From Barn to Beach...

Things have been pretty busy down here the past few weeks. Karen and I have been continuing to plug away at the barn addition/coop, the kids have just finished up their fall break. The coop is turning out nicely. Below is a shot of the walls framed up. I divided the area up into a garden tool storage area, a chick brooder area, and the far section is a 12 foot chicken coop area. It should allow us to easily have up to 30 -40 layers should we choose to be that crazy. Currently we have 14 hens. I don't think they are all laying yet, as on a good day we are getting only 8 eggs. Some days only 3-4! I suspect they are hiding some where we are not finding them.


Karen patiently spent an afternoon helping me heft the rafters into place and listening to me curse how different the birds beak notches were for each one, mistakenly I cut them all at once after the first one fit perfectly... if I ever do anything like this again I will know better. But all in all the roof framed up quite nicely.
Aki is a good helper if you keep a close eye on him!
Putting up the metal roofing went pretty well, again I had to have Karen help heft and hold each panel until I could secure it in place. There was a brief learing curve with the screws, but overall it turned out nicely. The hardest thing was keeping from sliding off! The roof is actually finished, and I have the front of the addition sided and windows up. Hope to finish siding the ends this coming weekend. It is a slow process with the batten board siding. Lots of cutting and nailing. But it is looking good. More pictures soon.

Towards the end of the day the turkeys dropped by to check things out!

Actually, I think they were trying to stake their claim on the new digs for a new roosting site!

We took a day off to take a day trip to the beach in Wilmington, NC... it was about a three hour drive. Nice weather, relaxing,.. but a long drive for a day trip. I think worth it as the kids had a great time...