country living

We've been living our country dream lately. Which means lots of work. But, it's worth it. :)
We are currently in the process of converting our shed (bottom picture) into a chicken coop. So far we have about 9 hours of work in it. Most likely we have about 7 more hours to get it up to par.
I have only spent $5 so far on the construction process and that is great! Our coop is the epitome of recycling. We've reinforced the perimeter of the coop with fallen tree trunks, patched the coop walls with odds and ends to include two old doors.

The top picture is our progress so far. I know, it doesn't look like much, does it? Most of the work is not evident in the picture.

So far we have:

1. Cleaned out the previous owner's stuff from inside the shed. (Saw a black widown doing that.)
2. Added additional dirt inside the coop and leveled it out.
3. Built two different roosts for the chickens.
4. Patched the back wall which was falling apart.
5. Removed all the nails which seemed to have no purpose other than jabbing someone as they walk by.
6. Dug the perimeter of the coop and layed tree trunks around it to discourage predators from digging in.
7. Dug the perimeter of the run (the outside part) to later bury the bottom of the chicken wire.
8. Installed a new pole in the run where our door will go.
9. "Paved" walkways in the doors of the coop and the run.
10. Leveled out the ground in the run.
11. Buried bricks below the wall between the coop and run to discourage diggers.

Now we are on a rest as we need some more materials. Rich will be bringing home some free wood and lumber from work soon. We also need to buy more chicken wire. But, all in all it is turning out to be fairly cheap. :)
We decided to buy Araucana/Americana chicks from a local farmer. The price is right and the eggs will be beautiful as the birds lay green, blue and pink eggs. The chicken is really pretty too.

Today we also dug up some wild garlic growing in our yard. It was a real mess trying to identify it as there is not alot of information on the web. But, in the end we did and found a recipe for garlic butter. It's sitting in my freezer now waiting for the day we have spaghetti again. :)

While searching for a wild garlic recipe of some sort we came across a dandelion jelly recipe. So, off to the backyard we went. (There were many available as we haven't cut our grass yet this year.) Now we are in the process of removing all the green from the flower and will soon freeze our buds until we buy some pectin from the market.

All in all it's been a very country week for us. It is SO MUCH FUN! I feel like we are living our dream!