It's Finished! (well almost)

The chickens (and rabbits) have a home!  My wonderful hubby has finished  the chicken coop (well except for the nesting boxes - but we don't need those yet anyway).

Here's the second batch of chickens (after the cat ate 2 of the first batch)

 - they are a few days old here

The fluffy yellow one (Angel) didn't survive my active children or the dog

 - who decided to "unbury" it and use it as a toy for a few hours before eating it

- can you say GROSS! 

Framing the coop

the (almost) finished coop

I had more pics of the stages in between,

but my kids deleted them off the camera (grrr!)

Here are the "ladies" now.  The speckled and light brown are the

survivors from first batch, the dark ones are from the second batch

(there's another hiding behind Georgina on the block)

And here's our latest addition to the "farm" - two rabbits George and Lily

 (I can't tell them apart!)

I wasn't sure about puting them with the chickens,

but they seem to get along great

(well at least I think so, but since the rabbits are trying to

dig their way out, maybe they would say otherwise :-)

The inside of the coop

 A picture from a distance - and to show off my corn

(and tomatoes on the left)

 (ignore the weeds in the onion patch - I'm still trying to catch up

from 2 weeks of no weeding - and its HOT!!)

And here's Chester (acting all innocent and cute!)

Once a farm girl...

As I have mentioned before, I spent about half of my childhood living on a farm. We had all kinds of animals: dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, turkeys, horses, etc. Needless to say I have a love for those critters and a yearning to return to the "farm". My wonderful husband on the other hand is a "city-boy". He has ALWAYS lived in the city and has absolutely NO desire for anything farm related - including animals.

In April, we celebrated 17 wonderful years together and I think he is finally starting to soften - hee-hee. A couple months ago I talked him into letting me get chickens. I suggested we just buy a chicken coop, but he has decided to build one instead. (This is where his perfectionism comes in.) You see, we can't have just "any" chicken coop, we have to have a coop that will be the envy of chicken owners everywhere! (He reminds me so much of my dad ;-) Well, needless to say, it takes a LONG time to build a "castle" instead of a coop - :-). So far we have a foundation (this coop will probably outlast the house in a storm!) and piles of wood. Meanwhile the chickens are growing and it is getting harder to keep them in a box! But he promises me that it will be done soon - after all the foundation is the hardest part.

As the saying goes, once you get your foot in the door...well, we couldn't just stop at chickens now could we? Of course not! So today we also got a dog. Some friends were looking for a home for their Lab/German-shorthair puppy (well, he's 2, but that's still a puppy to me!) and I saw my opportunity. We brought him home (after much coaxing and pushing to get him in the car - he is a STRONG puppy!) and the adventures have begun. He has terrorized the chickens - I think he just wants to play, but the poor chickens don't believe him; jumped into the pool at least a dozen times; staked his territory - he has already growled at the neighbors peaking over the fence; and coaxed my children into throwing a tennis ball a couple of gazillion times!

And so my "little farm" has begun. Sorry honey...once a farm girl, always a farm girl :-)