Coop work, revival meetings

Mama and I had a good weekend. I stared my weekend a little early by taking off Friday.  Between Thursday evening, all day Friday and all day Saturday I managed to get a good start on Mama’s new chicken coop. We need something pretty soon because her chicks are not so little anymore. We had them in a pretty large cage but they are but they are growing so rapidly that we are having to find other cages and spaces for them to give them enough room to grow without being overcrowded.

With that as a plan I took a little coop that we inherited with the purchase of the Chico property and mounted it on a stand so that it would be easier for Mama to take care of. It is a cute little salt-box style prefab coop with a nesting box that extends out the back of the coop. It has a removable tray on the roosting area, little windows and little doors. So there is plenty of access for Mama to clean and service the coop.

We have not moved any of the chickens to the little coop because Mama is still able to carry (with help) the large cage from the garage – where the chicks are placed for the night – to the carport where they spend the day. It will not be too much longer that she will be able to do that because it is getting quite heavy as the chicks continue to grow.

We even have a separate hospital cage that now houses three birds. All three have injuries to their legs that require them to be separated from the flock. But, much to Mama’s great pleasure, all are doing quite well and should be able to return to the general population in a couple more weeks. She views it as her first successful attempt to rescue an injured bird.

What I worked on all day Saturday was the large coop building I wanted to build last year when Grandpa and Mama got the idea of building the little metal building to be used as a coop. It has done well enough but I am happy to finally be building a nicer, more permanent structure. In the new building Mama will be able to raise two separate flocks when needed. She has read that we should not raise our meat chickens with our egg layers – due to differing diet for the different outcomes.

I struggled getting it laid out by myself but finally got the rough out close enough to start digging the holes for the posts I needed to put into the ground. Friday I struggled with the power auger getting only a few inches at best into the very hard ground. So I got each hole as far as I could then filled each with water to soften the ground, reworking each later that evening or the following day.

By Saturday when I finally quit I had all the holes done, posts set and most of the stringers attached to those posts. I have enough lumber from the deck lumber I cleaned to do all the floor joists and the rafters. With revival this week Sunday through Wednesday night followed by FBI on Thursday night and RU on Friday night I will not get more added to the frame until Saturday – unless I take time off later this week.

Sunday morning in Sunday School the evangelist was making a point of how easy it was for us to share photos on our cell phone with complete strangers while we will not share the gospel. He was pretending to share pictures of his horses with me when he said, “This guy could not care less. He’s a city slicker.” That got everybody going. So later that morning I said I knew this was going to be a rough revival for me when the evangelist insults you the very first morning of the meetings.

It has become a recurring theme through the meetings so far.