As you can see, the chickens are growing ever larger. And that means my time to finish their permanent home is growing ever shorter. Lucky for me, I had a nice weekend to do some building. I managed to get all four posts plumb, square, and cemented in the ground. Three of the four framing boards for the floor are now also attached to the posts. I wanted to wait to fasten the last board until the posts had a day or two longer to set-up better.

Even so, it feels wonderful to have this much done. The foundation is always the most tedious and time-consuming part of a build. But a proper foundation – built with care – is the only way to build anything that really has a chance of standing the tests of time. The rest of the building will still take time to build, but there should be fewer moving parts at any given time now that the posts, and floor frame are in place.

It might look strange with the floor being so high off the ground, but this is indeed done on purpose. With the post to the far left in the upper picture as reference, the bottom of the board is 2 feet up off of the ground. I did this for two reasons: 1.) I didn’t want to lose 80 square feet of ground space by placing the coop directly at ground level. This will give my birds 80 square feet inside the coop, and 80 square feet of dry, shady ground space beneath the coop. Twice the space, without twice the work. Of course, there will be a run/pen area behind the coop as well, but any extra space is much appreciated. 2.) 2 feet is high enough that I can comfortably get underneath the coop on my hands and knees. It will need to be cleaned under here, and of course I’ll need to get in there to fix fencing from time to time. So I wanted to make sure I had enough space to work comfortably when I inevitably need to make my way under here.

It’s certainly a big structure for a chicken coop, but I’d rather it be too big than too small. If I ever change my mind and decide I don’t want chickens, I’ll have a decent structure to use as a shed. But I’m anticipating many years of happy chickens!

In other news, my tomatoes are very happy in their larger pots and with more lights pointed on them.

Not much longer now and I’ll be moving them outside to harden off. At this point it should only be a week or two. I’ll have to keep my eye on the forecasts to know for sure, though.

Other than all that, Spring is progressing nicely. So in good form: enjoy some more pictures of the blooms:

I’m also very excited for my pear tree this year. It looks like we should be be getting lots of flowers here very soon:

And last but not least: it’s almost time for my very first Magnolia Blooms!

Stay tuned, and Happy Growing!