How Does Your Garden Grow? - Rainy days

How Does Your

Garden Grow?

I gave serious consideration to standing on the back patio with an umbrella in each hand to protect our precious little container garden during the storm last Thursday night, but thankfully my guilt was unnecessary (as per usual) and all of our little plants survived the night. We even have a few little carrot sprouts working their way out. Hopefully you all else faired just as well.

Over the weekend my hubby and I got to work on attempting to move the chickens to a more permanent spot in the backyard and to say that we’re all excited to take the next step would be an understatement. They’re starting to get too big for their extra-large dog crate and I need them to get to work on the bugs because the mosquitos are already absolutely disgusting. We pounded posts a few weeks ago so we got to work on securing the fence which was the easy part.

We stole some pavers from my mom’s house while she wasn’t looking to use as a foundation for the coop, but that was an exercise in frustration and we decided instead to make a little cement pad. That’s our big project for this coming weekend, so we set the coop on a tarp until then.

We opted to go with a large cabinet rather than a conventional coop due to the price difference. Plus we didn’t need the little built-in run that most coops come with since we already had the space and supplies to use what we had. My husband put the cabinet together a couple of weeks ago which came in a kit. We think it’s made from pine but it smelled suspiciously of cedar. After he got the cabinet together, I washed it with warm water and soap and we came to the conclusion that it had been sprayed with something to make it smell a little more high quality than it really was. Sneaky sneaky.

But we’re still happy with it, and after it dried I gave it a good coating with a sealant inside and out to keep it protected and make it last a little longer. We also sealed any large cracks between the boards with caulk, again, something we already had on hand. We were careful not to make it too airtight as the birds need ventilation.

My brilliant mother-in-law, Renee Goodman, had the idea of using paint trays as nesting boxes so the eggs roll gently down the slope to try to help them stay as clean as possible. We bought some of those and will secure them in place next weekend as well.

We put the goats to work stripping the bark off a couple of young trees to use them as perches in the other side of the cabinet, and they did an excellent job even though my poor Ernie is nursing an injury. Somehow he got tangled in the fence last week and my husband found him laying on his back with his little hooves in the air after his brother, Fergus, came running to the gate screaming for help. What a hero. After we checked Ernie thoroughly it seemed like he sprained his leg. We kept a close eye on him for a couple of days and he was just fine if not a little dramatic.

Lest you think that Fergus is the smart one, we’ve already found him twice nearly suffocating from putting himself in the most ridiculous situations. Thank goodness they’re cute.

Either way, the plan is to seal the perches and screw them into place inside the coop. I had been thinking about putting sand on the floor of the coop to make cleaning a little easier, but I heard that some peoples’ chickens get sick using sand so I went with what I knew for now and used sawdust. I can’t wait to move their food and water to shepherds hooks outside rather than on the floor of their crate. These birds are messy little brats and it will be so satisfying to get their food and water off the ground.

We attempted to string up their netting intended to keep flying predators out of the chicken run, but it did not go as planned. The net is very strong but very fine and acted like Velcro; there was nothing it didn’t pick up off the ground including dried animal poop, which was not fun for us. I got stuck in it, Fergus got stuck in it twice, Mike’s shoes got caught, my earrings got tangled, it was a disaster. We got it halfway up and decided to look for something thicker that would not trap us or anything else that comes into contact with it.

The best part of our little setup is that it connects to the access door in our garage, so getting to the chickens and collecting eggs will be very convenient, especially since we store their food in secure containers just inside the door. And we’ll be able to see them from the sliding glass door in our dining room, which makes me so happy.

I love to watch my animals doing animal things. I can see the goats too, but they spend most of their day staring into the same sliding glass door, waiting to make eye contact in an attempt to summon us to let them out. I love them, but something about knowing that you’re constantly being watched can be unsettling.

Of course we had to come up with a fun name for our new setup. Welcome to the Poultry Pantry!

Mandee Ellis is a reporter at The Star News. Contact her at Mandee@centralwinews.com.