Days 53 to 66 in isolation at Tony and Nickys

Little chicks seeing big ducks for the first time

It’s been a long time since the last blog, for no other reason than we are working hard. By the time we are finished, mucked out the chicks, showered and sat down it’s 19.30 at the earliest, often later, much later. Is this a problem? No, we eat later, and go to bed a bit later. This is partly forced on us by the fowl, with sunset tonight being 21.53 the birds, particularly the youngsters, who were in a separate pen when we arrived, are loving being out. They can take a bit of persuading not only to leave the orchard but once in their run to actually go into the house! Eggs are still good though, and we haven’t lost many more to the crow. The geese seem to have stopped laying outside, this morning I found an egg in the doorway of

Tufty builder cat

the hen house which would have been a very tight squeeze for her to get into. Shame I didn’t see that! Two of the ducks have taken to laying in random places so we do have to check around the trees and under the hedge. There was the remains of a blue egg (the brown duck lays blue eggs) this morning just in the run, so I think that must have just been dropped yesterday and ‘crowed’.

The chicks are huge, I think they might be ostriches, but are so cute. They went outside on my birthday (yes, I had one of those) for the first time. We put them on the lawn, under their cage. This was all very scary, but quite interesting, till a breeze got up and a little shivering was done. We took the

Building scaffolding ready for slaters

opportunity to give the base of their cage a thorough clean and to move it to the garage, they were lovely to walk past in the office, but they were very noisy, and a bit smelly between cleans... So now they are three weeks old, they have lots of feathers and very little down, are eating us out of house and home and in theory have another three weeks before they can go outside...

We’ve built and dismantled and moved and rebuilt scaffolding, the slaters started last week, did the porch in a couple of days and have moved to the opposite side of the building, the sunny side of the building, and it has been sunny, but also very, very windy. Would not have fancied being up there on Friday, and glad they weren’t in over the weekend! Before they started on the main building the coping stone from the edge of the gable had to be repaired. One had fallen off, at some point, allowing the one above it to slip down. ‘Spares’ are available from one side of the gable end of this building which was replaced with new stone when they did the build here. These are large sandstone blocks, so how to physically get it there was the first problem. The farmer, with his telehandler (like a larger, much more impressive fork lift truck)

Wilson with his telehandler loading slates

was the first idea, but he is being called on to lift crates of slates up on a regular basis.... in the end it was cut in half, and inched, step by step, up the ladder by Tony. This probably gives a false impression of the weight of this thing. Tony lifts and carries things most people can’t even budge! They did a really good job of it though, so that’s another good tick. Only the two at the other end of the building then....

We’ve done a lot of woodwork which is great, you can see it, and you know what you’ve done. I’m chief cutter, which is a bit scary, particularly now we’ve started using the ‘big wood’ 9” x 3” and 6m long “50 quid”, Tony said as he walked away from the cutting

Here's the capping stones we had to sort out on the roof. There's a bit of a gap with a lump of wood stopping things getting worse. The second to bottom one actually slipped down from where the wood is. We (Tony that is) manhandled it back up to be relaid in position and two smaller stones cut to fit in the gap below

bench ... no pressure there then! Trouble is these are the ceiling joists that were loaded onto a lorry as

Tony and Brian take a break watching chicks on the lawn

lockdown started and were delivered a couple of weeks ago, consequently they are split and warped, and at £7 a metre, jolly expensive firewood. After arguing with the supplier and the wood mill, they will take any that are too warped back, but splits apparently are acceptable...?

I wrote this yesterday (or was it the day before?), the slaters have romped ahead, they’ve probably done about a third of the south side now, including vents, brackets for solar panels and ‘chicken pots’ for ventilation (this was another job we’ve done, they’ve all been modified to reduce the amount of draft they let in and to prevent bugs coming in. This was a wet and windy Sunday job, we set up a little crafting production line, I quite enjoyed it, the boys hated it, so there are still three to go, and all the bits have been scattered here there and everywhere!) We’ve fitted half a dozen ceiling joists (the heavy timber) so have been able to go upstairs for the first time at that end of the building. Today the chicks have been outside for most of the day, they’ve been visited by ducks and shared a worm, don’t think they meant to share but as one ran off with it, they all chased and the poor thing got smaller and smaller as it was passed

Brian working out sawing lengths

from bird to bird! We’ve built a hen flap, bit like a cat flap but to modify the outdoor arrangements. The chicks will have to go into where the youngsters were when we arrived, they have a little house and small run, which opens into a bigger area, before opening into the main area and orchard. So where are the youngsters to go? Well as the guinea fowl spend half their time in the duck house, this leaves their house mostly empty. The only problem was, this house and area didn’t link to the main area and orchard. Well it does now!

This is the wood we have to work with. These are 9" x 3" 6m lengths that have cracked and warped after being left outside during lockdown. The one on the right is turned on end and the gap underneath is the warping

But we're making the best of it and Brian takes a break while Jackie cuts the next piece of wood

This could be art, but actually its the stone wall behind the saw bench with layers of sawdust on each stone. Its like freshly fallen snow

Tony and Brian fitting the 9" x 3" first floor joists, Brian being the first one to be 'upstairs'in what will be Tony and Nickys huge bedroom

And this is the view out the front showing the porch we've built since being here, now fully slated and waterproof (apart from the gable end not quite finished)

Here's the work to date on the woodwork. We're in what will be Tony and Nickys kitchen (big isn't it) and, beyond we're building a utility room and toilet and shower room. Above will be their huge bedroom. There's the saw bench on the right that Jackie spends a lot of time at 

Here's a short time lapse video showing progress

Work to date on the utility and toilet/shower room

And here's the work the slaters have done so far. Just under a third of the roof done with three 'chicken pot' ventilators fitted to the ridge

Here's another time lapse video showing progress on the roof

Here's  Jackie and Brian's efforts on a chicken access gate, down there bottom right. We can slide the plate up to allow chicken to come into this area. The area to the left can be sealed off from the rest so, at six weeks old, the young chicks can be put out there away from the rest to get used to being outside. The 'teenage' chickens who live in there at the moment will be evicted and they'll have to find a new home in one of the other three chicken houses 

And while all this goes on, Genghis cat sleeps with teddy

And Gummy cat attempts to play the keyboard