The weather here has been unbelievably nice! Oh we still get our regular winter days and snow storms, but there have been lots of days already that give us a glimpse of what Spring will be like. The kids have had most of this week to be outside without jackets. One day we had temperatures that hit 70! Its been lovely.
With the lovely days, also comes the chance to do some clean up and building around here. First on the list: Get the metal shed put up. That was more of an ordeal then we anticipated, but it is now up and being used for some much needed storage.
However, since we are using it for storage instead of the chicken coop as we had intended, we had to do some other improvising.
The original lean too
Next we set to work on the chicken run. My DH (dear hubby) helped me with the frame, and then the older boys helped me hang the wire, and build the door. It was a blast. I loved helping them figure out how to measure, cut, and put together the pieces.
Then came the fun part...acquiring the chickens :) A friend from church knew about our desire for chickens, and passed along our name to her friend who was looking to re-home their beautiful ladies. She contacted me and after a fun visit, and a fresh dozen of eggs!, we decided that it would be a mutual blessing for us to add her chickens to our farm family.
Aren't they beautiful?! and the fun part is, they are super friendly. The kids have spent HOURS outside, feeding them by hand, and holding/petting them.
The first morning after we got them, the boys were out before the sun, and stayed out there until the first egg was laid, about 8:00am. At which time they came barreling into the house all excited to have gotten their first "real" egg. I have to admit, I am about as excited as they are about both the chickens and the eggs. So if you notice a lot of my blogging in the near future has to do with chickens and eggs, you have been warned ;)
Another one of our projects has been to clear up a space for Penny (our pup) to be while we are away from home during the day. We don't have a yard fence (or yard) for her to stay in, and we didn't want her to be left in her kennel all morning. So we once again took part of the pre-standing "building" and turned it into a nice little nest for her to be in to stay out of the wind and snow on those not so nice days.
We also were able (thanks to my awesome FIL) to put in a driveway. As you can imagine, when we get rain or snow, our dirt path driveway got pretty muddy. So Dale kindly volunteered to haul us up a bunch of recycled ash-fault to lay down.
He also brought us up his tractor and blade to use to smooth it out, (who doesn't enjoy having a few minutes away from the kids while you ride in the tractor with your hubby!)
We have a little more work to do on the end closest to the house, and we may bring in one more load, but for now we are super happy with it ;)
I think the final outside project for this month was the set up of the trampoline. I decided just this week that while the weather was nice and the wind was gone, I would get it set up for the kids. Have you any idea how hard it is to hook those springs around by yourself! maybe i am just a wimp, but after I got the first half done, and had to stretch the others across, it became quite a struggle. I did get it done, but it took the help of a tie strap, and a metal chair to help me stretch it enough to hook on the hooks. And my arm muscles are still tender in places....
Once I got it together though, the next problem arose. The Wind. I do not need our nice trampoline to go crashing into the neighbors barns at the first gust of wind. So I recruited my DH and we hauled over everything heavy we could find to hold it down. Rocks, a table, and even some ground anchors.
Yup, that should hold it! LOL
What else had been going on? Here are just a few snapshots of our days:
Our first eggs
Living the farm life
William still loves HIS pup
my 3 year olds choice of shoes...
Penny is getting big
I'll keep you posted!
