Working On the Chicken Run and an Unexpected Motorcycle Ride and Some Weed Mowing

Thursday May 17m 2018 Guerneville CA.

One more panel

I only had one roof panel to make to complete this part of the project, the main run.

I cut and welded up the rebar and put the wire on it.panel

 

I hauled the panel over to where it goes and put it up and wired it into it’s place.

Needs some shade

I was then thinking about some metal roofing for shade and rain protection. I had some old metal roofing pieces I’ve been saving for just such a use. I had to figure out how to make them fit so I did some trial and error. That means I put a couple sheets of the metal up of different lengths and checked things out until I found something that would work.

New machine

While I was doing that my brother Barry came by. He gave me this wheeled weed eater. I like the other mower for mowing grass, but this might work out good to harvest weeds for the chickens to eat as I don’t have a sickle.eatter

 

Barry took off up the hill to cut some trees off the roads.

Out of water so hopped on the motorcycle

I went back to work and shortly after that my brother Tom comes by and says the main spring tank water pressure is low.

So I got some repair stuff and climbed on my brother Mikes motorcycle and went for a ride up the hill to check out why the water pressure was low.

I stopped here first to see if there was water coming down the pipes from the two springs.bike

 

I have to hike up the hill a bit to get to the place I can check the water flow.

One spring had slowed down a lot

There was very little water coming down from our main spring, but the other spring was flowing nicely.valves

 

Some hiking

I rode up the hill to where the water comes out of the hill. I had to hike up through here to get to the spring.pipes

 

There was only a little water coming out of the main spring. I checked the pipe that takes the water down the hill to the tanks and there were no leaks.

Measured how much water

So I went back to the valves and measured the water from the two springs. The main spring barely had two gallons a minute and it should have about five. So it’s slowed down for some reason. The other spring was really flowing at just under four gallons a minute, so we had a total of just under six gallons a minute.

Our main water tanks that were empty.tanks

 

Using too much water

That meant my brother Tom was using too much water for his garden and would have to cut back or go on a well we have for that purpose.

Motorcycle ride

As long as I was out on the bike I headed to the top of the hill for a view.top

 

Here’s the little town of Guerneville in the forest and there is a river going through there too.guerneville

 

Back to the roof

Back to work on getting the roof up. I got most of it up. I hope no winds come up because I wasn’t able to get it fastened down yet.roof

 

Here we are under the roof in the main chicken run.pen

 

Weeds need mowing

I needed to get some of the weeds mowed down so late in the day I gassed up the mower and mowed weeds.weeds

 

Eventually the mower quit on me and I assumed it ran out of gas. I was out of gas so that was good enough for me to stop and I was worn out. I got about half of it done for now.mowed

 

I spent the last part of the day digging ditches around the pen and burying the wire in the ground that keeps the varmints from digging under the pen. I still have a bit more of that to do as it got dark and I didn’t get finished.

And that was my day for a good one.

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Main Chicken Run Construction and Some Vegetable Starts

Wednesday May 16, 2018 Guerneville CA.

Another day on the chicken project

I started by cutting wire and attaching it to the rebar panels.panel

 

Vegetable starts

I was working away when my brother Tom came by in his golf cart and asked if I wanted any vegetable starts as he had some and was planting. I said sure.

But that meant I had to prep some more spots in the garden. Here’s the part of the garden where I wanted to plant the starts. Some of them are already in the ground.garden

 

Digging up the ground

I dug up the ground here for some tomato starts.mounds

 

Here is one of the tomato starts just after I planted it.tomato

 

Squash and cucumber starts.squash

 

It took awhile to get all the starts in the ground but I was glad to have them as now I’ll have some veggies a couple weeks sooner.

Back to the panels

After a break I got back to putting the wire on the rebar panels.

I use the pig clips on the good side, uncut, but the cut side needs to be folded over and the ends turned to hold things together.

Here’s the cut side before folding the end under and bending the tabs to hold it together.wire

 

This piece is finished off, folded with the ends bent over. You can see where I used clips on the uncut side.wired

 

I finished the second panel just before dark and wanted to get it installed.panel2

 

Putting the panels up for the main chicken run

I installed the two panels I constructed today here which will be the main chicken run.run

 

Here’s another view of the main chicken run area that I worked on today.run2

 

Wow blueberries

I got that done and it wasn’t quite dark yet, so I walked around the yard to check things out. I found a few blueberries ripe so I ate them. They are just starting to ripen so these are the first ones of the year.blueberries

 

Potato plants

The potato plants growing in the blueberry patch are doing well. That’s all the green plants you see that don’t have berries on them.potatoes

 

That is what I did today. Nice day.

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