Well, so tonight Jason finished the ‘chicken tractor’. I don’t have pics yet, but I do promise some. I haven’t even put chick pics up yet, either! I hate reading a blog with no photos! Anyhoo, a chicken tractor is a mobile chicken housing unit that you can move around as needed, i.e. when the chickens have pooped up the ground too much. It is an A-frame little house built of recycled lumber and 1/2″ welded wire. It looks very much similar to the linked photo above. We put in the baby chicks who are now 2 weeks old and feathering out, and the little boys immediately began sizing each other up, pecking each other and trying to ‘spur’ each other even though they don’t have any spurs to speak of. It is really funny to watch as they flap at each other and jump around. Of course, it wouldn’t be funny if they were actually doing damage to each other, but anyway.
So at least that’s out of the way for now. You put 21 baby chicks in a rubbermaid tub, add some water, pine shavings, newspaper, heat and 24 hours worth of chicken poo and it tends to get pretty raunchy pretty fast. Then, when you take them out to clean the tub, guess what? Everyone decides to get diarrhea and get it all over themselves, so that’s lots of fun, too. Needless to say, I was sooooooooo thankful that the chicken hut got done tonight!
Oh, I got to use an air-powered stapling gun tonight. That was fun! I actually managed NOT to perforate any part of my or Jason’s body with a 1.5″ long staple. Fortunately, just for idiots like me, there is a safety feature that prevents you from doing such. Unfortunately, when I was throwing some PVC pipes and some wood moulding up on a shelf I nearly whacked Jason in the head (he went running for his safety glasses, and yes, he did wear them after that) and I did whack myself three times before I was sat on the sidelines with a finger injury. I’m just not really good with tools and man-things and all of that. Thank GOD knitting needles aren’t sharp! At least I can do that without killing myself.
So today, I was browsing my new Seeds of Change catalog. It is all organically raised seeds/plants. Anyway it is like neo-hippie heaven. I can’t wait to put up a hoop house (those semi-circular covered greenhouses) so I can raise veggies year round. I think that will be lots of fun. Oh, and work, of course. Always work. I am trying to come up with the best layout for my raised bed garden so that it gets maximum sun all year, esp. in winter. I have been saving up all of my milk jugs and Coke bottles, because I am going to whack the very tops off, drill small holes along the bottom, and bury them next to my veggies. See, that way you just fill it up with water, go along to the next bottle and you know for sure that your plants’ roots are getting watered. It worked really well for some roses I had planted last year. So, if you have milk jugs or plastic bottles, send em my way! :0)
Happy farming!
My Little Country 
