Ok, I made a list of everyone who voted for Leah in the Gerber Baby Contest last month, and plugged the numbers into Randomizer.org and the winner is...... Maura of Lilac Lane Cottage! I think it's pretty cool that she won, because she's a fellow Kansan, and she has a wonderful country living blog with great photos that you just have to check out!
Congrats Maura... please be patient with me as I pull everything together. With my crazy work schedule, it might take me a few weeks to find adequate time to whip up the cookies and the dog treats and get everything to you!!
The guinea keets were 6 weeks old yesterday, and aptly befitting their age milestone, they were moved from the brooder on the back porch to their newly renovated chicken coop. So far, they haven't really checked out their spacious new mansion -- as of yesterday afternoon and even this morning, they are perched on the edges of their brooder.
I hope they decide to explore more today, so we can take the brooder out and get it all cleaned up - the brooder is QUITE a mess. I cleaned it every single day, but the last few days, even that didn't seem to be enough. Lesson to the wise -- have your chicken coop ready before you buy your birds! :-)
Four lavender guineas and one pearl guinea survey their new home
The chicken coop isn't entirely done yet. (Hubby has rebuilt this coop from the ground up!) The roof needs redone and there is trim work for the inside and a roosting rack yet, and of course, we need to put up the fencing on the outside, and finally, paint the coop to match the house. I'm hoping we can get all that done before winter, esp the painting! But worse case, we did get the whole thing primed Sunday morning, and just in time too... we were blessed with several heavy rainstorms that afternoon along with 2 episodes of hail!
The new chicken coop front boasts TWO coop doors and one salvaged window from the homestead. The two coop doors will allow us to section off the inside if we ever need to (new chicks or chickens/keets, sick birds, etc.) so each side will still have outside access.
The way the front looked before hubby started his renovation (above & below)... you may remember that fateful pasture burn of spring 2009? You can see the old coop door in the above photo, bottom left of the coop.
Check out hubby's newly crafted, handmade person door
on the side of the coop!
Here's the old door. A tad "ugh", huh?
Like I mentioned above, there's plenty more work to finish up the coop. I'm excited to get it painted to match the house... I'm just hoping I can get it done before the temps take a plunge. Starting Thursday, I have a 6-day stretch of work (blech) so I might have to cram a little bit of painting into each morning before work. I hate doing it that way -- cleaning my brushes/rollers every single time I paint takes so much time! But if that's what it takes, then oh well.
Winter will be here soon!!!
Ok, I promise to stop with the chicken coop photos, I'm sure I've bored everyone to death by now. There will be only one future photo ..... once I've painted it to match the house!
Hubby is getting sooooooo good at destructo/constructo projects around here this year -- the front porch railing, the garage, and now the chicken coop.
Hmmmmm, methinks I'm beginning to build a rather ambitious building list for him. *wink*
I'm not bored with your chicken coop photos but the picture of the coop sitting out amongst the snow scares me! Yuck, I haven't gotten over the summer yet! Congratulations to Maura!
ReplyDeleteThe winter photos made me shiver. I think you hubby did a good job.
ReplyDeleteI got a shiver or two looking at the photos of last winter. Congrats to the winner!
ReplyDeleteYour hubby is awesome! I'm curious, do the guineas need any heat in the cold Kansas snows to keep from freezing? And what about temps in their house in the summer?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, congrats to Maura!
ReplyDeleteSecond, it looks and sounds like you guys are STILL very busy over there-Planting late season crops AND remodeling the chicken coop! Whew, I can't keep up. Lol
Good luck with everything you have to do before Winter hits. You guys are hard workers so I have no doubt you'll pull it off :)
welllll you are one busy gal, so to help you out a bit instead of cleaning the brushes everytime, wrap the brush in saran wrap and put it in the refrig til the next day and so on i did that for a month, hahaha!! Looks great and yuk not looking forward to the cold weather coming soooon!!
ReplyDeleteHey - those chickens have a better place than I do :)
ReplyDeleteLOVE your chicken coop photos!! Especially like the one with the moon..Pure country life!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to Maura, she's a real sweetheart!
~Andrea~
The coop looks great! He sure did a great job!
ReplyDeleteI actually prefer the old coop photos. I LOVE old barns and farm buildings. Ironic, I know.
ReplyDeleteHope you get some time to fix it up right!
Our chicken house has two rooms with a large and small door for each one. It's a good thing too because we have to trick the Magpies. They'll come though one small door to eat the eggs, but not two. So the chickens go in one door, and through another small small one to get to their food and nesting boxes. We also had to outsmart the Magpies so they couldn't get the cat food. Those pesky birds keep us on our toes.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to Maura. I hope the fixing-up there goes well.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fine chiken house and will be really cute when you paint it to match the house. Those snow pictures gave me flash backs to last winter, brrrrr. Not ready for cold weather yet. Why can't it stay Fall all year long???
ReplyDeleteOH MY GOSH....I WON!!!! Susan I have gotten behind in reading my favorite blogs and I just saw this NOW....I'm sorry. I'M THRILLED!!! I know you're busy so please just take your time...enjoy your time off and don't worry about making these things right away...I can wait. I've got lots to do around here so I won't be sitting here twiddling my thumbs I promise ;) Now I'm going back up to read the rest of your blog...I just wanted to say THANK YOU!! I hope you have a wonderful Friday.
ReplyDeleteMaura :)
Congratulations to Maura!
ReplyDeleteSusan, the guinea are just adorable! I love their new coop. Your husband has done an amazing job rebuilding it. I love that you have two chicken doors and planned ahead for sectioning your coop off. Very smart! What a great job.
As with my chickens, I hope your guineas appreciate all the work you and your husband have done. I know that when we built our coop that it turned out to be expensive (around $600.00!) Crazy! But in the winter they stay warm and safe, that is all that matters.
ReplyDeleteSusan, I don't see it but if you haven't done this yet I would recommend putting a wire top on the run, we had a hawk swoop down and pick on up with the grace I have never seen.
There went my chicken across my yard over my head. Sad sight. So now they are enclosed with wire underneath so coyotes can't get in and hawks can't fly in.
I see you have been busy.. Good luck with thw winter garden will be interesting to see how it works out.. The only thing left in my garden is Green Peppers. I have pretty much torn out the rest.. Hope you are having a great Fall..
ReplyDeleteI really want chickens! I loved this post. Do you love them?
ReplyDelete