Making some progress

So, I thought I was good & positive about everything, and then I started some construction on my chicken coop and had a relapse.  Construction is one of my weakest skills, it's a guaranteed way for me to be immediately frustrated.  I have tons of ideas and a perfectionist vision, but I just can't execute it.  To be honest, I can barely pound a nail in straight.  So, Mom suggested I plant some flowers to make myself feel better.  So I did!

 Most of these are from Aunty Jayne (Thanks!!) with a few additions from Patmore's (creeping Jenny, Ipomea, bacopa, and lantana).  My washer and dryer tub combo planters!  Salvaged from one of the buildings on the day of the fire, so it was fate that they be my planters this year.

It was raining in this photo so it looks a little hazy, but here's our house.  Once those plants trail over those tubs it's gonna be gorgeous!!  The herb garden returned to it's convenient spot under the kitchen window, and if you look to the left you can see my finch feeder, oriole feeder, and hummingbird feeder (they returned on May 18th!).

Jon has been working hard the past 2 days getting our caterpillar tunnel up.  He had already bent the steel but it was in the quonset which burned and so it was not salvageable.  We had to start over and due to lack of time we ordered the steel painted white.  We weren't able to source galvanized steel and so this is a critical step in the process of preserving our metal and the plastic covering the tunnel.

The first step was to lay out the markers for the site.  Then he unrolled the landscape fabric and cut it so that we will still be able to access the beds.  Then he burned holes for the rebar which anchors the tunnel to the ground, and also put in the stakes for trellising.  He bent all the hoops and was touching up the paint when it started to rain, so now he's working on the trellising.

We're doing things very carefully and getting them right the first time.  Four years ago we put up two of this same design on another farm and learned our lessons.  Lesson #1: Plants do very well in a tunnel, especially weeds.  Hence the landscape fabric.  The first two didn't have it and it wasn't long before the weeds overtook the ends where the plastic is tied.  Also, weeding where the posts meet the ground SUCKS.  Since there's plants near the edge, you can't weedwhack, it's impossible to get it all with the tractor tiller, and so it's not long before the sides of the tunnel are overgrown and look terrible.  We are able to lift the edges on the fabric which means it will stay weed free and we can till directly beside the structure no problem.

Lesson #2: Put your trellising in FIRST, before you put on the plastic-- kinda seems like a no brainer, but we've already done this the hard way once and had no desire to do it again. 

Lesson #3: Learn your lessons on someone else's farm where they're paying the bill so that you can do it right when you do your own.

Some other things:  We've done this same design with a ridge pole and found that it didn't add any significant strength and in fact was extra hard on the plastic rubbing on the ropes.  The design we are using is not meant to have a ridge pole.  The ridge pole was not very effective for trellising, either.  The rebar is pounded 3' in the ground, so we'll see if that enough for these Manitoba gales.  It should be, we're not worried as the area we are using is also sheltered.  We copied our friends & colleagues and used parachute cord for the ropes.  The ropes hold the plastic on and allow for it to be pushed up like a roll up side on a greenhouse.

We haven't stayed on budget for the project due to the steel reorder, but will come out at around $2000 for this puppy (12' x 100').  If we can lengthen our tomato season and provide a more marketable fruit to customers, it will all be worth it.  With careful use the plastic should last up to 5 years, realistically at least 3.  This is Jon's project, so he will be looking after the crops in the tunnel this summer, which is why the weed barrier is a necessary part of execution.  Why waste time weeding when you could skip it??  He's working full time and doing this in his "spare" time, so there's no room for f-ing around!

We have laying hens arriving in the next couple of weeks.  I had moments last week of thinking "why the heck am I bothering with this right now when we're already so behind" and then I thought outside the box.  So many people have told us to let us know if there's anything they can do to help, so I asked my super amazing friend Abby to pick them up, which she's willing to do, so that's perfect!  That leaves me enough moments to haphazardly rough together a chicken home, while staying on top of weeds and planting on the farm, and putting the finishing touches on my bag fundraiser project for the Brandon Farmer's Market.

So, my construction project is building another coop to replace the one lost in the fire.  There is one remaining useable building on the farm, a wooden rectangular building which was used as a grain bin.  It has 6 compartments, and so I sealed the top of this one (12' x 14') in with 2" hardware cloth salvaged from a fence that will be pulled out eventually because all the posts burned.  My crowning glory is the nest boxes.  I had seen people make bucket nest boxes and thought it was a hell of an idea.  Because we had existing nest boxes, I had used those, but they are no longer and so I did this!  These are galvanized chicken feeders salvaged from the fire.  A little worse for wear but I don't think the hens will mind!  The idea being, fill it with straw, they lay their eggs there, and if they shit all over the place like chickens do, you can just dump it out and add fresh straw.  My biggest hurdle last year was dirty eggs.  I spent WAAY too much time cleaning filthy eggs from the hen tractor, which in hindsight was not well suited to 12 hens.  This makes keeping nest boxes clean a snap!

There is an access door to the outside where I will build a run.  We spend between 9 - 14+ hours each day away from home and so any outdoor run needs to be well secured.  There are skunks who live under the building, and three new baby foxes!  We have two resident fox families- one at the end of the field in a den and this one who has babies under the building the past 2 years.  Hens and foxes don't mix, but they didn't give us any trouble last year so we will move forward and do our best to not make it an easy meal for them.

Our neighbour Jim Frank told me last summer that one time they had foxes living under a building, so they smoked them out.  The foxes, who hadn't been bothering any chickens, moved onto the next yard site and then returned and ate all the chickens!  So, the saying "don't shit where you eat" holds some truth!  So, cute baby foxes, don't eat my chickens and I'll leave you alone.  I'll probably leave you alone either way, but I'll just be real sad if you eat my chickens!

I'm going out tonight to hide in a tree and await baby foxes tumbling out from under the building at dusk.  We saw them last night, they are like puppies and kittens mixed together and somehow cuter than both!  They play with each other and peek at us from around the corner of the building.  Hopefully I can get some good photos or video and share it!