Number 26

The farm has a new visitor for awhile. I guess he stays until his tough duties with "Meghan" and "Meghan's calf" (she is a consenting adult, don't worry) are done...

His name is "26".

He doesn't seem to be taking his duties too seriously. He spent a lot of time tackling the compost pile...

It was a beautiful day on the farm today so we got to work on the main chicken coop. The entire thing is going to cost us $20 (for the craigslist hardware cloth) plus a bit for netting over the top. Everything else is recycled.

First I cut the fronts off of these crates - they'll hang low on the wall and will be the nest boxes .

Nathan cut lengths of plywood to line the inside of the drywall playhouse (so the chickens won't peck at the drywall).

 One piece of plywood screwed to the wall. We're ignoring the creepy "god loves liam" writing all over the walls. 

The natural roosts that we found.

Ryan helps to recycle everything...

He and Abby are becoming real farm dogs. Abby's even got the grass chewing down.

Ryan got invited by Jim to help bring the horses in this afternoon. He was so excited that he was pretty much useless. Here are the horses coming in the right direction, with Ryan nowhere to be seen.

Here are the horses going in the wrong direction. Ryan is behind that post on the right about to come running back to us, terrified.

(the horses don't care about dogs at all and I don't let the dogs chase them, ever. Too dangerous!).

Back to the coop...Here it is with the two posts in and a trench dug to bury the hardware cloth (our landlord used his tractor to make holes for the posts). The trench took forever because the ground is so rocky.

Putting in the braces for the hardware cloth and posts.

Attaching the hardware cloth to the wood - we had to use nails and bend them over the cloth because the wood was too hard for our staple gun. Tomorrow we just have to put up the upper level of hardware cloth and get some netting for the top.

 Hopefully all the chicks will be healthy for their new coop. The snuffling chick has been separated from the others and seems to be the same as this morning. Zebra head in the top left corner is huge!

The plants are definitely healthy in the greenhouse. 

Peppers and cucumbers.

Tomatoes and melons.