Our first egg

Even though she's lonely and crabby, Agnes laid us our first egg yesterday, collected very early this morning. Of course, it's a little bitty bantam egg, but it's so cute! It's a beautiful shade of light creamy brown. We're going to save it until we see how often she lays. Maybe we'll have enough to share an omelet by next weekend.

Here it is compared to a medium sized tomato. Tomorrow we'll get some company for her. So excited!

Meet Agnes

This is my finished coop - isn't it beautiful? We have decided that it definitely isn't "ghetto". And all the neighbors are very impressed (I replaced the original pic with a better one so yes, those are other chickens you see in there...).

And this is Agnes.

Agnes is a one year old Serama mix hen. I got her from a very nice woman in Arlington who is thinning her flock for winter. Agnes isn't so thrilled about being alone, but she'll only be that way until Saturday when I'm picking up 3 six-week old bantam chicks.

Agnes has a purple comb and blue ears and she's quite sweet, if not exactly friendly. Hopefully integrating the "generations" will go smoothly. I'm hoping 3 on 1 will make it fairly painless.

Finished

Well, today we finished. The cedar shake is on, the roost box is finished complete with nest box, roost bar, ceiling, straw and chicken ladder. Now all we need is a feeder, waterer, feed and some chickens. I took a pic, but my email seems to have eaten it. Stay tuned as I'm picking up a new camera (and hopefully a hen) later this week. I'll post a picture then...

And the roof is on

M came home early from his hunting trip. They weren't having much luck and having already been out for 12 days, they decided to call it a year. So, in honor of his homecoming I recruited him to help me finish the roof. It's on (turns out my trusses weren't so straight so don't look too closely) and now it can rain all it wants.

This weekend we plan to finish the coop, and then I'll start looking for chickens. I'm hoping to find some teenagers or young pullets/hens to get us started. An assortment of pretty colors would be nice, but personality counts too!

Pardon the crappy picture quality of all of these. Our digital camera has died and I haven't had time to get a new one - so camera phone it is.

It's raining... and pouring...

I awoke this morning to rain. A lot of rain. The kind of rain you don't want falling on raw plywood with no roof over it. I ran out in my pajamas to put a tarp over my progress but it was already slightly too late. I think all of the plywood is salvageable, but it's a little warped. Oh well, I'll just have to put in a few extra screws...

It's Standing!

This weekend I worked really hard, both days. And this is how far I got. Pretty good considering I'm not sure the last time I used a skil saw. To list out my accomplishments (for posterity and M):

1. Dug out for and set foundation pavers (mostly level)
2. Placed floor frame
3. Erected all 4 walls (square!)
4. Secured walls to each other and floor frame
5. Placed and attached roof trusses
6. Began plywood

And now it's off to zone in front of the TV, eat some dinner and knit on my socks for me!

Let the fun begin

Today I started in on my chicken coop. I successfully used our friend Ron's mitre saw to cut my 1"x4" cedar boards. It's been awhile since I did any carpentry projects on my own - much less used power tools by myself. It was fun. took me a while to get a system down for stretching the chicken wire, but I think it's turned out pretty well so far.

I worked for about 7 hours today, and finished the floor frame and the first two wall panels - at least as far as the framing and chicken wire is concerned.

The score for the day: chicken wire 2, me 0

Have materials, ready to build

M left on his elk trip two days ago and today I went out to get all the materials I needed for my coop to beat all coops. Of course, mother nature picked today to start raining, after more than two months without. Which means that while I got everything, I haven't even begun...

It took me a trip to Dunn Lumber for cedar boards and plywood, a trip to Lowe's for hardware, a trip to Mutual Materials for a few extra concrete pavers and a trip to the Everett Co-op to get chicken wire. But Sam the dog and I accomplished it all in record time. Then we came home and unloaded it all into the garage in the pouring rain.



Now off to the circus for me. I'm going to see Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey with two friends of mine and two small children - one friend's 3 year old daughter and the other friend's young nephew. I, my friends, am not a kid person. It's not that I don't like them, just that I like them better from a distance. However, this is the circus, so I have resolved to enjoy every minute of it. I haven't been to a circus in more than 15 years - so we'll see if it's as much fun as I remember...

The Playhouse Coop

I have decided on a coop design for my hens. I plan to build a version of this coop, designed by a gentleman in Madison, WI.

What I like about it is that it is run, roost box, and nesting box all in one. It has a compact footprint at 4'x8', it's not at all beverly hillbillies looking and the roof means that my chickies will be dry even during the extensive rainy season here in the PNW.

Modifications that I plan to make:

• brown metal roof, not green, as we have some free metal roofing
• cedar shake siding - we have just enough left from siding our shed that we should be able to do the two sides of the coop that will be visible from the house and yard (who cares about the alley side - we can't see it....)
• I plan to create a "concrete foundation" using some leftover 12"x12"x2" conrete pavers. This should help dissuade the opossums and racoons in the neighborhood

I'm going to work on it while M is off on his annual elk hunting trip - he leaves the Thursday after Labor Day for 2 weeks. So I'll go to the lumber yard that Saturday to get my supplies and get going. If all goes well, maybe I'll even finish before he gets back!