Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[CB and CG]

Oh ok, thanks for clearing that up. She does resemble a NH. I have a soft spot for palomino NH. I went to the original breeders house and saw them and they were certainly interesting. They were very large as well. Close to Australorp size.

 

[vehve]

Newy is real purdy. I love those floorboards you put in, although I can't get over the fact that nowhere else in the world have they seemed to notice that tiles are a lot better flooring and wall material for wet spaces. Boards are definitely better than carpeting, but I'd be a bit worried with it still.

*Edit*
I took a second look at the bathroom, and showed it to Karin too, she also loved it.
But then I noticed the faucets (which I do admit look nice), and I have to ask, are faucets with a hot and cold water mixer not available in Australia? To me it seems, all countries with British influence in their background seem to have that kind of separate faucets, so that you can choose to either scald your hands, or loose fingers to frostbite.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Oh ok, thanks for clearing that up. She does resemble a NH. I have a soft spot for palomino NH. I went to the original breeders house and saw them and they were certainly interesting. They were very large as well. Close to Australorp size.

We got a Palomino NH from Katt, but it's looking much like arooster. She said there was a lady up in the hills working on the colour.

Newy is real purdy. I love those floorboards you put in, although I can't get over the fact that nowhere else in the world have they seemed to notice that tiles are a lot better flooring and wall material for wet spaces. Boards are definitely better than carpeting, but I'd be a bit worried with it still.

*Edit*
I took a second look at the bathroom, and showed it to Karin too, she also loved it.
But then I noticed the faucets (which I do admit look nice), and I have to ask, are faucets with a hot and cold water mixer not available in Australia? To me it seems, all countries with British influence in their background seem to have that kind of separate faucets, so that you can choose to either scald your hands, or loose fingers to frostbite.

Old houses here seem to all be built on stilts, with hardwood used throughout. Our house is more modern, double brick on concrete pad with tile roof. Old ones have cement sheeting externally, iron roofs (although iron is making a comeback) and timber framing/floor.

Just a part of how they were done back then. There was slate flooring down but it was only in the kitchen and dining area's. Bathroom had rotten floor and rotten ply covering that when I got there. Must have been on his to do list before the accident.

 

[vehve]

Nothing wrong with building with wood on stilts, it works well. When my parent's did an expansion on our summer cottage, we built it on concrete stilts. Saves a whole lot of effort compared to making a solid brick or concrete foundation, although it was easy as the cottage stands on rock. It's a pretty good idea to build that way in Finland, we have a lot of radon in the bedrock, and if you have unventilated basement space under your house it's a good idea to measure for radon gas. Modern houses aren't even allowed to be built without proper ventilation of the foundation. Karin had a patient who first lost one dog to cancer, then another a year later, and then they started testing around the house and had checkups done on themselves. Explained a bit of colds and other stuff they had been experiencing, luckily the dogs seemed to have worked as sort of a canary in the coalmine.

 

[vehve]

As Ben is being bob the Builder, I shall entertain his audience again with stories of our mundane life.

Phew! Today has been an active day. We've been thinking about building a little shed/storage cabinet at the end of the house to keep all of our gardening and chickening stuff, so on Friday we drove out to the cottage to raid my parents leftover lumber pile again. Came back with about 100 meters of T&G and 11 meters of 2x4's. So today, I split the 2x4's in half and Karin and I built a frame for the cabinet, it's going to be 0,6m deep, 2,2m high and about 2m wide. Here's one of the frames, I built three of them.

The diagonal brace is missing from it at this point still, but I was lazy documenting our work.

After we got the frames put together, we were out of suitable nails and screws, and we also needed some pavers to use as a foundation for it, so it was off to our favorite hardware stores again... How we managed to spend three hours in them again, I don't know. And my gosh screws and hinges cost a lot! This was supposed to be a project that doesn't cost anything, but we managed to spend probably 60-70 euros on hardware for this project again. I really would need to find a place that sells hinges and locks online cheaply. And decking screws too.

When we got back, we didn't have the energy to continue with the cabinet anymore, so we powerwashed and scrubbed the entire deck instead. Now I just need to oil it, but the weather forecast called for rain for the night, so I won't do it today anymore.

And Viiru had laid her second egg while we were away, another 33g whopper. Soon we can stop buying eggs I think, especially since Virpi has stopped protesting when Topi suggests a little romance. Any day now all the older girls will be producing eggs.

Now I think it's time for a beer and some football on the telly (soccer to you uncivilized Merkans), and then a quick rest, we've got a long day tomorrow, going to drive 400 km to a hunting trial with Kiusa, where she will just fool around and get a zero, then back again in time for the world cup final together with our German neighbors. Really brings some excitement to watching the game when you have a die hard fan with you watching.

 

[Hershy]

So, Ben, I borrowed your (and others from this site) idea and built a frame of 2 x 4s with wire on top for greens to grow through. Since it's out hot season, I buried the seeds under straw to retain moisture until the poor seeds get a chance to sprout. Hopefully a successful addition to the run.
In other news, my BA is getting very red in the comb and wattles, and my silly Polish roo managed his first 'real' crow at 17 weeks today, lol.

@ vehve, I had to laugh at you spending three hours at the hardware store, we love it too, too many ideas and not enough $.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Some of the blackwood floor boards in our house are the original pit sawn ones. We had to replace the ones that were drenched with cow and possum pee.
I stay away when hubby goes into bunnings. He gets a strange ' glazed over look ' as soon as he gets through the automatic doors.
Chick pic. Coronation sussex.

 

[Hershy]

Some of the blackwood floor boards in our house are the original pit sawn ones. We had to replace the ones that were drenched with cow and possum pee.
I stay away when hubby goes into bunnings. He gets a strange ' glazed over look ' as soon as he gets through the automatic doors.
Chick pic. Coronation sussex.

Great chic pic! So silly American here, what is bunnings? By automatic doors and previous conversation... hardware store?
Cow and possum pee, I can only imagine, reminds me of my first house, animals had been left living alone in it after humans moved out. We pulled up all the carpet and painted the sub floor until we had a better time to install flooring! Yuck!

 

[Fancychooklady]

Great chic pic! So silly American here, what is bunnings? By automatic doors and previous conversation... hardware store?
Cow and possum pee, I can only imagine, reminds me of my first house, animals had been left living alone in it after humans moved out. We pulled up all the carpet and painted the sub floor until we had a better time to install flooring! Yuck!

Yes big hardware store, toy shop for men. Possum pee is like syrup in consistency , certainly ' on the nose '.

 

[cwrite]

New floor with a drain, repaired the bath and frame, shelf, trim work and painted it all up perdy. Once the walls are dry we will treat the jarrah and it's ready to go.



On arrival home, I found our girls had been laying a storm, 7 eggs the first day and another 6 today. We are getting close to our record!

Early start tomorrow, more training, no rest for the wicked.....

Wow - the transformation is amazing! Those are great skills to have. It too me 10 hours to build a nest box which the girls won't use. They have stuck to the $6 second hand dog box in the run. : / By the time I figured out that I'd got the angle wrong for the roof I was sick of wood work so did a fabric fix which obviously didn't cut the mustard.



I hope your mate knows how lucky he is. So, do you travel to do runs Ben? I'm sure we have some great races around here.