Chickens and Peaches

More progress on the chicken coop. Here’s how it was left after the coop-raising party.

I got this already-assembled bit at the construction trash pile next to where I work. My coworker David, coop-builder extraordinaire, cleared us collecting wood they were just going to haul to the dump.

It became–with support from another rejected board–a nest box.

Cut the arch (too big) with the jigsaw, then painted over the primer with leftover house paint.

Attached the tin to the roof with the special screws, then attached hinges to the coop, not yet to the roof, so eventually I’ll be able to raise the roof to clean the coop and collect eggs. Unfortunately, the roof is just a wee bit too small. I need to figure some sort of side flaps or something to make it truly weather proof. What do you think: would flying buttresses be too much?

Almost done. Just need to finish the hinges, attach the decorative trim Pat cut, paint the number 140 1/2 above the door, move the whole thing to its cement block base, then build a hawk- and varmit-proof fence. Then I can bring home my chickies!
After that, Kate and I made peach jam. Kate got the peaches from Thomas’s, and we chopped them up in bits.

Then we cooked them with insane amounts of sugar, 11 C, I believe, four teaspoons of lemon juice, and a couple of boxes of Sure-Jell. Popped them into jars, set them to seal, pop pop pop, voila!

The yield was a dozen 8-ounce jars, so we each took six. Here are mine posing with, of course, a chicken.