vituperation

Friday was moving day for the girls. After what seemed like an eternity of working on the coop and chicken yard, I decided it was finished enough for them to live in, so, as it was getting dark I plucked each chicken off its roost in the old coop and Robyn and I carried them to the new coop. They were pretty quiet, even McLovin, whom I had never actually picked up before.

I left them in the coop all day yesterday, so they would imprint it in their tiny little brains. They took right to the nest boxes, and laid three eggs for us. I honestly didn’t expect to get any at all; I’ve heard that sudden changes can cause them to stop laying for a while. We got two eggs today.

As is standard for my life, I spent half the day yesterday doing something I hadn’t planned on doing. Last weekend, I parked Jezebel out where the pond used to be, to unload all the rolls of fencing I’d bought for the chicken yard. I left her out there a couple of days, then when I wanted to get her out from under the tree because a big storm was coming, she wouldn’t start.

Experimentation with the voltmeter led me to believe the problem was in the wire leading from the starter relay to the starter, because I could see the 12 volt charge on the end coming out of the relay but nothing on the starter end. You might remember I had an issue with the truck starting a few months ago, and thought the starter was bad. I removed it and took it to Advance Auto, where they tested it and proclaimed it fine. When I put it back in, the truck worked.

I went back to Advance Auto yesterday morning, arriving right after they opened. They didn’t have the cable I needed, so I left and went to Auto Zone, where they also didn’t have the cable. I ended up buying the stuff I needed to build my own cable. After a stop at the grocery store and the co-op, I went back home and built it.

The truck still wouldn’t start.

I stomped around, cussed, and spent about an hour messing around with no luck. Finally, I decided to get the truck up on a jack stand so I would have more room to work under it.

And, as usual, it became a clusterfuck.

I jacked the truck up, put the stand in place, and released the hydraulics. The truck slowly sank to the ground, pushing the jack stand into the waterlogged earth. I went and found a couple of pieces of wood, to provide better surface area, and jacked the truck up a again.

Again, it slowly sank to the ground and I realized that the beam I’d put the stand under was actually part of the trucks suspension system, and as weight was applied, the whole thing just flexed and absorbed the weight.

I sighed and jacked the truck up again. This time, I made sure to put the stand under one of the thingies (that’s the technical term) right behind the wheel. When I released the jack, the weight of the truck caused the pieces of wood to crack and shift ominously. There was no fucking way I was going to rely on that to keep the truck from falling on me, so I raised it back up and went to find a 4-inch thick cap block to use as a rest for the jack stand.

I did more messing around under the truck, jiggling wires and testing things with the voltmeter. Before long, I discovered that there was no voltage on the thick line from the battery to the starter. The odds of both wires having a break somewhere in the sheathing seemed astronomical, so I started doing more testing with the voltmeter. In about five minutes I made a discovery of great importance:

You can’t just touch the ground lead on the voltmeter to any old metal part of the truck. It has to be touching something that’s actually grounded.

Quick on the heels of this discovery, I found that both cables were working just fine, so I took the starter off and bought a replacement in a second trip to Advance Auto. Once the new starter was in, the truck started without a hitch, and runs great. My theory now is that the starter was the problem last time, too, and that taking it out caused whatever was loose or shorted inside to get back in place to make a connection.

I spent the next couple of hours on the tractor, digging holes by the new coop for a shade structure the girls can use during rain, or when hawks are near. I got the posts set and called it a day, work-wise.

I let the girls out this morning and they spent the day in their new yard. As I type, they’re going back into the coop, so they seem to have learned that it’s their new home.

Work done today: Putting fencing on the gate chicken yard gate, so they can’t get out that way; rigging a way to “lock” the gate; building the shade structure; cutting openings in the back to access the nest boxes and making latching flaps to cover them.

Trips to Lowe’s: Two.

All in all, I feel like it’s been a pretty productive weekend, and I’m virtually done with all the new coop stuff. I still need to do a little painting on the swinging flaps, put a couple of pieces of wood in the doorway to keep the pine shavings from falling out of the coop, and drive a few t-posts around the fence line for support, but that’s it.

Then it’s time to fence in the back forty and start preparing for goats and pigs.

Looking out the windows of the computer room, I can see the shed where the tractor is, and the workshop where I do all sorts of tinkering and building. Beyond that, I can see the new giant chicken coop and yard. Directly behind our house, I can see a nice-sized back yard, and to the right there’s the big garden, the woodshed, and the new garden shed. In my mind’s eye, I can see pigs and goats out in the back forty.

I don’t think it would be possible to love a home more than I love this one.

And now, the pictures.

One of the first things McLovin did this morning was try to fly up to the roof of the coop. To his credit, he made it high enough to touch the edge before bouncing off and back to the ground. I don’t know if he slipped on the tin or what, but I had no idea he could go so high. He went straight up, too, like a helicopter.

The two pictures below are to give you an idea of the length of the new chicken yard. I’d estimate it’s about eight times bigger than their old chicken yard, as long as you’re not counting the back yard too.

Doing all that fencing was surprisingly easy, with a tractor and a come-along.

I swear, every time I use Bertha, I wonder how I made it 39 years without a tractor.

I’m pleased with my ingenious method of keeping the gate closed. I like it when I come up with something simple. Plus, nothing says “white trash” like cable ties.

The next three pictures are the new shade structure I built today. Their food and water stay under there, out of the weather. The garbage can holds their food, and there’s a bungee keeping the lid on so predators can’t get into it.

The tarp is gone now.

These are the nest box covers. Originally, I didn’t think I was going to build exterior covers, but after finding out what a pain it is to walk through all the bedding and shit to get to the eggs from the inside, I knew the coop needed these.

Now it’s just a matter of twisting a latch, lifting the flap, and peeking in. No poop, no pine bedding in your shoes.

Home sweet home for the girls, and the new girls who should be conceived next week.