~ Retired and Starting My Future In The Foothills ~ - Page 141

The porch steps are completed, save for the final white paint on the posts, handrails, and balusters.  When you have an old house, nothing is square, certainly not concrete poured a few decades ago. The porch itself is wonky.  Then John poured the concrete pad for the steps so it would drain water away, so that was an added angle to the equations.  Each stringer, step, triangle block, rail, post and baluster had to be custom-cut.  But darn, it's a work of art AND it's really sturdy!!

Here are some of the distractions drawing me away from my "assisting" duties.

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And here are the steps being built.  First, John measured and cut the step pieces and posts and put them together before he took them apart to be painted, then reassembled.

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He even built new balusters to replace the few missing from the rest of the porch railing.  The next step (after painting these) is to reconfigure the doorway at the other end of the porch, then put up screen doors at each end.  THEN put up the mosquito screen.

I explained the front porch would be a "Chicken Free" zone.  For entertaining on warm nights.  John nodded and said, "Oh, yeah, someplace to keep the people.  The chickens free range, but people get their own, enclosed.... place to congregate."

I think he's mocking me.  He wasn't the least bit surprised my retirement gift was a metal rooster made out of small pieces of a recycled 55 gallon drum.  "Of course they gave you a chicken.  No brainer there." Well, duh.  Their other option was something SpongeBob SquarePants, but over the years my supervisor has seen me grow away from that particular collection.  Chickens are far more fun and much funnier than SBSP. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by JulieNKC 

 I think it's a lovely enclosed run you are building for yourself and your guests. 

And it will be even lovelier after I clean the poop off the perches...   err..... wooden bench and chairs.  After the porch is power-cleaned and enclosed, I'll put the (cleaned) outdoor carpet back down, set up the high-volume ashtray unit, put a table out there and some battery-operated lamps for night-time illumination. 

No nest boxes, though.  Anybody who has to stay over for any reason will have the use of either recliner or the day bed in the office/nursery.

In other news, I transplanted four tomato plants gifted by John.  He bought a six-pack of tomato plants, got one extra for free, but really only wanted two seedlings of his own.  He told HHandbasket and I to go to his house and pick up the tomato six-pak off the table on his front deck.  We did that on Wednesday while he was working on the steps.  HH only needed two plants, so I got the other four.  Two went into my Deluxe Topsy Turvey planter and the other two went into a raised planter on its little stand.  And surrounded with a wire grid cage.

One of the three silkies became some predator's dinner last night.  I found its remains in the meadow.  A buff silkie, and had begun to wander further away from the coop across the whole yard.  Got "lost" twice before and I found it squeaking out of sight of any other chicken.  I couldn't find it last night when I went to lock 'em up...   She'd just told me her name was Marilyn (no real clue as to the actual sex of any of 'em), and the other two claimed to be Rupert (mostly black) and Maximillian (partridge).  Makes me sad.  Those silkies and the WCB Polish "tweens" are not sleeping in the main coop, but in the smaller coops in the yard.  Both sets are notoriously hard to "put to bed" as they wanna play well into dusk.

Tough love tonight - I'm locking 'em up earlier!.