Developments

I've been anxious about fall. Those elusive moments of clarity, which I was writing about last week, have been so hard to come by from within the blizzard of planning and doing. Lately I've been especially insufferable, as that change in the air brings a rising near-panic: winter is coming and we aren't ready! I've been goading Patrick to use his precious at-home hours (which are even more rare than my at-home hours) to do things. Mowing isn't enough. Washing dishes isn't enough. I've become a homestead fundamentalist, or at least, that's the closest I can come to explaining. Nothing is ever enough-- winter is coming! There's a crack under the front door and six missing storm windows and the revolución wasn't won by mowing lawns, hermano! 


Poor Patrick. He's been very sweet about it. And I'm proud to report that there is no longer a crack under our front door, and we've located three of our six missing storm windows. And this weekend, while Patrick was off on an Adirondack mini-tour with his band, I enslaved invited over my father, and we made admirably and unexpectedly quick work of setting the posts around my garden. He took this picture. I bought him lunch.

There are thirty-six fence posts, six of them set in concrete. This is not the sort of feat you expect to accomplish in half-a-day's work, but, miraculously, we did. The gods were smiling on us. Or something.

I wanted to get these posts in while the ground was still soft (and not frozen!), though I have no plans to add the rails until spring. See what I mean about homestead fundamentalism? On the first melty days of March, I imagine, I can get out here bright and early with a couple of sawhorses and a stack of lumber, and finish my fence. I thrive this sort of nutso planning.

So that's one development: 36 fence posts in the ground. Moving on, we come to the garage, which now has a chicken coop in one corner. Behold.

Ok, so it's not going to make Architectural Digest, or even Hobby Farm. But I got to use power tools (and lots of them) and I only had to spend about $50 in hardware and supplies. The plywood cover was the only wood I had to buy; everything else was salvaged from the ceiling we tore out of the stairwell last winter. Oh, right. Remember that?


Ancient history.

Genevieve seems to like it alright, though she doesn't really understand the concept of flying down from her perch to eat. Twice a day I scoop her up and set her down on the floor, where she warily gobbles feed and pecks at a squishy pear or apple for five minutes before flying back up to safety. Sigh. It's a preciously shallow learning curve with this girl.

I got the general idea for the coop from this post here, which is brilliant. On the front and nest box side, there are hinged doors that open out for access, and in the back wall there's a door to the outside. I haven't fenced in the yard yet, but it's on my list for this week. The length of dowel is attached to the handle on the door, so it can be opened and closed from outside the coop. To the left there are a couple of sticks for perches, and to the right there are six nest boxes. In the spring we'll probably get four or six chicks: company for poor lonely Genevieve, and eggs for hungry us.

The other main accomplishment of the past couple weeks, which I've been meaning to reveal for awhile, is this.

Le IKEA shelf. Cheap, sturdy, serviceable. I've had some fun arranging and rearranging its contents-- look at all that storage!-- and I anticipate much more fun to come. It's so much better than it was.

So much better. 

And that, friends, was my weekend. Thanks for letting me share it all.

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