Barn Progress. Found Treasures. Chickens.

So, that little extension of a brooder I just built?  Well, just a few days back, our 'baby' chicks were perched on those walls. I knew it was a temporary solution, but come on now, little chicks. Give your farmer a break.

Yeah, so not going to happen. 

The lucky part about this farm is we have plenty of space. I had options. I could move the chicks to the coop above the garage.  Dangerous flight of stairs multiple times a day and too hot up there.  Or I could make better walls where they were.  Except we would have to buy materials. I finally looked at my husband and said "We have a perfectly good room with four walls IN the barn that's filled with junk. Let's clean that out."

Umm....my enthusiasm was not contagious at all. In fact, I think he thought it was a terrible idea. I know for a fact he thought I was crazy.  Thing about me, I ignore him and do my own thing. Which meant a mask, garbage bags and a TON of work. 

You see, this room was so jam packed with junk that you couldn't step foot in it. As in the whole entire room.  Broken glass everywhere. Lots of beer bottles. Lots of old grain bags the mice had a ball in. Lots of hay and dust and grossness. 

This took days to complete.  Mostly because the glass meant I had to go slow.  And I tell you, I was sore for a couple days. It looks like it's not a big deal, but it was, trust me.


And now, insert the chimes, we have this:

 It looks like it might have been a milking parlor at some point. 
 It even has a hatch that opens to the underside of the barn. Perfect for dumping manure.

And the task of catching 47 baby chicks? Really, not a big deal with Audra. She's the quickest of us all at catching them.

 And now, they have two windows and a whole bunch of space to roam. All 47 of them.


Bonus?

Well, when we were cleaning everything out, there were treasures. Old papers with notes, old tin cans that held coffee and the like, lots of harvest baskets, a couple other random wooden boxes.  I hollered for my husband to help when I found couple things that were whole. Imagine my delight to find these:

A duckblind (I ripped off most of the burlap)
 A HUGE solid table. Guessing they used to use it for slaughter?  Not sure, but it's the appropriate height.
 And...squeee....a HUGE grain bin!  I mean, it's huge and marvelous!  I need my dad to help me fix the top and a compartment or two.  But it's huge and awesome!
 Like everything else we've found here, the mice have had a field day.  I need to do some major cleaning, but how fun is this?!
 There's also two of these.  They are adjustable.  Any idea what they are?
 Now our chicks are happy in their home. And I'm pretty happy that it is a perfectly good place for them to grow in. There is no emergency to get them into better quarters now. Phew.

Although they are happy at home, they still are the luckiest chicks around given the great adventures they go on.

5 comments:

  1. Ooooh, how I wish I could have tackled that job with you! And to find treasures like that! Whoo-hoo!

    Love how you made it work. Audra the chicken wrangler...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooooh, that old barn wood is gorgeous! What a productive little crew and as always, lovely pictures!

    Wishing you a wonderful day.
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my how fun- what a treasure hunt! One of the best things about working on an old house....I love how the space for your chicks turned out. They are lucky!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great job! I think the 3 bin container was for different kinds of feed storage, just a guess.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks great and so does your blog.. I have not been by for a while.. it looks like you have done lots of great work.. the pics are beautiful as always.. Blessings!

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...