the new chicken box

What do you call it? A roost? A home? A box? I have no idea. But I've made our segregated couple a new home. These two live in Stalag 13 - a dog run converted to a chook pen.

Why are they segregated you may ask. Well, basically the rooster needed to be put in a safe place or his son was going to kill him. Then I couldn't leave him lonely, so I got him a hen from the feed store. I didn't want to pen one of our free range hens as I thought it'd be cruel to cage a girl who's known freedom. This little girl was born and bred in cages so I figure that she's happy not having to share her space with a lot of other girls.

So here are the steps to making this wonderful creation. In case you were wondering. If not just skip this post.

Believe it or not, I started by making a nesting box. I was dreaming of the day I'd open a lid and reach in to a clean poop-free box and remove fresh, clean eggs, without having to get down on creaky knees and grope through chicken droppings to get them.

Here is my box. I'm so proud. Don't ask me for a tutorial on this. You really don't want to make anything the way I do... But let me just say I only cut one piece of timber wrong! Honestly. That's a new one for me. Especially working on angles ..I failed geometry. And the teacher was right... I did need it...

NOTE: This nesting box and roost is made up entirely of offcuts of wood I had in my workshop.

Let me try to walk you through it, I cut a base the size I thought the hen would appreciate. Then I put a front and a back on it, the front high enough to hold in bedding, the back high enough to give the hen head space. Since I really suck at putting sides on things I used brackets to put the back on. I'm a cheat. I'm comfortable with that.

To make the sloping sides, I held a piece of plywood up and kind of drew where I thought the sides would meet the back and front. Then I used a ruler to draw a line between them and cut along those lines. Once I was happy with side #1, I traced it onto another piece of plywood and cut that too. I used screws to join them together. 

I added a piece of pine to the top and to the front for the lid to swing off. This is how the box was looking at that stage.

I used some offcut pieces of cedar cladding for the roof. I had to add a thin strip of pine at the top in order to hold the screws. Turns out cedar is really soft and breaks easy. Who knew?

Result, a stylish nesting box. I hope the hen is pleased. I gave it couple of coats of the same self priming exterior paint that I used on the house, except for the roof which I simply gave a coat of polyurethane. 

So there I was, nice nesting box, nowhere to put it. I was trying to think of how to make a home for the chickens in Stalag 13 when I had a revelation. In the middle of the night of course. Lying in bed, not able to sleep cause of nesting boxes and angles going through my mind, when suddenly it was KAPOW.

The wood box!

We've been using this as our wood box for the last 7 years. I think it may have been a feed bin in a previous life. I'd given it a coat of paint and Wayne cut half the front out so we could reach in for our wood and put it on the back porch. We used to keep the smaller, kindling type of wood in there. But we now have air conditioning. And a broken wood heater... so... we don't need the wood box! 

In my sleep deprived state I knew it was the answer to my prayers. I didn't have to make a home from scratch!

First step, I took the front off. I had planned to just turn it upside down, leaving the opening on the bottom. 

Then I thought, why leave the 'wings' at the bottom? I cut it straight across and down the middle, creating doors. Which I had all kinds of trouble hanging on my own. Those suckers were heavy and its hard to hold the drill, screws, hinges and doors all at the same time. The lost screws under the deck are proof of that.

Plus, I was thinking it might be too enclosed. So I took them off again.

Meanwhile inside the box I put in a long branch as a roost. I sure hope its thick enough... I did this by drilling out two large holes with the hole saw (yes, I own a set of those!), pushing the branch through and then putting a screw through to hold it in place. You don't want it spinning when the chickens get on it!

I also cut a hole out for the nesting box and attached it to the outside with screws. I admit, I googled how to make nesting boxes and chicken homes. The nesting box has to be lower than the roost or the hens will sleep in the nesting boxes. Since chickens poop in their sleep, if they roost in the nesting box, they'll poop in the nesting box. YUCK.

