hen house

It’s Hot but We Move Forward

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Have not had a spare minute to do anything but rush around “putting out fires” until recently. So, I am now able to start catching up with everything that has been happening. Whew!

First off, the kids. Child Protective Services finally concluded at the beginning of the year that there was no cause for action and dropped all charges. However, since the kids were doing well at school in Albuquerque, we let them finish off the year with my daughter. Now, however, she doesn’t want to let them go and come back here. I guess you can say she enjoys the insanity.

Unfortunately, the oldest, Jordan, continued to spiral emotionally. So, between becoming a hormonal teenager (13 years old) and unresolved traumas, we were forced to place him at the Boys/Girls Ranch. There he will get the 24-hour-a-day attention, therapy and adjustments he needs. Jordan is so smart and funny that it breaks our hearts that he has been hurt by life. We have gotten him so far, but he’s now at a stage that is beyond the simple needs of love and acceptance. We recently had to pick him up from the Ranch and take him to the orthodontist (he’s going to need braces).

Here’s a picture of Jordan & Grandpa. Can you believe Jordan’s so big?

A pack of dogs tore through our fence late last year and killed all our chickens and our turkey, all except for one rooster. I was devastated. This spring we finally decided to try again. We now have four hens and three roosters — two roosters were rescues. I love the temporary hen house that Grandpa and Jordan built!

Instead of being in the corner of the property, Jim & Jordan built it right by our closed-off yard, in the middle of the lot, with high fencing.

There’s a path to get to their little chicken run, but to get to it, stray wild life would have to get past our exterior fence, a fenced off garden area, Jim’s hobby vehicles (junkers that he wants to repair), construction materials, and our dogs (who raise an alarm). I’m determined to keep my bird brains safe!

The other big thing we have been working on is the front door. We have only had the one back door on the house and I really wanted a front door. Seems silly to have any visitors walking through the entire house to get to the living room, but that is what happened any time someone came over. I’m so excited at the pending change!

Here’s what the house looked like when Jim started.

He put in the cement pad, then the small porch, then put in the door. The door was mounted from the inside, so the paneling, etc. on the outside was not touched until the exterior wall was almost completely finished.

We’ve now torn out the paneling to reveal the door and are finishing up the exterior wall around the door. Jim also mounted a porch light. Almost done!

As soon as the trim is done I’ll update the pictures. I’m so excited!! I think I’ll redo the paint job in the living room next (hehe). I can just hear the grumbling about the Honey-Do list….

Spooky!

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We had a little bit of fun since our last blog.

Jim bought a pumpkin, scraped out most of the meat from the inside and made a great Jack-o-Lantern. I loved it! As it slowly caved in, it got even scarier. Finally, it collapsed and we gave it to the pigs. They thought they had died and gone to heaven!

We had a few weeks of almost continuous, daily rain. No great deluge, but a steady drizzle that took a toll on our future livingroom. Just look at the scarey results of that roof leak!

So, Jim went up top and discovered the previous owner had smeared some stuff called SnoRoof on top of old tar paper. Well, it leaked. So, Jim put up some repaired propanel and sealed the cracks with silicone. We will have to redo and replace the entire roof, but hopefully it can wait until next spring! On a day that is too nasty to work outside, we’ll fix the ceiling.

Meanwhile, it was decided to get the chicken/pig run ready for the critters, plus the critter house. We are going to use the old trailer that had been left.

Jim and I patched it up somewhat and spent two weeks doing nothing but cleaning it out. What we did not bag up for the trash was thrown out the door. Just look at the pile we will have to sort through later (in our ‘spare time’).

Inside the trailer we found some rotting carpet pieces that hid rotting floor boards. So, we will have to put down wood on the floors before we can put up some poles for roosting. The old tables we found in there we will be keeping and making them into tiered laying boxes. Before tackling this project, we turned our attention to the future “animal run.”

After some deliberation, it was decided to allow the old dying tree to remain. We opted to clean it all up to give the critters a personalized jungle gym. Just cleaning up that mess meant another week of daily work, plus using the bobcat to move the piles of rocks and boulders. When that project is done, I’ll post pictures of our masterpiece!

Using the old trailer as the critters’ house means making sure they don’t crawl under it to escape, right? So, we piled as many rocks as we could under it and then Jim started piling dirt around it.

We took one day off to attend the Albuquerque Youth Pow Wow. That was so much fun! It was Jim’s first, and I managed to get him to dance one All Nations Dance. Those kids were wonderful and the food was incredible. The Native chef that prepared the public feast is working on a cookbook, and judging by the eats we had, its gonna be one I’m gonna want!

Looks like the weather is starting to seriously change, so we hope to kick it into high gear in order to finish up all the outside work. We can then focus on moving in. That will mean we will be living in a construction zone, but we continue having high hopes. Can you believe Turkey Day is almost here?