A Setback, Some Heroics, and Poultry Accessories

So we had a fairly significant setback the other day...water got under/into the circle and ruined a bunch of the insulation.  :(  Dad went out there on Thursday and discovered the problem.  He spent a good chunk of time taking off the plywood and pulling out the wet insulation so that the platform could dry.  Lol, kind of looks like a bomb went off, huh?

Yesterday, he and I did a bit of cleanup in the morning, and then spent an hour putting down some roofing membrane to keep out moisture in the future:

We'll cover the membrane with decking boards at some point.

Then, for the remainder of yesterday, Dad put in a heroic effort making sure that the circle was well sealed.  He re-did the insulation, using some new rolls, as well as some of the old pieces that were salvageable, and he put most of the plywood back down.  Then he went out and bought a huge sheet of plastic to cover everything so that it wouldn't get wet again.  I figure that he ended up putting in a 12-hour day of HARD labor - thank you, Dad...you're my hero!!!!  ❤❤❤

Here's how it looked when I stopped by for a few minutes this morning:

So now, thanks to Dad, I think that we're back to being almost ready to reassemble the dome!!

I just had a few minutes today, so I started on a dog fence:

And picked up some chicken supplies!!  :D  The silver thing holds water, and the red thing holds feed.  

Monday will be an all-day work day preparing the chicken coop, building a chicken enclosure, and extending more of the dog fence.  I want the dog fence to go all the way around the chicken enclosure to help with predator control.  Lol, please pray that I can teach the dogs that the chickens are not squeaky toys!!  ;P 

The Circle is Complete...

Yay!  I got the circle done today!!  :D  Well, just about done, anyway...there are two or three itty-bitty spots that are a weird shape that I'll let Dad fill in, lol.  

God graciously held off the rain until I was just about done...once it started sprinkling steadily, I hustled to get this covered so the water wouldn't get in the cracks and ruin the insulation.  Then, I went to work on the well...and guess what?  That's done too!  :D  I whacked it down another foot or two today, so now it's driven about 14-15 feet deep.  I primed the pump, and it took a looooooooooooong time to get water.  Just when I was about to give up, the water suddenly started coming out!!  :D

It's pretty silty, so we'll see if it runs clear eventually...if it doesn't, it will still come in handy for washing dishes, etc.  I don't know if I can use it for animals.  I would think that I could - after all, they often drink pond and creek water, and that must have some silt in it, right??

I do need to have the water tested, though.  Anyone local know where I can take a sample?

This was a bonus day off from work, so I didn't want to squander it, so after THAT, I got out the chainsaw and did some clearing over where I might put a fenced area for the dogs.  I didn't realize it at first, but I eventually noticed that I was clearing a corridor over to my little field, and that it looked really neat - almost like a pathway to a different world.

I probably won't be able to keep this effect, as most of the trees to the right and left will be coming down too, but I thought that was kind of neat.  :)  

A Toasty Monday

I was by myself today, but I got a decent amount done.  Lol, time is ticking...I need to pick up my chickens before the fourth of July, and I'd definitely like to be moved in by then so I don't have to drive 20 minutes each way to take care of them!

So last week, Dad and Timothy framed out the circle that the dome will sit on.  Today, I worked on putting insulation in the floor and adding plywood on top of that.  After that's done, we'll add the flooring, and then the dome can be reassembled...and then I can move my stuff in!  :D  

Here's how it looked when I got there today (those sheets of plywood weren't attached yet):

And here's how it looked several hours later when I decided I was sunburned enough to go home, lol:

So maybe a little more than half done??  If it's not raining, I'll keep working on this tomorrow.  If it is raining, I'll work on the well, and maybe do a bit more on the inside of the chicken coop, and start putting up an enclosure for the chickens.  

Thanks for following this journey, lol!!  

Updates!!

Whew, sorry it's been so long since I posted...we made some good progress this past week, though we're still just a little shy of actually getting the dome up - almost there!!!