Now I was thinking, can they get up onto the roost? Is the box too small? Is the roost too high? I have no idea.

So to be safe, I made a little ladder. A friend thinks its too steep. Maybe it is. I'm hoping they'll use it. They've been living on the ground for so long...

Oh, and I added more cedar to the roof to make it match. Looking good!

Since the outside of the box had already been painted, I just gave it one coat of house paint to freshen it up. Then I decided the inside needed painting too.

In the end I decided to use a piece of trellis I found and make a single door. A bit of privacy, and more air circulation. Remember, these chickens have been sleeping in an old dog kennel till now. This has got to be a step up in the world!

Here is the other side. Pretty plain huh? I thought a little porch would look nice, balance it out, you know. I'm all about curb appeal. 

I used some brackets and some timber wedges to achieve an angle, added more cladding and voila! An undercover area for eating.

Ok, the reason behind the porch is that I had planned on demolishing the dog kennel. I hated that thing, it was stinky and hard to clean out. And I was over reaching into it for eggs.

Well, when I started pulling it apart I had another idea. I pulled off the cladding on 2 sides, making it into a kind of summer house. How many chooks have a summer house? huh?

Its actually a great place for the food dish too. You can see the hen is having a peck at the shell grit while the rooster is having a snack of grain under the porch.

I didn't think I was going to be able to get the new home into Stalag 13 till next week as there was no way I could move that thing off the porch on my own. However a nice man gave me a hand today and its done! I'm not above playing the weak female card. 

I cleaned out old bedding and put down some new stuff, put some hay in the bottom of their new roost and in the nesting box, and here they are...

Stalag 13 has never looked so good!

I'm so pleased. I love the new look. Now, if they would only use the roost...

Next job - the chicken coop. Ugh. Don't remind me.

z

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string holders and evicting bats

Phew. The day is over. A good day, but SO tiring. I got a ton done which is great. I failed at a couple of things too, but hey, you can't win 'em all.

So, what did I do today that was so exhausing? Well, I started with the plan of putting up the new grooming sign. I worked on that for about 30 minutes before giving up. It was just not working. Good thing too really, cause in the end I decided I needed to rethink the position. More on that soon.

I did 3 loads of washing and the usual chores of feeding and caring for all the animals, and I did a little garden work. Then I decided it was time to clean out the carport. 

Background: We used to keep our chicken feed in the carport and that encouraged mice and rats to live in there. Which encouraged the dogs to dig at the walls and generally cause trouble. About a month ago I started the car and a mouse jumped out of the engine bay. I've been parking out in the yard since. 

So, I decided the carport needed a makeover, more to make it safe than to make it look nice. Trust me, its a pretty basic farm carport... Not much I could have done to make it look pretty.

Anyway, I ripped off the sagging plywood which had been put over the barn wood and in the process evicted two rats and one tiny bat.

Yep, a tiny bat! Not a typo! I was so excited when I saw it. At first I thought I'd uncovered a hairless baby rat but then saw its cute little face and wings. I wanted to keep it! I wasn't quick enough to catch it, it escaped under the wall and out near the dam. I was worried the geese would eat it - I mean, it was full daylight... what do bats do if they're out in the day? I looked for it but couldn't find it so I hope it was ok. The geese weren't around so I know it wasn't lunch at least.

I threw out a ton of rubbish and rat infested nests and then I nailed a thick particle board to the bottom section of the wall - Its not about keeping rats out as much as its about keeping any small animals (ducklings, chickens, natives) out of our yard. The finished carport is so much neater and I like the exposed slatted wood back wall. And bonus - there is nowhere for rats to nest any more!

After the carport was cleaned up, I opened up a small area I've had penned off to keep the dogs from digging. Hopefully now the rats have been banished the dogs won't need to dig for them and destroy my plants. And I'll be able to pull weeds. Yeah. I live to pull weeds.

ha.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to share with you today. I wanted to share my new rustic string holder. 

