Front porch decking is on!!!!!!

Well, the front porch is complete. Yay! One step closer to no more chickens in my dining room!!!!

Porch decking cut!!

Now to get it screwed in place!

Porch posts and hurricane ties

We got the porch posts, ledger, top plates, and hurricane ties on this week. Next we get to cut a bunch of wood for porch deck, porch ceiling and rafters!!!

Attaching rafter ties to ridge beam

All the kids and the boys' friend, Sam helped hammer the rafter ties to the ridge beam today in the cold rain.

And our second batch of chicks are here!!!

Our second batch of chicks are here. There are 12 off these little ones. Only 8 of them are ours. This batch includes 3 Black Sumatras, 4 Black Australorps, 2 bantam White Rocks, and 3 bantam Rhode Island Reds. The 2 White Rocks and 2 of the Australorps will go to my nieces. Although, I think the reds may be Dark Brown leghorns...hmmm...time will tell.

Front wall framed and installed!

The front wall is framed out and nailed down! This wall has the human door in it! I raised it up so if we use the deep bedding method in the winter months, we will still be able to get the door open.

Framed out and installed 3rd wall

This wall will have a south facing window!!!!

Framed out and installed side wall

The second wall has been framed! This wall will have a window looking towards the north.

Framed out and installed back wall

Even amazing ourselves that it is starting to look like a building!!!!

We installed vinyl flooring

For easy cleanup, the installation of a vinyl floor seemed to make sense. installed it a little big and trimmed the edges...work fast and furious with the adhesive!

The coop has a floor!!!!

The floor of the coop has been screwed on tight to the foundation!! Two sheets of treated 3/4"plywood will make up the interior coop floor!!!

Larger veggie plot this year tilled and ready

On this busy afternoon, we had a nice fellow with a tractor come out and till up our existing garden and make it bigger. We now have a 45'x45' space for food.

I have an equal size space picked for next year!

Now to get my grow table set up and seeds started!

Placed the joists on the risers today!

As soon as the joists were finished being nailed togather, we moved the whole thing back to the patio risers. Rechecked to make sure everything was still level, made a few adjustments, and now we are ready to install the floor!

Floor joists!

Then we removed the rim joists and did the floor joist hammering on the concrete pad as to not knock anything off kilter.

Patio risers are level!! whoooo HOoooooo

With a fair amount of doing, everything is level! Time to start building up!

We begin our chicken coop

First, we figured out the number of chickens we should have to provide the amount of eggs we need. Then we calculated the square footage based on number of chickens. So, we found a fairly level spot in the yard and laid out the patio risers and rim joists.This looked like a good spot, some shade, some sun.

Feathering out quite nicely!!

Not bad for 19 days old. The sound of chirping has filled our house and it is so pleasing to hear, very relaxing actually!! And they are great pets for toddlers.

Our Golden Phoenix Rooster

Hopefully he will be a good boy and our neighbors will love him as much as we do. The most gentle calm animal I have ever encountered. Lexi wants to show him at the fair this summer, we will see how it goes.

Yellow legs, tail feathers, and wing feathers!!!

9 days old and growing!!!

Our first chicks have arrived!

So, for 5 years I have begged and pleaded for chickens. It is no secret I would rather live on a farm, but urban life I must lead. So, join us on this blog for our adventures in urban farming.

To get the ball rolling on our chicken coop, I ordered chicks. They arrived, so with these new little fuzzballs in the brooder, time to get busy!