So last Monday Dad and I were able to put in a good chunk of work....and the guy was there to put in my gray water system and smooth out the driveway!  :D  

The chicken coop is almost done...here's what it looked like Monday:

And here's what it looked like Saturday:

(Please ignore all the clutter...the lumber piles are progressively covering more and more square footage as these projects continue, lol.)

Someone was kind and called the chicken coop "creative"...but no.  Sorry.  It's definitely a Redneck Chicken Coop at this point - lol!!  I still need to add corner pieces, caulk all the seams, insulate it, and add nesting boxes and a roosting bar.  Oh, and I should maybe put in windows and/or vents - it does get a little stuffy in there. 

Dad extended the roof line on the back and made a lean-to...I'll probably use that for tool storage.  :) 

Dad has picked away at bits of the project throughout the past week, but yesterday he, Timothy and I all got to go out together; my boss graciously let me come in to work several hours late so that we could get some stuff done.  Here are some scenes from yesterday:

Setting up the dome frame so we could tell where to put the circular wooden frame underneath it:

Makes me think of those cattle feeder thingies that hold round bales of hay.  Say "moo," Timothy!!

From the roof of the chicken coop, surveying my glorious driveway!!  :D  (And my epic brush pile...hmm...)

From the roof of the chicken coop, looking at the dome platform:

Random shiny beetle: 

Random butterfly:

The drainage ditch for the gray water system:

The drainage pipe for the gray water system....they will come back and cover this up; they just had to leave it open for the codes officer to inspect it.  I'll connect this to a sink in the dome, and all waste water will get dumped down the pipe, up to 25 gallons a day.  I'll have a composting toilet, so I don't need management for black water.

And this one was from the end of the day.  It's hard to see (I forgot my camera, so many of these were taken with my phone, so no zoom), but the guys got the circular section that the dome will sit on all framed out, and started adding insulation.  The floor insulation is R-19.  Once the insulation is completely added, we'll put plywood on top, then flooring, and then assemble the dome on top of that!

So, in conclusion, we're getting there!!!!

Thanks for all the help, Dad and Timothy - you guys are ridiculously awesome!!  <3 

Water!!

Today Dad and I went out to my land together, though I couldn't stay for long since I had to work today.  Dad stayed out ALL day - I am super grateful!!  ❤

I'll have to go out and get pictures of what he accomplished...all I did was put some more screws in the deck and caulk some of the gaps.  It sounds like Dad made significant progress on the chicken coop, which is very exciting!  He also bought me some more lumber that will be a part of the base of the dome.

I went down to the back corner of the four acres that I took out of timber tax to see how the ground looks...a friend had suggested that it might be a good place to dig a small pond.  Things are still looking quite wet, with lots of standing water, so that might be a project for someday!  It's a little hard to see, but there's water in the center of the photo, as well as underneath the pink tape.  There was lots more water over to the left of the photo, too.

Right before I had to leave, I tied a pebble to a string and dropped it down my well, just out of curiosity...and guess what?  I've got water!!

There's probably about 18-24 inches of water in the bottom of the pipe!  :D  I'll still drive it down another five or six feet, though, for added filtration and because the water table is likely to fluctuate.  Then I'll have to test the water and see if it's suitable for drinking.

So we're getting there!  Lol, I keep saying that I hope to be moving into the dome in just another week or two...and then the date keeps getting pushed further and further back...but this time I think it really could be just a couple weeks out!!  :P

Power!!!!

Look what came in the mail today!!  :D  

My very first solar panel!!  

Lol, now I just have to buy a battery and an inverter...and then figure out how to set everything up!  :P

Taking a Whack At It

I worked today, but after work (and after supper!) I went out and spent roughly an hour working on my driven well.  And look - I made some progress!  :D

Before:

After:

I think that roughly 10 feet of pipe is now below the surface of the ground...though only about 7 feet of that is actually in the dirt, since I dug a starter hole.  The goal is to get it around 20-25 feet deep.

