 Chooks - I love chooks, or chickens as my North American friends would call them. Ever since I was a boy of 10 and I was made responsible for the well being of the families chooks I have enjoyed their scatter brained behaviours, their delicious fresh eggs and their beady gaze. Leading up to the move here we built a small, portable chicken run and kept three Rhode Island Red hens. The kids loved them and enjoyed collecting their eggs each morning. So Sue and I have decided that we will run chickens here as well.
We think a dozen hens and one rooster will be the shot. That will provide ample eggs for eating, baking and sharing as well as an endless supply of fresh chicken for the table. Yes - I said the table. Now don't get all squeamish on my now. The kill won't come for a long time. First we have to build the house.
The picture above shows the outline of the yard. We're making it 4m by 8m. The picture to the right here shows one of the holes I dug to put the timber supports in. It is 600mm deep and about 200mm square. It's an average sized hole. What was more fun though was trying to get the yard square.
How would you do that?
I used my eye and a tape measure to "square up the yard. Sue insisted that it was crooked. So after thinking for a bit I realised that the carton that held my satellite dish would make a very effective "square edge." We lay it in the corner, as you can see from the top picture, and used that to lay long timbers straight between the corner pegs. Nett result - a square yard!
How interesting to see that I am already beginning to think like a man from the land - resourceful and a little zany. Yikes. This is scaring me.
Anyways I have two of eight holes now dug. It's tough going this manual labour caper. Crow bar and shovel. Sweat and grunts. Not like anything I'm used to. Which probably explains why there is only two holes and not eight!
4:35:06 PM 
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