I'm going on an adventure!

[RoseHawke]

I call this my "flat pack" coop.

I put the rafters together the other day, and the Mister and I tag-teamed on cutting the studs to length. He unloaded them from the truck then handed them to me to cut on my miter saw.

The rafters are not perfect, of course after I put them all together I thought of the way I should have done it to be sure that they would all match. Oh, well. I don't think there's more than 1/8" variance, maybe a 1/4". I can work with that although it will be a pain as what will probably happen is that I'm going to end up trimming the meticulously laid out birds' mouths so that the rafters will sit nicely on the top plates and the peak will all be in line.

 

[RoseHawke]

Managed to get a half-way decent pic of Pippin. He's just at 12 weeks and starting to get his "big boy" feathers.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Managed to get a half-way decent pic of Pippin. He's just at 12 weeks and starting to get his "big boy" feathers.

View attachment 4210991

Sort of a “broody cockerel” look.

I like it!

 

[RoseHawke]

Sort of a “broody cockerel” look.

I like it!

That's his "James Dean" look . He thinks he's fierce even though the only ones he can dominate are the bantams and Falco is iffy at best even though they keep challenging each other. He usually comes out on top, but that's subject to change.

At the moment when I let them out in the morning he dashes out and makes a feint at my toes. It's cute now, but I don't really want even a floofy bantam terror so he got picked up this morning and put on the fan shelf where I looked him in the eye and told him he's terribly cute but I'm top dog thankyewverymuch. He seemed to take it to heart but we'll see.

 

[RoseHawke]

Coop is coming along.

Got a bit more done that I expected today. I thought I'd be doing one wall a day, but the technique has shifted after I discovered that a wall with the sheathing/siding pre-installed was way too heavy for two old codgers to get off the deck and into place, even using ten-foot 2x4's as leverage. After much cogitation, I jiggered a way to secure a lifting strap around the top plate and Mr. RoseHawke used the boom pole on the tractor to get the wall raised at least some. High enough that he could raise it to its vertical position by hand anyway. Then while he held it in place I could check for alignment and plumb and pop a few quick screws into the braces to make sure it would stay put.

I was expecting to have that thing up in 10 minutes this morning - it took 45.

I framed the other two walls sans siding which made them much easier to raise into place although the far end wall was persnickety. It's all good. Tomorrow I'll frame in the last wall where the door is going and hang as much siding as I have energy for.

 

[RoseHawke]

So this is what, a week and a half since the last New Coop™ update?

Mr. Rosehawke put on the roofing underlayment and shingles, very closely supervised by moi (he wouldn't let me get on the roof) as I'm just better at it. I've always done the DIY as an offshoot of my lifelong interest in crafts and making things. He does engines. I've often said that if it takes a hammer, I do it, if it takes a wrench, he does it.

We got some of the siding on and had just gotten started on the roof sheathing when my 20+ year old pneumatic Hitachi framing nailer decided to die. I was Not Happy. It hasn't been used that much, but like people, O-rings age and one in the trigger mechanism had shredded itself from the pressure. An inexpensive Harbor Freight nailer has seen us through though.

Next, I'm moving on to the fascia trim and the soffits. I just hope my 25-year-old finish nailer is up to the task or there may be another trip to Harbor Freight.

 

[RoseHawke]

In my post in the thread How did your flock annoy you today? I relate how Pippin and Helena annoyed me by deciding to abandon their little coop come roosting time and roost with the big girls and on top of the bigger coop, respectively.

Well, this has now become a "thing". Every night I'm having to remove Helena from the peak of the bigger coop (medium coop?) and Pippin from inside where he's decided to roost pretty much at the other end so that I have to reach past sleepy and annoyed chickens to get him out and put them both back in the little coop where they belong. I daren't just leave them to it even though the bigger coop is enclosed inside a secure run. Your run is always secure - until it's not.

The New Coop™ cannot be finished fast enough.