I wanted to try to get it down to ground level, but I brought Thane, and he was getting chewed up pretty good by mosquitoes.  I don't think they can get through the thicker parts of his fur, but they like his nose!

If anyone would like to come take a whack at the well, feel free, lol!!  :P  

Good night! 

Something Cute, and a Bit More Progress

I got a few hours of work in on the land today.  All while I was working, I was vaguely aware of some sort of bird call from a couple hundred feet away.  I'd probably been working for at least a couple hours when it randomly occurred to me that maybe it wasn't actually a bird!  So I grabbed my camera and went off into the trees...and look what I found!  

It was so tiny!!  I knew that fawns were tiny, but seeing one in person, I was surprised at just how small he/she was.  I felt bad, because I'd heard him calling all morning for his mama, but I know better than to mess with him - she probably hid him because I was working in the area, and came back for him after I left.

So that was the highlight of my day!  :D 

It was also really exciting and encouraging to see what Dad and Timothy accomplished...they worked for a while Saturday morning without me, and they got plywood in place on the dome deck and cut a few rafters for the chicken coop.  Here's what they accomplished:

Today, I just cut and installed a couple more sheets of plywood on the chicken coop, put up a couple more rafters, and shuffled a bunch of wood around into different piles so that everything, including the deck, will be protected from the rain we're supposed to get tonight.  Lol, that doesn't sound like a lot, but it took me a while.  :P

I'm back up to full-time hours at my job (no more "vacation," lol!!), so I'll have to fit dome stuff in between my shifts.  I'm still hoping that it's down to just a couple weeks before I can move in, though!  

Anyway, happy Monday, everyone!!  :) 

Redneck Chickens

First, some super exciting news: I'm an aunt again!!  My fourth niece, Christina, was born early this morning.  We're praising God for a safe delivery.

Dad and I made excellent progress on starting the chicken coop today!  Lol, we're more or less making this thing up as we go...complete with some rather redneck modifications - we were running out of 2x4 lumber, so we got a bit creative.  

We had plenty of lumber for the first wall:

But then, lol....

Hey, trees are the one thing I own plenty of...might as well make use of them, right??  ;P

The door will go on the front wall, with the roof sloping to the back so snow won't slide off in front of the door.  We made it nice and tall so I can get in there to keep things clean.  After we finish the exterior, I'll just need to install nesting boxes and roosting bars.

Lol, it's looking like there's a decent chance that the chicken house will be finished before MY house!  That hardly seems fair!  ;P   

More Preparations

So Dad and I decided that while we're figuring out what to do next as far as preparing to set the dome back up, I might as well start getting ready for the arrival of my chickens.  

That's right - I'm getting a dozen Icelandic chicks at the end of this month!!  :D  

Besides providing eggs and meat eventually, I'm hoping that, over time, they'll significantly reduce the population of ticks and other bugs on my land.  

Sadly, it'll be a few weeks before I can spam you guys with chicken photos, so in the meantime, here's a before and after of the clearing that I did.

Before:

And after.  The coop will go in the cleared area back between the two blue tarps.

I'm excited!!  :D

Some Confabbing and a Nice Gift

My parents got home from a looooooong anniversary trip yesterday.  It was awesome to see them again, and hear about all the cool things they saw - they drove all the way out to the west coast and back!  

You can imagine how tired they must be, so it was very nice of Dad to come out this morning and take a look at the progress on the dome site.  We spent quite a while figuring out what we should do next...and we're still not 100% settled.  There are a couple different configurations we could do to set up the platform for the dome raising, and we're not sure which one is the best.  Stay tuned, lol!  :P

We also stopped to collect a very nice gift from my friend Judy - she's moving, and had a bunch of cinder blocks in her back yard that she wasn't going to use, so she let me have them!  There was some pressure-treated wood that she let us take away, too....it's a little rough, but will come in super handy for building a shed or a chicken coop.  :)  

Thanks, Judy!!