My husband works 4/10's, so we have 3 day weekends and when we have yard work to do they are long weekends, especially since the golf course is closed! Anyway I want to share a few pictures of what we are doing to expand our chicken pen! We want them to have a big area to free range, but want to try to keep them safe from dogs, coyotes & any other predators! Yesterday we removed some low fencing that we put in, in the early 90's to keep the rabbits from eating our newly planted tree's! On a side note, when we bought this property it was all sand, sagebrush and rocks! My husband and I cleared the land and put in everything we have! We also physically built our house, we did not contract it out...I think we qualify as homesteaders!

It has been a labor of love, but man has it been physical! I'm 55 and my husband is 61, it's not as easy as it used to be, but we can still get things done!
First picture is an overview of the garden, chicken & rabbit area! The new chicken pen will run from the existing pen clear to the left and to the fence at the back of the treeline. We will be adding more fencing to make it taller!
View attachment 2064371
We planted Blackberries many years ago, needless to say they got a little out of control! My husband mowed them down and then we went through and did some burning!
View attachment 2064845
Several years ago our neighbor let a fire get out of control and it burned a bunch of our tree's! Today we spent time cutting out branches and we removed a couple of the tree's, still have more to do! We also cut out branches that have grown over the fence! This is one of the areas that we will be adding new fencing to make it taller! You can see the chicken pen on the right! We will be attaching the new fencing to the tallest portion of the existing pen!
View attachment 2064848
We had plenty of branches and tree trunks to keep this fire burning all day long!
View attachment 2064850
A view looking from the chicken coop to the edge of our property! You can just see the existing fence that we will be tying into, in the opening of the tree's! Things are kind of messy right now, but it will be cleaned up and it will look so much nicer! You can also see the rabbit hutch my husband built for our kids! It will house the 2 does and he will build another hutch for the buck! This is not its permanent location, it will be inside of the new chicken pen! I told him it needs to be taller, we'll see if he can do anything about that!
View attachment 2064869
I will be so happy when this project is done, but as my husband would tell you, I say that about every project

and I've lost count of how many we've done!