Thursday, October 30, 2008

Coop-tastrophe!!


See what Mother Nature brought to us yesterday? So pretty...there is nothing like the sight of delicate snow flakes clinging to the brightly colored petals of fall flowers. Truly breathtaking and magical. That was what greeted me in the front yard yesterday...the backyard, well, that was a different story.
Living in northern New England I'm used to all that winter has to bring, the early snow storms followed by the 60 degree days...or the early snowstorms followed by more snowstorms. Mother Nature, she IS fickle. I must tell you though, that for all my 37 years of preparation, I was NOT prepared for the sight that greeted me out back yesterday.
I'll walk you through it.

It started out familiar enough as I walked out the door; snow covering the ground, the ducks swimming in their little pond quacking at me, the dogs standing inside their kennel wagging their tails and prancing in circles. Then I looked to my right, toward the new chicken chateau. And...something was....wrong. I couldn't place it at first...I kept thinking "who leaned the metal roofing against the back of the chateau?". But that didn't seem right, because we used all of the metal roofing on the......roof.....uh oh.
Then it came back to me...the day we finished the roof..well..almost finished it. We had been working all day, the kids got home just as we were getting the roof on and Mike decided to just "tack" it down until later.....

The problem with that statement? My darling husband is a procrastinator...and when exactly is "later" to one that puts things off until the last minute. Well...I guess the answer to that would be when the wind blows the roof off the coop.


And there is nothing like putting sheet metal on top of a building in 20 degree weather while it's snowing. Actually, I was holding the ladder...so I can't complain..but Mike certainly looked uncomfortable. Poor guy.

The good news is: The roof will probably NEVER come off again, not with the amount of roofing screws AND nails we put into it. And..the chickens are VERY happy inside the Chateau...No, the chicken boxes are not where they're supposed to be yet, they will be going onto the wall along with some roosts, but those chickens were desperate to get in out the cold and into their new digs, their old digs were just too crowded. So crowded that FES had taken to sleeping in a tree. He woke up yesterday covered in ice...eek! Winter is so much fun. :-P

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my! to both the snow and the roof! Boy oh boy...glad you got it fixed now. :)

Your chickens are beee-yooo-tiful!

Gayle said...

What kind of chickens are those? They are really pretty. I know all about the "get to it later" never happening. That would be why my animals are not set up as they should be the second winter in a row! So irritating!

Kimberly said...

LOL . . .
Reminds me of the Funk song by Parliament Funkadelic, "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker"!

I'm glad to see you got the pretty chickens taken care of! Now he just needs to get the roosting boxes up off the cold ground.

stace41971 said...

These are Light Brahama's. We got them years ago when we first started with chickens and just fell in love with the breed. They are awesome for cold weather and tend to lay eggs all winter long. :-)

Tress said...

We saw a few flakes the other day at dusk. Today, it is fifty degrees.

Glad you were able to get that roof reattached. Nobody likes cold eggs!

Firefly Mom said...

Hehe - I'm only laughing because I remember the pix you shot of your hubby lugging the roofing all by himself. And was fully expecting many photos of him screwing it down - all by himself (while you were busy taking photos for posterity, of course!)

Glad to know that off of the chickens are OK, though! (And even happier that we don't have snow yet!)