WEEK #2:

Just a couple of photos this week as Aaron continues on the chicken coop. This weekend we had our January thaw with temperatures climbing over 10 degrees Celsius.  A good weekend to get outside and work before the weather gets cold again.

 Starting to look more like a chicken coop! Photo by Aaron Balkwill

WEEK #1: Chicken Coop and Germination Shelves

With only 9 hours of sunlight per day right now, we are beginning the year with a lot of preparation this week.  We decided to have chickens this year, most likely Road Island Reds for their egg laying proficiency. Of course, we have to build a chicken coup first.

Aaron drove into town last night about 8:30pm to hit the local home improvement store… Note to self: the store is open at that time of night, however the attached lumber yard is not.  Picked up 4 bags of concrete mix and headed home. So back into town today: picked up 4 x 12’ – 4”x4” pressure treated posts and a dozen 8’ - 2”x4”s. He paid for regular studs, but instead got loaded with pressure treated. Bonus!

The coup is being built to hold approximately 12 birds, that is 8' x 5' (40 sq ft) and 4 nest boxes hanging off the side. The entire outfit should end up 18" off the ground, with the coup and 10' x 20' (200 sq ft) run completely fenced in with 1/2" wire mesh.

Figuring out the easiest way to put 4 posts in the ground and make sure they were plumb and square to each other, with just two arms…went better than expected. Got the first two posts in buried 4’ deep then measured the second set of holes, a little back of the napkin figuring getting the diagonals (to make things square) and the third post went into the ground with just a little screwing around. Through dumb luck the last post was too easy… He threw it into the hole and measured it off, it was perfect, as in it stood up straight (stuck in the mud at the bottom of the hole) in BOTH planes and was exactly (less than ¼ inch off) where it needed to be making the whole thing square “Quick don’t move gotta get the dirt back in the hole!"

So all the posts are in, filled the top 16” of the hole with cement, tapered the top of the cement so water would drain away from the posts and topped the last few inches with dirt.

 The beginnings of our our chicken coup next to our shed in the back yard.  Not much to look at right now.  Photo by Marianne Balkwill

With snow on the ground its time to start thinking about planting next year's garden, or at least what and when things might be planted.  Some of the things we have grown before have done better when started early indoors, or bought as plugs.  This year we are going to try to start everything ourselves and avoid the cost of buying plants.  I think we are going to start everything in individual paper cups so they can be dropped directly into the garden when it is time.  

Step #1: Germination.  
Luckily we have a decent supply of reclaimed lumber from a dozen picnic tables we dismantled several years ago.  A couple hours spent trimming off split ends and a rough idea of what I wanted to do and it was done. Aaron built a 4 level germination shelf, 18" apart, 10" deep 5' wide.  He ended up painting the shelves with some flat white paint that was left over as the wood was incredibly dry and would be a good idea to separate the wood from any accidental water spillage.  After the shelves were built it was off to the hardware store to pick up 4 x 4' shop lights and 8 x 32 watt T8 bulbs to go in them. The grow lights were double the cost of regular bulbs, though the benefit of grow lights is that they have a better Red/Blue distribution compared to regular fluorescent bulbs.  4 warm colour bulbs (reddish) and 4 daylight colour bulbs (bluish/greenish) were purchased, one of each for each of the four shelves so hopefully together they will emulate more closely the colour spectrum of the more expensive grow bulbs. A power bar with a built in timer on clearance to control the four lights was an easy buy.  We are going to have the lights on during the night as the cost for hydro is less at this time.

Everything is put together and set up in the basement, all ready for seeds!

Germination shelf in our basement.  Photo by Marianne Balkwill

Introduction

Hello.  If you have stumbled onto this blog, you may be interested in the possibility of living a more sustainable life.  This blog will follow the adventures that two people have in extreme southwestern Ontario, Canada, as we grow our own crops, raise chickens for eggs and meat, and any other useful things that may help us move closer to a life of self-sufficiency.  Any feedback is appreciated as we will being posting on a week by week basis.