Up, up and away, in my beautiful, my beautiful ba-LLOON!

Frederick came home from school with this art project yesterday.  Rumor has it that he and Emily are going to make a trip to Frankenmuth to watch and air balloon launch sometime in May.

For the particularly observant, that is a scene from Willy Wonka on the television, one of Frederick's favorite movies these days.

Genuinely free range

The chickens have a very early bedtime (unlike the ducks, who like to push the envelope every night, they put themselves to bed around 6) so by the time I got done with all the fence and gate swapping (the gate I removed got moved to next to the driveway--a whole 'nother pallaver) it was too late for them to go free.  So the next day I opened up their house and let them loose.  It took them about an hour to decide to try the outdoors (again, unlike the ducks who start banging on their house doors and walls at about 6 in the morning and then SPRING LOOSE when someone opens the door--Simon reports that he just undoes the latch and then runs top speed back to the house to be free of their mad dash from their house).  Here they are marveling at the duck pond--which the ducks do NOT like them doing.  It's THEIR duck pond--hence the name "duck pond".

Their coop gets a much needed airing:

Ooh, now this looks truly interesting: a dead log filled with little bugs.  It doesn't get better than that!

Prepping the backyard for free range chickens

As the weather warms the chickens discovered that life outside the basement is really exciting.  While the yard has been duck-escape-proof for years, it was not chicken safe, primarily because early last summer a gaggle of hoodlums escaped from a rival drug gang using our backyard as a short cut.  In the process, they broke two sections of fencing and both our gate locks.  This was the problem (as far as chickens go), as the gate didn't shut properly and didn't reach close enough to the ground to keep wandering chickens contained.  I set to removing the gate a few days ago and discovered that Simon has padlocked a chain onto it and promptly tossed the key to the winds.  We both searched the house and garage high and low but could find to key.

I went to Home Depot (I have been there pretty much every day in the past week or so) and picked up a "bolt cutter"--used only for cutting chains and destroying padlocks, I am sure.

It made short work of the chain.  I had intrusive thoughts of snipping off fingers and toes while using it.  

Pretzel, quick to remind me that he has no fingers and very small toes, watched as I worked.  (This is his backyard, after all.)

Lock and chain gone, I needed to get a section of lattice fencing.  Back to Home Depot!  Once I had the fencing, I soon realized it would not fit into Simon's car.  A worker who saw me puzzling the matter over in the parking lot off promised to get me loads of twine (they hand it out for free, I now know).  He did, and he gave me advice, but he wouldn't help me attach it.  He said that there were "strict rules" about not helping customers attach stuff to their roof.  I assured him I could manage and did.  I was amazed it didn't blow off on the drive home--didn't even wiggle--and makes me want to buy a sheet a day.  (I do wonder, though, how we got all the other sections home.  I have no memory whatsoever of how we did it.  Yet there they are in our yard and I do remember putting the fencing up.)

Here it is.  I also tacked up some plastic fencing along the bottom just to be extra certain.  Once the chickens gain a few more pounds, we will be able to take that off.  [Product plugs:  fix it jobs are so much more fun now that I have both a battery powered drill--not something I thought I wanted, it was a Grandpa indulgence, but wow, do I know better now--and a battery powered nail gun.  I use that nail gun every day!  (That, too, causes intrusive thoughts, mainly of the sort of using it to nail nails into people's heads.  I never had these thoughts before I watched Coen Brother movies.  We had to get rid of our chipper/shredder after seeing Fargo...)]

The Rolls Royce of Toasters

So: we get through a lot of toasters.  We in our household are toast-lovers.  Toastarians, even.  And it wears on our toasters.  As the most recent one died, I thought about my new middle-aged resolution to buy GOOD THINGS rather than cheap things that get replaced often.  With a bit of research I discovered that the best, heaviest-duty, most indestructible toasters are Dualit.  Actually, they're more like the Morgan of toasters because they are HAND MADE in England.  I also discovered that they are sphincter-tighteningly expensive.  But fear not!  You can get them used on Amazon!  So I did:

Ain't it a beauty?  The best thing about it is that all the parts are replaceable.  Second best is that the part that always breaks - the pop-up part - is absent.  The lower dial in the picture is like an egg-timer - you turn it as far as you want for browning and it slowly unwinds.  The knob half-way along the bottom is how you lift out the toast when you want it (it stays inside keeping warm until you do).  The upper dial is how many slices you want, so it only heats up one side for one slice.  Nifty, huh?