I was inspired by this lovely makeover of a thrift shop find by Carlene at Organised Clutter. When I saw it I thought what a great idea, I have to make one of those!

Yeah. Ok. Mine looks nothing like that. 

I had spindles. I had a ton of string. I didn't have a fancy wall sconce. I also didn't really have a wall spot to put it. So I just grabbed a piece of timber from my offcut pile and put them together. It'll do for now.

Its not pretty, but it works. Its not for the office, its for the workshop so it doesn't need to be pretty. The workshop leans more towards a more rustic-farmhouse-hoarder design style.

Thanks for the inspiration Carlene, and sorry I killed your idea. 

z

fun junky planters

I've been a bad blogger. I've let other things (like working and earning money to eat) get in the way of sharing all the exciting things going on around here. I know you've missed me and are dying to hear how things are going at Wind Dancer Farm.

Well... not much really. Except that I'm about $1200 poorer thanks to Romeo. First a couple of weeks ago while grooming him, I found he'd got a grass seed in the sheath of his penis. Yikes. And while investigating that I saw he had a lump on his flank. It didn't look like a grass seed but I took him straight to the vet. There was nothing in the privates, whatever had got in had got out thankfully. He got a course of antibiotics and it cleared up.

The other thing, the lump, the vet was concerned about. The 'c' word was mentioned. So Romeo went in for surgery to have the lump removed and a biopsy done. We then waited a week to hear. Romeo limping uncomfortably cause he also seemed to have a grass seed in his left front paw. I searched but couldn't see anything so I waited to see if it would improve.

The biopsy said the lump was cutaneous reactive histiocytosis. Not something usually found in poodles or even, for that matter, on that part of the body. Wierd. We are waiting and seeing if it was a one off... I've got my fingers crossed.

When the stitches came out I asked the vet to check his foot which was not improving. He couldn't find any indication of a grass seed either and thought Romeo might have broken his toe. He gave him anti-inflammatories.

Well, it got worse and worse till I saw that there was now a hole in the webbing between his toes. I searched and pulled out a grass seed spike and took him back to the vet. They kept him for the day and searched but didn't find any more foreign bodies. They cleaned it out and sent him home with a red bandage, antibiotics and he's also on anti-inflammatories again. It should clear up now but till then we call him Limpy.

Poor Romeo.

Other than that all is well. The garden is looking shocking but given that a reader commented on my old toolbox planter I thought I'd share some of my whimsical plant containers.

I have quite a few old and rusty galvanised buckets. This one, one of my favourites, sits on the porch cause the begonia doesn't like it too hot or frosty.

Last year I bought this gorgeous 60s planter from a garage sale and have put small pots with succulents in it, as well as a cutting of a beautiful pinky white geranium I'm growing.

At the end of the porch I have my lovely old mop bucket. We had one of those things when I was growing up. I much prefer it as a planter.

Since its now autumn the garden is looking pretty awful. Most plants have finished flowering and look ratty. But some are coming up again. Like the sweetpeas in the rusty old washing machine tub and the columbines in and around the old ammo box.

The steps up the porch have some new seedlings in them, alysum and lobelia which will fill and overflow the old pots and loaf tins they're in.

I've replaced the succulents in the bike basket with plants which will overflow and cascade as well. Cat mint, which has purple flowers, in one pot and a pink groundcover I've forgotten the name of in the other.

In three pots in a basket on the back of the bike I've got a white daisy like plant, some alysum and lobelia. The white will grow upwards and the others should cascade. One day it'll look great... one day.

The succulents I put in my stacked containers are coming along nicely. I have three of these but the third isn't looking too good yet. I made these a couple of years ago for indoor storage but decided they'd work better with plants in them. They're made of spindles and baking tins.

I made hanging baskets out of old strainers and steamers, put succulents in them and hung them on the wall near the door. Only succulents do well in planters with so many holes as they dry out very quickly.

