We’ve spent the better part of these past two years figuring out how to care for and utilize the space we have.  We didn’t plant a garden the first year but waited instead to see where the summer sun would be hottest.  Then last year we had a baby due right at the peak of harvest season so we (wisely!) decided to forgo the garden and joined a CSA for produce instead.  Our hens are getting older and aren’t laying as predictably as before.  That, coupled with the fact our kids would like to sell eggs (and already have customers waiting!), meant adding to our laying flock.  Which meant chicks.  Which meant having a brooder space for them to be safely out of Finn’s reach, the cat’s claws and warm enough despite getting them very early in the season.

I didn’t want to add work to my already very hard working husband’s plate.  So the kids and I set out to build a large box-type home for the chicks.  I learned many things about power tools in the process, like using big screws in the impact driver on really dry, cheap wood means splitting the wood at least 50% of the time.  I got splinters.  The box isn’t beautiful.  But it serves its purpose and for that I am proud.  The best part is, we got to work on it as a team, which is always fun…

these loud “chicks” were waiting inside the completed brooder to greet daddy when he came home

nothing quite so fun as going to the post office first thing in the morning to pick up a very loud peeping box of cuteness!