Someone's Been Using My Phone

I often misplace my phone and so not being able to find it yesterday is not a new experience. What was new was finding it sitting neatly next to Frederick as he lazed about on the couch, watching documentaries. I didn't think much of it until I went to use it and all my app icons had been rearranged (or deleted) and I found this new photo in my "gallery":

Life is skittles, life is beer

Evicting the chickens

The weather has become sultry and it is time to get the stinky beasts out of our basement. I had intended to design the chicken coop myself but, unlike duck houses, chickens (it seems) have very specific and complicated needs and the floor plans I looked at were not well written. So I got a El-Cheep-O kit so that I could get them in it as soon as possible, which will then free me up to begin work on my own design,the El-Super-O coop, throughout the summer. I ordered it online (as I do everything now) and the guy who delivered it was very sulky. I asked him to put the box in our garage as where he had left it, in the middle of our driveway right by our door, would be in the way of everything. "It's really heavy!" he whined. I offered to help and he contributed a lot less than half the work. He reminded me of my students. So today I decided it was time to get serious. Here is the start of the coop:

Here is their little ramp which, I believe, they are supposed to use to climb up to beddy-bye when it gets dark out.

This is called a "poop pan" because chickens poop. A lot.  It looks like a giant pizza pan and slides out the side wall for "easy cleaning."

Now I am working on the "chicken run." Given how fat they all are already, they aren't going to do much running. (Though one, we call her Zippy, is a real bouncer. She's small and springs straight into the air at the slightest provocation.)

Here it is, a few hours later, finished. What would I do differently? Well, for starters, I would make it about twice as tall since right now it comes up to my waist and so everything has to be done bending over or crawling around on one's knees. I would also eliminate most the doors (each side has at least one, most have two or three little doors for getting at various things). It only needs one big door to get inside it and another little access door, like an attic entrance, for easy access to the nesting boxes.  That would make it simply and more stable. I also read online that serious chickeners dig a 6" deep pit under their coop and lay out chicken wire (also known as "poultry netting") on the ground and cover it up with sand (for bird baths), and then also attach it to the sides of the frame. This is to both keep the coop on the ground during windy/tornado weather, but also to deter rats and weasels from digging in and eating the chickens. I have never seen a rat in our yard but I suppose that's the way it always is with rats.

Right now we are all in the office at work (each of us has our own office) and the chickens are home alone guarded only by Pretzel, our guard duck, inside their new coop. If they are all alive when we get home, then we are off to a good start.   Pretzel is, actually, a very good guard duck.  He has told tom cats, dogs, squirrels, wild ducks, geese and a hawk where to step off.  Though he may complain about his harem suddenly increasing 500%, I think he is secretly very pleased to have the additional responsibilities.

So far we have three named:  The black and white speckled is called "Chimples" (that's a Frederick word); the dark brown one that screams if you look at her (the uncrested brown one in the back of the group) is called "Puddle Nuts" (another Frederick word).  The tan one in front is Zippy.  The other two do not have names yet, though one had a seriously poopy backside and so earned the name Poopback McVittles today.  I am hoping she cleans herself off a bit so the name doesn't stick.

The ugly time of year

As I have said ad nauseum, they only have two seasons in Michigan, Winter and Summer, and what would be Spring and Autumn in other places are just alternating days of Winter and Summer.  So after it SNOWED two days ago, it is now up in the 70s.  But it still looks like Winter because there are no leaves on the trees yet.  Consequently it's brown and glary and not at all attractive.  Good thing Frederick is.

Cruelest month

Floods and sleet today:

Meanwhile, what's happening outside?

Nothing but wonderful things, as far as the ducks are concerned. Sping bulbs are springing up, and the worms are wakening from a not-very-long winter slumber.Best of all the pond is thawed and ducks can do what ducks do best--crap in water. The longer nights (it's light enough for ducks to run after bugs until after 8 pm these days) and the warmer days have given the ducks a serious case of spring fever which make them very reluctant to get into their house when it's bedtime. I have had to chase them round the pond (never fun in one's pajamas) more than once this past week while they race and chase and cackle self-righteously.

Alcatraz

Sylvester is equally displeased with the changes in the chicks. They used to be morsal-sized temptations and now they are alarmingly large and, worst of all, confident.

And this one, perhaps still feeling the pain of losing his lil brother to what we humans refer to as "pasty butt", is the emergent leader with decidedly Machiavellian tendencies (see this as proof).

Next on the agenda is Building a Chicken Coop. Chickens have far more complex needs than ducks (who can sleep on the pond perfectly well if they have to to avoid tom cats) because chickens need to nest, need to roost and need a sand pit to roll around in. They are also unlikely to take on a raccoon or hawk the way to ducks will, and so need secure housing. Right now I am at the planning stages. Production is slated to begin next weekend.