4 responses so far ↓

• 1 Em // Apr 13, 2008 at 7:13 pm

  SO much like my Friday! I almost let my boy out buck naked… but then didn’t… I didn’t want to put sunscreen on his p***s. Ya know… just don’t want those chemicals there of all places! I cringed when I read about your neighbor… are your bees OK? And your Chickens? I’m hoping to have my coop built in the next month or so… wish me luck with my neighbors!

• 2 Rian // Apr 13, 2008 at 10:03 pm

  Hi Em,

  Thanks for your comments.

  Hah… yeah, luckily, the kids have more than just their father’s British Isles and German ultra-white skin genes. Otherwise, they’d be doomed to a summer of sunscreened wieners and bright red cheeks– top and bottom.

  Everyone’s fine. I think he was spraying a mix of sulfur, lime, and dormant oil. Aside from ill-advised timing and power-washer volumes of the stuff, it’s probably not going to kill anyone.

  The chickens are… mostly entertaining. Your kids will love them. They can be a little frustrating owing to their… there’s no other way to say it… stupidity. They often try to commit suicide by flying into stuff or jamming their heads into holes when I try to do such evil things as feed them… or… put them away at night.

  Luckily, we’re into a groove now where they basically put themselves away at dusk. I must say they’re pretty low maintenance and a nice addition to the place.

  As for neighbors… well, that’s a tough one. The woman we lived next door to in Japan screamed at us every day for a year. Every single day. This guy’s actually relatively trouble-free. Good luck with yours. It’s always something. Hopefully, that something’s small.

• 3 Leslie // Apr 14, 2008 at 6:05 pm

  Hi Rian- thanks for the grand tour of the chicken coop last week. I have made interim progress on providing an acceptable environment for my four little chicks, thanks to Craigslist. First off I started thinking how to get a big enough box for them to live in inside until it warms up enough to move them out, since, unlike you, I don’t have a heat lamp. I had just told Alyssa that the perfect solution would be an old wooden playpen that I could line with some plastic fence I have when some nice lady on Craigslist offered an old wooden portacrib. I picked it up on Friday, and now the chickies have a nice little pen with room for lots of forage and a couple of roosts in addition to the bagged food and water. I was totally intimidated by the work and workmanship you put into building your chicken wire tractor, so I began trying to figure out how to build something more in line with my own construction skills, or lack of skills. My idea was to make something like garden tunnels out of pvc pipe - requires only glue and an hacksaw - and cover with more of my plastic fence, which requires only scissors to cut. Craigslist however again helped out and I got this fabulous set of folding fence today from a very nice woman in West Linn, who was giving away her kids bunnies because they never take care of them. I only took the fence, so the karma of taking the bunnies is on someone else’s head. I’ll send you some pics when I get the chicks out into the yard, if you are interested. PS - any potatoes starts left?

• 4 Rian // Apr 14, 2008 at 8:07 pm

  Hi Leslie,

  My pleasure. I think there’s a lot of ways to go that’ll work. My big concern is with raccoons and so I probably over-engineered a bit.

  Yeah, I have lots of seed potatoes left. Come on by and pick a few up– there are still probably six varieties.

  Rian

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