Today was our only free day this week – we had MM and Beavers yesterday, tomorrow we’re seeing a play in the morning, fruit picking in the afternoon followed by Badgers and I’m working in the evening, Thursday I am working all day and evening and Friday we’re off to the South of England Show. At the weekend I’ll be working on Saturday and we’ve swimming lessons followed by an Open Farm Sunday event on Sunday. Hehe, look at that linkerama!
So we had a nice lazy start to the day with Scarlett coming and getting back into bed with me and snuggling up to fall asleep again. Davies answered the door to the postman who’d brought an ebay parcel of Betty Spaghetty stuff so they played with that on my bed while I got dressed and talked on the phone to a local EO woman who was ringing me for a catch up chat. We all came downstairs, the kids had breakfast and got dressed while I tidied the kitchen and generally pottered about deciding what to do with the day, drinking tea and doing a few online bits while the children watched Class TV and Watch.
The chicks currently reside in a big plastic tub which used to house our dressing up outfits before we got all above ourselves and put up a clothes rail in the playroom for them and put all the clothes on hangers! Over the top to prevent the chicks from getting out (and Candle from getting in) and to rest the brooder lamp on we’ve been using two of the shelves from our camp kitchen. Clearly this means we either can’t go camping, we have to leave the chicks without a lid while we go camping or we made an alternative lid. I decided to make my mission making an alternative lid today. My Dad had offered us a roll of chicken wire he’s had in his garage for ages, so my biggest requirement was the timber. I explained the challenge to the kids and off we set.
Firstly we drove to the now shut down Wizard store on the local industrial estate as I know they had a whole pile of pallets in their yard which I thought might still be there abandoned. Indeed they were, but the unit was all chained up. We drove around the estate a bit but all the likely looking pieces of wood obviously belonged to people. Next we drove to the nearby local tip which closed a while back and I thought may have piles of fly tipped wood just waiting to be used by someone else. Nothing. On the way we drove past loads of skips which we’d talked about as possible sources of ‘treasures’ aslong as we could find someone to ask permission to rummage in but they all had garden waste, hard core or things like tiles in them. We drove to B&Q to price out timber and realised it would be about £30 to buy it new so that was not an option but we did have a very lengthy ‘lesson’ in there about hardwood, softwood, sawn wood, barcodes, measurements, pricing, internal and external doors, architrave, tongue and groove cladding and flooring, chipboard, plywood, MDF and treated and untreated woods. I surprised myself with how much I knew about wood quite frankly but I guess a builder for a father, 6 years working in B&Q – 2 of them in kitchens and living in two houses having loft conversions gives you a bit of a working knowledge of such things :). And now D&S have one too – and it was clearly interesting for the couple of builders watching and listening to me explaining about how chipboard and MDF is made too ;).
We left B&Q and went to Wickes to price their timber up and as we could detour onto another industrial estate I did so. This time I found a little area with several empty units with skips outside with pallets in and just one shutter door up. I went inside and found someone to ask if they were really rubbish and he told me to help myself. 🙂 Result! I could only fit two in my car whole (hadn’t thought to bring tools with me to try and dismantle them, just as well as it happens, I could still be there now!) so we loaded up with those and then called in to my Dad’s to collect the chicken wire and scout about his garage for tools. I couldn’t find any (he keeps them all in his van, so if he had one of those stickers saying ‘no tools are kept in this vehicle overnight’ and thieves believed it then it really would work :lol:). We came home and after much swearing, telephone consultation with Ady about tool location and rummaging through the garage and the cupboard under the sink I turned up a staplegun with no staples, a rusty saw which must be older than me and I think was already in the garage when we bought the house and lengthy searching in the garden turned up the hammer too. I managed to use the hammer and saw to good effect and made a new lid for the chicks brooder 🙂
except I ran out of staples halfway through fixing the wire on so we went back to B&Q to get staples and some nails because I now had a design for a run for them in mind and wanted to do that too.
We came back for late lunch, I left a message on Dad’s answerphone to ring me, partially to let him know I’d collected the chicken wire and partially because I had a sneaking suspsicion I’d need more tools that I had. Sure enough although my design idea was sound my hammer wasn’t up to dismantling the pallets and my nails would not penetrate one thickness of wood let alone two to be fixed together. So it was very fortunate that Dad rang back and agreed to come over and give me a hand. The children were very free range during the afternoon, playing mostly outside, coming over to find out more about what we were doing and learn about the tools. While we were waiting for Dad I let the chicks have a roam about outside under D&S’s watchful eyes while I cleaned their brooder out and then we popped them back in outside on the lawn for a couple of hours to enjoy the sunshine.
Dad was great, he did the drilling and screwing while I did the dismantling and directing and stapling. My right hand and arm is now absolute agony from stapling and hammering and sawing so hopefully it will be better tomorrow. We built two identical panels which we then joined together at the top and put struts across the base of to form a triangular pen – about 8 foot by 4 foot, pretty portable and very well received by the chickens 🙂
Ady came home and we sent him straight back out again to buy beers which we sat and drank watching the chicks loving the freedom of space and being outside with safety from a very curious Candle. They can have a few hours in their each day in the nice weather ready for outside eventually. We rang Mum and asked her if she wanted to come over too for fish and chips, I got her to bath the children (filthy dirty children!), Ady tidied up inside and Dad and I went off to get fish and chips for everyone to have with more beers to congratulate outselves on a job well done. The children went to bed (very late again!), Mum and Dad left and I’m off for a quick soak in the bath before heading off to bed myself – another busy day again tomorrow!
Sounds as though you’ve a lovely busy week ahead. I am impressed with the chicken run, so nice to feel you’ve achieved something in a day. Will you still be able to use it when they’re fully grown or will you need a bigger one? Guess it depends how many you keep?!
I (very briefly) considered making a hutch & run for our stupid guinea pigs and then decided against it, figuring I could probably buy a hutch cheaper than I could make one. And given that anything I made would probably look crap and fall apart in a few days, I decided my time and effort was probably better spent finding one cheap somewhere (and I did – a shop soiled double hutch).
Anyway, job well done indeed, it looks fab, I’m sure the chicks will enjoy it 🙂
Comment by Sarah — 06 June 2007 @ 4:41 am
Nice run, well done 🙂 As my rabbit run shows, dads are great for making runs 🙂
Though hats off to you for sourcing pallets for it, I bought my timber, but did not spend £30!!! only about £6 I think.
Comment by Em — 06 June 2007 @ 7:00 am
I reckon it’ll do regardless of how many we keep, it fills quite a patch of garden! The plan is for them to totally free range if we are home, be in the run during the day if we’re not and I’m going to build (with Dad’s tools and Dad’s help 🙂 ) a henhouse once we know how many we’re keeping. Not decided whether to construct something to live in the garage or something attached to the run outside – probably outside given how mild the weather is round these parts – and how stinky they are as it needs to be super easy to clean out. I’ll go and get some more pallets for that but I can only fit two in my car at a time, but I might need to draw up actual plans rather than saw and hope!
Comment by Nic — 06 June 2007 @ 8:27 am
that’s fab 🙂
Comment by layla — 06 June 2007 @ 9:14 am
Very impressive.
Comment by Allie — 06 June 2007 @ 11:22 am
you are the builder!! looks brill
Comment by HelenHaricot — 06 June 2007 @ 10:50 pm