The chicks spent the night outside in their new run last night. I made them a temporary coop out of their stock tank and an old door leaned up against it. When it got dark and they realized they weren’t going back inside the garage they panicked a bit and all huddled in one corner and tried to burrow under each other, but when I went back out a little while later, they were calm, and one was even perched up on the edge of the old door. They even got rained on a bit and handled it fine. I checked on them this morning and they’re all out happily scratching and jumping over each other.

Their run is all done and as safe as we can make it, with plywood screwed onto the bottom of the barn wall to close the gaps, deer netting over the top, and the door and latch all secure. I want to eventually make the top of it better by making a frame out of wood and covering it with metal poultry netting, but for now, this will do.

Ryan’s dad John and his friend Phil were here for six days.  It was fun to see them, get some projects done around the house, and get some help with bird identification.  Their visit was the impetus we needed to get everything back into the storage room in an organized fashion and get the guest room cleaned up again.  And the main basement room too.  We still have quite a bit of stuff everywhere, but it’s better.

My favorite project is the basement door.  It replaced a baby gate, and it’s SO much nicer to have a door so you don’t look down basement stairs on your way into the house.  They also fixed the vent over the stove, so hopefully we won’t have an inch of ice built up around it next winter.  They found that the big window in the living room is leaking so the wood at the bottom is all rotten and moldy.  They dug out all the rotten-ness, and John is going to make a new piece of wood.  Ryan’s going to caulk the outside so it doesn’t keep leaking…

The kids were great — well, except for Delia’s bouts of separation anxiety.  She’s going through something lately where it’s really hard for her to deal with anyone leaving, even just to run to Babbitt.  Henry said “Papa” a few times (only to me, though) and he wanted both John and Phil to pick him up, then put him down, then pick him up. 

The weather was fantastic with just a few nice rain showers here and there.  Phil rode my bike, paddled around the pond a bit, and they both rode the four wheelers.  I’m not sure if they got to ride the tractor, due to possible oil pressure problem which doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem after all, hopefully.

I tried my best to do the hostess thing – it doesn’t come naturally at all, but it’s sort of fun to try every once in a while.  That involves coffee making, dinner cooking, providing clean towels, stuff like that.  There’s probably a lot more to it, but that’s about all I manage.

A few days before they came, we moved the chicks to the garage.  Nora gave us an old stock tank, so the chicks are living in that for a while.  I was pretty proud of myself for strapping Henry on my back and getting them moved out there while Ryan was really sick one day.  He had been sort of sick and we had put it off for two or three days, but finally one day I just couldn’t stand those chickens in the basement one more minute.  We’ve had them out in the run once so far.  I took Lucy in on leash so she got to meet them.  She was pretty good, but a little too interested in them for us to want to let her be offleash around them yet.  I am hopeful that we can get our dogs chicken-safe, but I think we should use muzzles at first to make sure they can’t bite them.

We have some leads on some used fencing, and are thinking about trying to set up a small fenced area for future ponies, goats, alpacas or llamas, etc.