How did you spend Mother's Day?

I spent mine building half a chicken coop, and digging my bean bed where my peppers grew last year. Had a nice hot bath, and got the kids to do some outside cleaning without the use of a sweet bribe.

Either later today or tomorrow we should be finishing the chicken coop and I have a vining plant bed to dig out. Here is the coop as we worked on it:

This is the first part of it the shortest side of the coop as we are going to give it a big angled roof.

Here is the same side attached to the landscape timber that will be against the ground, also in the spot it will be when finished. Incidentally these aside from the timbers are 2X3X8's

Here is the "tall" side it is a little taller than me and Silver, it will "butt" the end of the yard and the top will all be screened windows for air and light. During the winter we are planning to just put plastic over it to still allow for natural light but without the bad wind.

Same side now laying on the ground so we can put the leftover paneling on the outside, we are leaving a pretty good sized gap for the door as we want to make sure the turkeys can get in and out as well.

Here, we have connected the two sides with the roof rafters and small pieces of the timbers at the bottom. The paneling is up on the front and most of the back. Eventually we are going to build external nest boxes that we are going to accatch to the back of the coop and give them a top opening so we don't have to reach into the nest from the front to check them.

Paneling added to the short side, where I took the picture is going to have some kind of door eventually. We are not putting in a floor as what my plan is, is to use straw on the ground and put new down once a month then after a year completely clear it out and put it on the compost pile and start again. Silver suggested adding wood shavings in the middle of the month.

Here is a shot from the back.

Now like I said I also dug out a bed for my bean plants, and that it was where my peppers were last year. Well, I did have a nice surprise when I went out and started digging. First I noticed since this was one of the spots I used the goat manure last year that there was tons of clover growing. Now, there is no clover growing any where else; but where I put the goat manure. Second is that the ground was a lot nicer looking when I dug it up, and I did not hit clay as soon as I did last year. That must mean that I am slowly making the soil there better. It was also much easier to turn the soil over than it was last year.

Here is what I have done so far:

Silver set up the upright for this and I am hunting up saplings to use for the beans. This is my first time growing pole beans so I'm not sure exactly the best route for this. I am going to try some heavy twine on the one end with them attached in the ground with the tent stakes from last year. If you look carefully at this picture in the upper left corner you can tell what the soil color normally looks like this year this bed is much, much darker and better looking. It also have a lot more worms in it than I saw last year. You'll see my little path on the right and then next to that is where my vining plants are going to go. pumpkins, squashes, and watermelons. I have already put out cucumbers in a flower bed I started as it has a "cow panel" (heavy wire panel), I do hope they do well there.

Well I am planning hopefully to get out and dig out that vine bed in a couple hours so I'm going to get back to my house work now.

Be Well and Blessed Be...