Pergola

I'm pondering purchasing plans for this pergola. Yes, I think I can do it on my own, but I'm thinking this might cut down on my wood waste too.


And: HOORAY SCOTUS!

Chicken mama

Our buff orpington went broody (rather early to go broody-- she's only been laying for about 3 months, and she's from a fairly common breed, when broodiness is not as common). So, after a few weeks of this (you have to allow enough time for her to think she's sat on eggs long enough to produce chicks), I snuck out in the darkness last night and stuffed four, barely-day-old chicks under her.

She fluffed up immediately for them to curl under her feathers. I took that as a great sign, and crossed my fingers for all chicks to be alive and happy come morning.

AND: Success.

Puffed up and EXTREMELY protective.  Hurray for this and hurray for not having to worry about raising four chickies!

Putting two and two together

It's raining this morning. It's a warm rain, but it's still RAIN.

So, I moved my chop saw under the cover.

I came back inside to drink my coffee.

"GEEZ, these coffee beans smell OFF," I thought.

Then I realized that the smell was coming from my hand.

Ahh, those little chicken devils must have been hopping up on my chop saw handle with their smelly feet.

Thank goodness it wasn't bad coffee.

Quiet garden pool

I love this, and I would love this in our backyard.

However, I deeply suspect the corgi would muck it up EVERY DAY, and I think I'd have problems being peaceful and accepting this....

Beautiful Chicken Coop.

The chicken coop was never completed as I had it to be in my mind. So, this weekend, I changed it.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 Much better. Still need to finish work on the other sides as well as add landscaping around the coop. See the clematis in the pot on the left-hand side? It's going to crawl up the shed side.... you know, once I finish the shed side's new siding and add trellising and figure out how to plant the plant.

Oh, and the color of the wood on the shed? That's the color our deck is getting stained. :) The chicken coop was a big ol' test run!

Finally, I "stole" three of Bob's pots, spray painted them red, and hung them on the coop. He is mad at me for this. I completely disagree that "stole" is the accurate term to use.  Besides-- he has like 20 more! :)

Good Thoughts

I love this:

"Every day, think as you wake up, 

'Today I am fortunate to have woken up. 

I am ...alive, I have a precious human life. 

I am not going to waste it. 

I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, 

to expand my heart out to others, 

to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. 

I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, 

I am not going to get angry, or think badly about others. 

I am going to benefit others as much as I can.'"

 

- His Holiness The Dalai Lama

 

I don't think I achieve this as frequently as I should.

Corgi Agility, Take I

Maddie started training today. It's not really "Agility" yet, since she has a lot of conditioning and shaping skills to learn. She did really well, VERY focused, and you could almost see those wheels in her mind turning.

It's a bit counter-intuitive. I've spend a lot of effort teaching Maddie to be a good dog. Lay down. Sit. Be quiet. Come/Stay, etc. The basics. However, now I'm conditioning her to present behaviors.

Let's say I put down a stack of newspapers. Instead of showing no interest in it and laying beside it, now she needs to start interacting with it and looking for me to tell her what I like. Do I want her to sit on it? Step on it? Nose it? Smell it? Paw it? Circle it? So now, I'm rewarding interacting with an object, which means I'm NOT rewarding her for what I used to-- lying still.

A bit reversed, right?

She stared at me head-on for quite a while today, but slowly she began to realize she wasn't getting treats when she laid down. So she stopped. HUGE! Tonight, she sat only, and she started interacting more with the object I put in front of her.

We'll keep working on it. She is SO excited about this, and you can tell she LOVES having tasks she has to figure out.

The deck's construction, all in many many photos.

Here's the run-down, from start-to-finish, of the deck! Some of the photos are repeats, and this post is pretty photo-heavy, but... well, it was a long process! Here we go!

The "BEFORE" photos, as in "before everything started"...

And then the lilac trees had to be trimmed and hacked and pic-axed before we could move forward with our first stone:

Then it was time to put the first boards into place...

Once all the boards got into place though, we had to figure out a temporary solution so we could get from the front door to the stairs. Some furry creatures loved onlooking at the new board arrangement.

Finally, we had all the  boards into place (though I constantly realized I needed more in certain places) and had the lilac trees sufficiently framed. Time to add a few deck boards! I still had more work to do further down, but I couldn't wait to get a few deck boards into place.

Alas, with that was the end of the deck boards for a while. I needed to create a step from the kitchen before I added any more, as well as frame out where the deck would go into the stone staircase.

That staircase one was frustrating, so I opted to take out a lot of boards for it so I wouldn't have to lug myself and lumber over lots of trippable boards. So began the process of then putting the boards AND adding lots of bolts and additional supporting beams on the second half of the deck....

Alas, the poor gate will have to wait a while until my hanging supports arrive in the mail.

This poor hen was in for a surprise. All proud of herself for getting to the top of the board, she tried to hop off and ended up sliding ALL the way down. Once at the bottom, she was a bit dumbfounded as to how she ended up there.

Finally, all the supports and framework were done!

So, boards could be added. However, since the space isn't entirely square (loathe, sigh, frustrating), this required some extra geometry when cutting the pieces to trim...

Unfortunately, I worked my way to the end... and I was a few boards shy. So, here's how you transport that many boards in a sedan:

Ahh, Goldie, you're a trooper.

And finally, with those boards in, VOILA: A NEW DECK! Here she is, from all her glorious angles, unstained and unfinished, but you get the idea:

With the deck done, it was the canopy's turn. As you can see, the canopy is semi-shaded. It lets light in, but not 100%. LOVE!

All this work was very hard work to a certain corgi. Check out the upright ear on the tree.

And then finally, it was time to pick up the patio set:

And once together, the final thing to do was to have people over (the blankets are on the ground so no additional scratches/spillage on the unstained/unsealed deck would occur!):

Not pretty shabby though, going from this:

to this:

We're pretty happy. And tired.