Saturday 8 August 2009

Chook Pen update




It's finished. I haven't got the fences up, they're not high on the agenda at the moment, there's nothing growing there, they can free range for a while.
Trev ended up having to get the doors up - I've been away from the place more than home for a while, still the case, so I caved in and accepted his help. He also made the neat latches too. The chooks love it. I'm happy with it, it doesn't handle close inspection. I'll settle for having a chook pen of character rather than perfection.



Straw Bale Fever

In a time when fevers are associated with pigs it's nice to suffer the strawbale kind.


Trev has 6 and a half bales up, a very early symptom of the condition. We've had to stop there as he's off with Caleb for a week, and with the current weather (incessant rain), we'll need to wait till he gets back to get them up and the render on. But it's exciting. After all the issues of baling twine on the wrong sides of the bales (it was a very old baler) and having to put them on their edge rather than the flat and then changing how they were going to be placed on the perimeter beams, we've finally come to a decision on how it's done. It looks great, and feels solid already. I can't wait to contract the disease seriously and get them all up. Despite the cold and wet I'm even keen for the mud phase. Then the windows, then the floors, then the ceiling lining, all this while the power and plumbing will be happening. Then we're to lock up!


Trev admits to telling everyone when they ask, 'When are you going to be in?'
'This time next year' he says, without deducting any months from the passing time.





















Spot Trev's hat? It's spun and knitted from our black sheep, Ramses. Our neighbour Juleen knocked it up.
Trev loves the hat, but he's not the least thankful to Ramses, he's off to the abbatoir next week - he's been misbehaving, beating up Panda, having full of warfare with Caleb's duck, and beleive me, the duck does NOT give in. Breaking into the shed and gutsing out on grain, and doing his best to knock Caleb over any chance he gets (but then Caleb deserves it - you don't play butty games with a lamb and expect him to stop when he's a sheep). I'll be sorry to see him go.