One project down, many more to go.....

Yesterday we finally completed our chicken coop/tractor and brought it home precariously strapped to my dad's rickety trailer (with no lights, in the dark - it was suspenseful). Here it is!

It's 8x4x2 with a 4x4 house on top. Inside are two roosts and two nesting boxes. There is a ramp to the house, one door on the front, wheels on the back, and two dowels to hoist and roll it around the yard.

The plywood we used for the house and door were untreated, so we applied a few layers of exterior latex paint, in this case "roadster blue" from Lowe's. I think it looks right nice! I may get really creative and add a stenciled border or something.      Eventually.....

I chose this blue because it reminds me of the blue that covers most state park residences and buildings. (Except for our house, of course - see previous post)

This morning we added the chickens!

The golds checking out the ramp.

It will only be holding 5 chickens once I distribute the rest of them, but for now it fits all 19 comfortably. It's been such a mild spring, they will be find out there with a heat lamp inside the house.

I am also thrilled to have them out of our house.

If anybody sees this blog and is interested in copying our design, feel free to shoot me an email.


Yesterday we picked up the plants for our park butterfly garden.

The butterfly garden was a project I worked on for several years as Seasonal Naturalist. I converted the previously mowed areas at the front of the Visitor's Center in to a 3,000 square foot native plant butterfly garden. It was quite an undertaking, and these days it's just a matter of upkeep.

Every year we typically use Iris Fund money to incorporate additional plants. I think it has been a huge success - attracting all stages of butterflies, and encouraging people to linger and ask questions.

Today we planted Dutchman's pipevine, phlox, goldenrod, coreopsis, verbena, asters and two wafer ash trees. We started at 10am and wrapped up around 6:30.     Wow.     We are tired.


Tomorrow we will try to take it easy..... as best we can.