Hurricane Farm

It's been raining on and off for almost three weeks now here in Southern New England.  The forcast calls for rain and thunder storms for the next 7 days.  This is good for some of our garden but detrimental to tomatoes, peppers, and people who don't like mud.  In fact, the hay fields all around us in towns throughout Eastern Connecticut have been left to their own devices--almost looking abandoned--due to the constant wet.  No one has been able to cut their hay for weeks.  The first cutting traditionally takes place on Memorial Day Weekend here in CT, but it was raining back then, too!  Hopefully the rain will let up for a few days at least soon!

The rain does not seem to bother the large livestock, however.  Here you can see the two Jerseys and Aloysius involved in some sort of race with one of our Black Spanish turkeys.  The turkey seems to be winning this one.

The rain has also slowed down my building of our meat chicken coop/shed.  Here is a photo from a couple of weeks ago.  Liev helped me erect a wall.  Now, during breaks in the rain, and with a little help from my Dad yesterday, we have all four walls up, framed, and covered with siding.  I hope to put up some rafters today if it stays only overcast and does not begin to rain.

Despite all the rain, mud, humidity, and dirty floors that come with living in what seems to have turned into a tropical rainforest environment, good things do come in the end:

It has been a busy several days here.  With school vacation last week, there were lots of projects to finish up, continue, and start.

Erica and the kids were able to get all the seeds started in a small indoor greenhouse, we tilled the garden and rolled over all the manure we spread in there, an herb garden took shape, bulbs were transplanted all around the yard, and of course the chicken coops rolled off the "assembly line."

I have found that four is the number to build at a time.  Any more than four at a time and the hardware store runs out of hinges and latches.  But if I get enough for four, somehow the store is all restocked the following week waiting for my next batch of coops.

So far I've finished four and moved them out to their new homes, and have four more 1/2 way finished.  I will build another four, as well as a 4 x 7 foot goat barn that we have a deposit on, and hopefully finish up my own 10 x 8 shed/meat chicken house (pics on that to follow later).

Here are four coops just past the halfway point.  I find that cutting each section in fours also speeds up the construction, but allows me to vary my tasks at a rapid enough pace to keep me interested in what I'm doing.

After the rough framing and the nesting boxes, I add some walls, a "pop-hole" for the hens complete with a door, and some roof trusses.

I also add two windows.  I make them diamond shape just to add some character and to make them different from any other building out there.

The 4 foot by 4 foot construction allows for enough space for a small backyard flock and also allows me to move it around with my hand truck and fit it into just about any size truck.  (I add the side door just before we load them up.)

Here is the coop in even the smallest of trucks.  This one is about to be taken to its new owners a few towns away.

We also offer a coop "package," for which customers receive some feed, a waterer, a feeder, some nesting box hay, and 6 baby chicks.  Long live the backyard chicken!  We started our farm with this exact same coop that I designed while building it many years ago.  We had four chickens and two rabbits.  We've grown quite a bit since then!