The reasons for my absense and the lateness of this post are many, but here are a few:
My grandson Owen, who we watch 4 days a week.
His first ride on a Harley....OK, so it's my dog Harley.
I am not sure what the statement is behind the bat costume.
Mr. Ethel likes to wake up Owen . Here he is ducking behind his post perch because Wifey has a squirt bottle that she employs to try to keep him quiet. He hates baths.
Every now and then we get to see our other two grandchildren. Here they are watching a movie when they spent the night last Saturday.
And when my son took his wife up north to visit her dad a couple of weeks ago, instead of babysitting Owen we got to take care of his dog Kane.
At home Kane uses the cats as chew toys, not hurting them but mouthing them none-the-less. Here the cats won't put up with that kind of treatment, as Abbey forcibly reminded him.
Our 2 boys weren't very playful this time either, but every now and then they would get into a 3-for-all.
Ethel had had enough of the commotion and was about to go break it up, but the boys tired of the rough-housing just in time.
All summer long I had been planning on building an addition to my chicken coop for the rabbits, but there always seemed to be more important things to get done first. (i.e.- gardening, canning, chopping firewood, walking the goldfish, etc. etc.)
Then as the weather started dipping down towards freezing at night, it couldn't be put off any longer. I called up my private contractors "Eric & Eric Wrecking and Repairing Inc." and begged them to come help "the OLD man" (me) out... (AGAIN)
We planned the construction project for the following weekend, giving me almost a full week to get things ready. I planned on leveling the ground and constructing cement block footings, sorting the wooden shipping pallets I had collected for this purpose and nailing 2 of them end to end to form building sections and then tearing apart the extras and use the slats to fill in the gaps between boards.
However, Mother Nature had other plans. SIX DAYS OF RAIN !!!
Luckily Saturday morning was dry. The boys showed up and I had NOTHING done. Earlier in the week I had talked to my son-in-law Eric and we discussed building the walls on treated 4x4's staked to the ground. We talked it over with my son Eric and decided to go with that.
I basically let the construction crew decide how to build it after giving them an idea of what I had in mind. Then I just backed off and stayed out of the way, helping where I could, like trying to keep the chickens out from under foot. (They were very interested in the construction and I believe they thought it was for them.)
As you can see I did a great job there too.
No my son-in-law wasn't hungry, just tired of this pesky hen always under foot. By the end of the day all 3 walls were up.
Sunday my son came over and we worked on the roof. He cut off all of the unneccessary wall parts with a chain saw and we used recycled 2x8's for the rafters.
Somewhere during the construction I started refering to this addition as the "PALLET PALACE" and continue to do so.
The we got started on the sheeting.
Some thinking was involved in planning how to attatch the rubber roofing.
By the end of the day we had the roofing on with enough left over to run it right on down the wall. And all of the rabbit hutches all brought inside. With room left over for the straw, hay and feeds. Now the chickens have full run of their coop.
Over the next few days, due to high winds and rain, we gave up on trying to fill in between the boards and hung plastic tarps on the other two walls. If it holds up over winter we will finish the fill in job next year, put in windows and then side it to match the coop. And hopefully get the cement footings done too.
Please don't mind the construction residue as there are still some modifications underway.
Happy rabbits inside their new home.
I even installed electric lighting and the 3 ft. wide recycled door makes mucking it out a lot easier.
But I still think the chickens are miffed that the Pallet Palace wasn't for them.