I've had this old cane chair for many years, I bought it in an op shop when I was living in Fentonbury. When I got it it was dark brown, I used a wire brush to brush off the flaking paint and sprayed it white. The paint is flaking off again now so I decided to relegate it to a garden ornament.

A bright petunia will full the jam pot. Next spring I'll put in another one - this time in spring so I have flowers through summer.

I used to have a lot of old toolboxes with succulents in them but this is one of the last ones. I sold a few of them at the market stall I did in January. I love old toolboxes and this one in blue and rust is just gorgeous.

The last one is the one on the back of this little tricycle.

You'll notice the flour sifter near the old (cheap) half barrel planter that I can't move without it falling apart. I have 3 sifters but this is one in best condition - ie the plant is still thriving.

One of the other sifters lies next to an overturned pot full of succulents. Hopefully the succulent in it will grow and spread. If not I'll just put another in there!

This little area is in a wasted corner of the driveway where the retaining wall meets the steps to the path. I envisage that the succulents will grow and fill the area.

The other side of the retaining wall is decorated with some more buckets and drums.

And more ammo boxes... with more seedlings in them!

Do you get the feeling I love rusty old things? Well, you wouldn't be wrong!

I do need to get out into the garden and begin trimming things back for winter and, if things go to plan, there'll be a ton of flowers next spring.

I've been holding myself back waiting for the right time to cut things back. I get the urge to do it as soon as things begin to look ratty. Well, time is fast approaching. Time to tidy the garden, plug up all the holes the birds use to nest in, continue making the yard safer for the dogs next summer (ie keep them safe from snakes).

Lots to do.

Always.

z

sometimes you just gotta stop and admire your new boots

Yes! I got new Blundstones!

I love my blunnies. They're the Aussie country footwear of choice. And now they come in all kinds of new styles and colours.

I bought my first pair of blunnies the year I moved to Tasmania. I mean, if you're gonna live in the country you gotta have the right footwear, right? I wore those things till they began to fall apart. Then I glued them back together and wore them some more. I repeated this process till I all I was wearing was bits of leather, rubber and glue.

Then I bought myself another pair. I seem to get somewhere  between 8-9 years out of a pair of blunnies - that is, the ones which were made in Tasmania. Not sure how the new versions will hold out given they've moved production overseas. We can only hope.

They're the most comfortable boots ever. Seriously. They take a while to break in, but once they do they're like a second skin. As I said, I live in mine. My current brown everyday work on my feet as we speak pair have paint on them, have had the tags chewed off by a dog (what is it with the tags that say 'chew 'me' to every dog that sees them?) but I am not willing to part with them yet.

It was time for another pair that I could wear out without embarassing Wayne.

They come in so many styles and colours now it was a hard decision but red seemed frivolous enough for me. Next time I'm getting another brown pair, with coloured elastic, or striped elastic... Ditto with the pair after that... which will be black...

Can you tell I like my blunnies? Or have I been too subtle?

Just call me Imelda Marcos of blunnies.

But enough about that. What's been happening at the old homestead you may ask? Well, my dog grooming business is going well. I'm still working on new signage but should be finished by the end of the week. If I get cracking.

I've finally cleared out the casita workshop and am now selling things I don't need on Facebook just to clear out room to move. Its a slow process but eventually I'll only have projects I'm working on in there and not a pile of stuff I 'plan to work on one day'...

I found my circular saw - and have used it! - since the last post. And I finally re-opened my Etsy shop which has been closed for years. I'm now selling my make-over dolls in there. Please visit and share. I'm a poor starving artist after all...

This is Abby from NCIS, new to the shop. I've also got characters from Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. More coming as I finish them.

So I'm getting there. The To Do list gets items crossed off all the time, but new ones are added daily. Now the hydrobath is clogged up so have to fix that... but all in all things are progressing slowly but well.

Its going to be a hot week which means no work in the garden. That's good cause I was planning to put it off a little longer anyway. Any excuse will do!

z