Over the last few days we built the floor of the coop and put up two walls in the blistering heat with very little fighting. I do however have a scorching sunburn on my shoulder. Yes. I know. Wear sunscreen, but geeez once you've gone too long and the burn is there, it's no fun to heal through the pain.
We started work on the third wall and had something of a construction/marital breakdown. I apparently can't explain plans easily to my husband, yet I was sure that he was about to cut the framing timbers for the shed roof at the wrong angle, so I wouldn't let him cut anything and then tried once again to explain where I was sure the angle was wrong with no success. Finally, at the end of the day, we decided to just slap the third wall up there and see how it fit. Yeah, Ok. It doesn't fit. Sigh. It fits lengthwise no problem, but the angle at the top is wrong. Great Big Sigh.
However, after sleeping off the frustration, both Dear Butcher and I looked at it and said, "Oh. Yup. That's where it doesn't fit. Right there at that angle. OK then. We'll climb up and fix it. Ha ha."
And it's been in the high 90's ever since. Not construction weather. Sorry, but I'm not interested in heat stroke on my birthday, thanks so much. We're not getting too far on fixing the mistake, but oddly enough, I'm not that worried. The mistake is totally obvious now, neither one of us is sulking or blaming, and we know we won't repeat it on the fourth wall. As soon as the mercury goes down, the coop will go up.
And to answer Cindy, the chickens are a fancy breed. They are Silver Laced Wyandottes. Standard sized birds which lay brown eggs, very laid back, with elegant feathers. When they are adults they'll look like this: (Hat tip to Mike Wing's page on keeping chickens)
Right now they just look scruffy -- one month old. Half in downy baby feathers, half in adult plumage. Sort of like acne afflicted teenagers wearing jeans which are inches too short in the leg.At three days:
At one week:
At one month:
The one with all the white on her head who always stares down the camera is "Sequoia". They are all named for trees: Sequoia, Cedar, Sakura, Maple and Willow. I got three thinking that we really only wanted three or four. After hearing how very fragile they were and how likely it was that we were going to lose a baby I got a few extra. Nope. These girls are hardy. If a touch stupid. OK, maybe more than a touch.
3 comments:
My daughter and her dad have a small flock of chickens (the number varies as the eagles and coyotes make inroads). They have one Wyandotte, which Ceilidh says is the mean one of the bunch.
They also have 9 Muscovy ducklings that are very cute.
P.S. I'm glad you're back!
They're going to be so pretty! I'd love some chickens, but it's ruled out in our deeds. Next House!
Oh, they are so pretty! Gotta love Sequoia for gunning down the barrel ;)
I mentioned recently that it always seems Bob and I do the most physical work during heat waves. Ugh. I get extremely miserable when I overheat and that takes under 10 minutes. Having had heat stroke at 18, I guess the body no longer knows how to throw off excess heat.
Thankfully, there is a pool that people can toss me into when they've had enough of me ;)
So, did you have a birthday or is it coming up? Yeah, I caught that.
CindyS
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