Over the weekend, besides hauling firewood, we had a project we planned on tackling. In the fall I wrote about our garden clean up crew (the chickens) and they’ve been doing a great job of it since October. Such a good job in fact, that lately they’ve been turning our entire garden space into a mud hole. We knew it was time to move them to another space. It was time to fence in their “lower yard” that we had been wanting to do for some time. The forecast for the weekend said sunny and it seemed like the stars aligned and it was finally time for us to work on it. The weather was warm and Jeff and Bracken even took off their shirts a few times. It was so beautiful outside and felt like such a treat to be out in it. There were moments it hardly felt like January at all. 

 We pounded t-posts into the ground, setting up the perimeter.

 We moved some logs out of the way (which meant Jeff had to split them, which is what he’s doing above. You can’t see the ax in his hand very well, but he’s in mid-swing.)

 (A look in the woodshed, just because I happened to take a picture of it. Normally Jeff has the firewood all split and stacked neat, but he moved the rounds we got recently under cover so they would stay dry. He’s been splitting the rounds as we need them.)

 Putting the gates up is always the most time consuming part when you’re putting up fencing. (You can see the chicken coop above in this picture. We made a run going down to their new lower yard.)

We needed a drill when we were putting the gates up. Jeff had a cordless drill he had gotten at a garage sale, but the darn thing wouldn’t hold a charge. You can always count on Jeff to find a solution, though, and he brought this drill out of his shop. I love when he brings out his antique tools. You don’t need to worry about this hand crank drill losing it’s charge and it worked really well (even if a bit slower than the battery-powered variety.)

 On Sunday our friend Amanda came to visit. (You marketeers will recognize her from market.) Bracken gave her the grand tour of the place. He showed her the chickens and how he collects the eggs. He showed her the birds nest in the apple tree and our walk lately. They blew bubbles and played. Jeff and I were actually able to both be working on the fencing project at the same time and it was really wonderful. It was so nice to have help.

 After the first gate was up, the fencing went pretty quick.

 Until we got to the other gate. And then we decided not to tackle the other gate yesterday. It was past time for lunch. Bracken and Amanda were reading books together and Jeff made some delicious eggs. Then Amanda headed home and Bracken, worn out from all his fun, had himself a good nap. Jeff saw the forecast for this afternoon was rain, so we headed out this morning to finish the project. Today was much different than the weekend. It was overcast and cold outside and we were all bundled in wool. We got the last gate up and the rest of the fencing. We gathered up all of Jeff’s tools to make sure we got them covered before the rain came. We were just working on the finishing touches right as it started raining. We felt pretty lucky about the timing.

 Bracken went up to the chicken yard by the coop and brought his chickens to their new yard. He moved his arms and herded them. We celebrated every time he got another chicken to come down to check out their new yard. Honey was the first to be in the new yard. No surprise there. She’s the most adventurous of our gals.

Bracken bringing down another chicken.

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We stood back and watched the chickens scratching around their new yard. Jeff and I let out such a huge sigh of relief when that project was done. I don’t think either of us even realized how much it was hanging over us, until we were done with it. Now we can reclaim the garden and start getting it ready for planting season and next year’s garden. Progress is good.