Eggs-actly Perfect!

We finally got our first egg! I had begun to doubt that eggs actually came from chickens. Now I know it's true that you don't need a grocery store or Styrofoam cartons to get eggs. It is very surreal to get eggs from our own backyard. It is also awesome how the chickens were smart enough to lay their eggs by the golf balls - which were placed to show that the nesting boxes were safe places for "eggs."

Once we got our second egg, we couldn't wait any longer to taste it. The yolks were golden and firm and we had a delicious breakfast!

Blending Chicken Needs and Human Desires

In our focus on continuing improvements to the yard, we have neglected to share many of the projects we have been working on. The first major addition to the yard was a chicken coop. Having purchased 2-day old chicks before their home was even begun, we had a lot of work to do. We had already spent a lot of time researching the needs of chickens, in terms of nesting box space, roost heights, coop and run room, predator protection, etc. One of our inspirational images, below, utilized various types of wood during construction. This inspired us to combine our existing stash of wood with whatever we could find off craigslist for a more textured appearance and more rustic character.

This is the design the we created to guide our construction efforts.

 The roof form --sloping in two directions --was modified from earlier designs to make use of pre-constructed joists that we found on craigslist. We cut the joists in half through the middle to make the structure for the sloping roof of the chicken coop. We could now take advantage of water shedding off the roof in two directions to naturally water two planting areas. The construction of the coop took about 2 months, working in the mornings until the sun overtook the site and the extreme Texas heat became unbearable. Total cost was about $500. The final construction is a true melding of the needs of chickens and our human desires for ease of maintenance, chicken care, access, and visual impact.

These are a few of the sweet girls we are doing it all for!

 Sandy manages the construction site.

 The coop is complete and the run is being installed, which involved digging 1' into the rock-hard soil in order to bury the hardware cloth to prevent digging predators from gaining entry. The chicken coop is supported on piers of limestone - a local material. In fact we unearthed quite a few boulders while we were digging.

 The coop and run are complete!

 A window, with an opening covered by hardware cloth, opens for ventilation. A door swings up for coop access and a panel pulls out for coop cleaning.

Showing off how the roost swings up for easy cleaning of the coop floor.

 Light pours into the coop from two polygal clerestory windows. An operable window closes at night to keep the chickens warm in the winter. In the summer, a screen fills the opening at night to retain air flow. The nesting boxes are accessible on the left.

 On this facade, doors reveal storage space for chicken food and garden tools. The nesting boxes are accessible for egg collection and cleaning.

 The polygal windows nestle into the space created by the sloped joists.

The chickens are happy in their large home! We left two openings in the run roof to allow the chickens to experience some rain. What a joy it is to 1) have them out of our bedroom, 2) take care of them every morning when they are so happy and eager to get come outside (from the coop to the run), and 3) collect food scraps to share with them.

A Blank Canvas

Yesterday was an exciting day for our garden progress. Our work throughout the yard had resulted in a mountain of trimmings filling the backyard. We had researched the rental of a small chipper only to find out small chippers were not actually rent-able. And so the pile sat...

...until yesterday. With the long drought, many neighbors have had trees die and called out companies to cut and chip them. Hearing such work occurring down the street, we took advantage of the fortuitous situation. We were able to get our backyard full of trimmings chipped into a little pile of mulch, and also get the truck-full of mulch from the neighbor's job! Now the full extent of usable space in the backyard has become a blank slate for creating our garden. Only, as we work to apply permaculture principles, the materials of the site are used as the inspiration and means for implementing the design, so the slate is really not so blank. Instead, it is a field of possibilities, and we happily began laying out the routes for our mulch paths.