hitting the dirt. 🙄 The remainder of Friday was then spent raking dang leaves out of the garden area. Exhausting.

Saturday I woke up sore already, but Nathan was ready and willing to assist, so back at it we went. Aside from the tiller not being ideal for the job, the work went smoothly and we finished our 45’x15′ garden with 7 neat rows. After the construction, we then figured out what we were putting in it. I think we covered all the bases!

Now comes lesson #3. Chickens HATE nice things. Especially piles! We spent the rest of Saturday chasing the jerks out of the garden. This obviously wasn’t going to work out once we planted, so we built a “wall.” We call it our own Trump wall. 😆  So far the chickens haven’t figured out that they just have to flap and hop right over. Let’s hope they stay stupid. Haha I would like to be able to let them in the area once plants are big for pest control. We shall see.

Right now it feels like the project list grows faster than we remove things; but when you get down to it, it’s all in the name enjoyment really. So we’ll get to it all when we get to it and I’ll be sure to keep y’all in the loop. 😉

-Lindsay