Butterscotch FARM!!

Hooray!!  Butterscotch Farm finally has its first livestock!!  

Last night, I drove a couple hours south to pick up a dozen six-week-old Icelandic chicks (and ended up with 14 because the breeder kindly snagged me a couple less-related roosters from a friend so that I can have more genetic diversity in my flock).  They are SO cute...I think I'm in love with chickens.  ❤

Here's a whole bunch of photos...the first batch of many, no doubt, lol.

This one below is one of the two slightly older roosters...I'm calling him Big Blue for now because he's twice the size of most of the other chicks, and because his feathers have a kind of blue-ish tint, lol.  :P

The tan one at the bottom of the picture below is the second older rooster:

I have no idea whether the one in the below photo is a hen or a rooster, but for now, I'm assuming she's a hen, and I'm calling her Little Miss Floofle, because she often keeps her feathers fluffed out slightly.  I'm keeping an eye on her, because I think that can sometimes mean the bird isn't doing well, but I've seen her eat, drink, and chase down a mosquito...so I'm thinking she's probably okay.

So far she's got the most personality of the bunch - when I move around, 13 of the chicks jam themselves into the corner and peep frantically, but Little Miss Floofle just kind of chills and hangs out separate from the rest of them.

Lol, maybe her name should be Little Miss Independent.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great holiday tomorrow!

P.S. - A million, zillion thanks to Dad, who installed windows in the coop yesterday so that the chicks could have ventilation!!!!  ❤❤❤

Some Coop Progress

Lol, when I arranged to buy chickens a couple months ago, I really didn't think that they'd get their home before mine was ready to live in!  But that's the way things are looking...we've been hustling to finish the coop, because the deadline to pick them up is rapidly approaching!!

So today, I worked on the coop all day!

I arrived bright and early because my truck was in the shop, and Dad had to be somewhere later that morning, so he dropped me off on my land around 7.  The lighting is beautiful at that time of the morning.  :)  

First I had to empty the coop, because we've been using it to store the tools that we leave on site, as well as a number of other random things we've accumulated.  

Lol, my pictures today are pretty boring - here's a shot of the empty coop!  :P

Next I spent quite a long time attempting to seal all the little holes in the building.  This involved work on both the exterior and interior.  I added a couple pieces of wood on the outside, and used caulk and spray foam insulation on the inside.  Then I started adding insulation and covering it with random boards.  

I mounted the little cupboard thing on the wall; I'm going to modify it a bit to turn it into a nesting box.  

I also started adding a bit of chicken wire here and there as part of an enclosure.  You're supposed to bury the wire so predators can't dig under.  I'm hoping to eventually encircle the coop and pen with the dog fence so that the dogs can protect against predators to some extent, but since I'm not sure when the dogs and I will be moving in, I figured I'd better do some digging, lol.  

I still need to:

-Install at least one window (and put mesh on the outside so critters can't get in)

-finish insulating

-install perches

-install weather stripping around the door

-buy and put down shavings

-buy/make something to store the chicken feed

-find out if the chicks can drink my well water

-finish the enclosure

And then after all that, I can work on MY house, lol!!!

Happy Monday!  :P

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