"Another Day of Sightseeing....."

On Sunday, after our leisurely spent morning, we finally headed out to show Penny and Sheila some of Leelanau Peninsula, stopping first, at Leland/Fishtown.

After some time spent in Fishtown and checking out the boats at the marina, we then drove to Glen Arbor where we stopped for a delicious cup of coffee at Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company (http://www.coffeeguys.com). Leaving Glen Arbor, we drove to Empire, then backtracked to Pierce Stocking Drive, which is one of the main scenic drives at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park.

This was taken at the first "scenic overlook", which overlooks Glen Lake.

Although Don is usually the photographer, and I am in quite a few photos, I usually avoid adding any with me in them because it is me writing the blog posts, but once in awhile, I do include one or two with me in them, too. ;)

At our next stop, the "scenic overlook platform" faces north, giving a very wide panoramic view towards the west, north, and east.

Our final "scenic overlook platform" hangs out directly over Lake Michigan, giving us a truly breathtaking view of the lakeshore. Although slightly hazy, we could still see for miles and miles...

Here I am, using the stationary binoculars to check out a couple of sailboats.

A kind woman offered to take a photo of all of us together.

A nice photo (in my opinion) of Sheila and me making our way back towards the parking area.

We "think" this may be a new sign this year as neither Don, nor I, remember seeing it last fall when we were there. During our visit, I found it interesting to watch several people coming back up the sand dune, who had gone down to the Lake and were "slowly" making headway coming back up. The key word here is "slowly". Most, if not all of those who went down, looked to be young and fit. Even so, their climb up was done in many, many increments......most of which were only a few yards (sometimes only mere feet!) at a time before they needed to stop and rest. It truly is an arduous  climb. All, I'm sure, slept very well that night. ;)

"The Honeymooners!"

Good friends, Penny and Sheila, are visiting us from Madison, WI. They are, in fact, spending part of their honeymoon with us, as they were able to get married soon after the Supreme Courts ruling a few weeks ago. They actually got married on the day of their 26th anniversary of being together!

They arrived on Friday and we spent that afternoon/evening basically catching up, but yesterday, we drove into Traverse City for the annual Cherry Festival Parade!

We were lucky enough to be able to sit in the same spot where Don and I have watched the parade the last 2 years.......close to the street and IN THE SHADE!  :)

After the parade (which had 150 entries this year!), we drove out to Light of Day Organic Tea Farm (https://lightofdayorganics.com). We did a little walking around their grounds before going into the shop, and of course, took a "few" photos.  ;)

This morning has been a much more relaxed day for "getting going". We sat out in our screen room with coffee, chatting up a storm (anyone who knows any of us understands how easy it is for that to happen), until I came in and put together a simple breakfast. After breakfast, we all sort of separated and did "our own thing". I did some watering of potted plants outside, Penny went for a long walk through the woods, Don was constructive and assembled my new laptop/iPad table for my Lazy Boy, and Sheila caught "another 40 winks". What happens this afternoon is yet up for grabs.  :)

"The Chicken Whisperer......"

Part of Dons routine in the morning, and also various times during the day, is to go into the chicken run and "bond" with the girls. He is my "Chicken Whisperer"! I went out this morning but had just missed one of them on his shoulder.....but I do have one from a couple of weeks ago. :)

This photo begins this mornings photo session. :) Yesterday, I managed to find a few "left over/picked over" impatiens that I repotted and set along the front side of the coop/run. Hopefully, with some TLC they will thrive.

It will be interesting to see how many of the girls continue this practice of perching on him as they grow and become "larger". :)

"Juvenile Hens/Pullets Come to Live With Us......."

Although the chicken coop run is not yet completed, I chose to get 10 juvenile pullets (9-10 weeks of age) yesterday. I have been checking the ads on Craigs List daily and there have been few, if any, pullets being offered for sale. When I saw the ad that a guy had 100 pullets to sell, who also lived quite close to us according to the provided map, I wrote his phone number down. Thank goodness I did because when I sat down to call him and tried pull up his ad to have it in front of me when I talked to him......it was gone! Brad, who had placed the ad, answered his phone and when I told him why I had called, he said he had pulled his ad because he had sold the number he had wanted and only had left what he planned on keeping for himself. I told him I understood and we chatted for a bit as he told me the story of how he ended up with more chicks than expected when he asked how many I had planned on purchasing. When I said 10, he paused and then said he was willing to sell me 10......and the rest is history.

The coop interior has been basically set up and ready for "the girls", although due to an error on my part, the tall tube for the feeder did not get ordered when the base did, so I await its arrival. The girls can eat their food from the bottom tray that did get ordered. :) So early yesterday morning I cleaned and filled the automatic waterer, spread a bale of pine shavings on the floor, opened the 4 windows, and was good to go.......all I needed was to drive into Traverse City and pick up feed and scratch, before driving to pick up the pullets.

I arrived at the agreed upon time and Brad went into the chicken pen and began handing me pullets, which I placed in 2 cardboard boxes for their ride back to our house. I think he had handled the pullets quite a bit as they were pretty calm and continue to be so here at our house.

He sold me 7 Isa Browns, 2 Amber Links, and what I believe is a Golden Laced Wyandotte (center in the photo).

The feed tube for the pan will arrive in a few days and fits on top of the tray they are eating from in this next photo. It works fine for now. I was also pleased to see a couple of them drinking from the waterer, which is similar to the one Brad used, so I think they are settling in nicely and getting to know their surroundings.

Don and I went out to check on them at dusk, knowing they would not be perched on the "tree branch roost" I built for them. They were not raised in a pen that had roosts, so they have to learn how to use them. With the low light of dusk, I was able to pick up each one and place her on a roost, and when we left, closing the door behind us, all of the girls had remained on the branches where I had placed them. Hopefully, they stayed there all night (its good for their feet) and will begin to understand that is what they need to do each night. I am sure that we will be out there again tonight, and perhaps a few more nights before we find them all up on the perches on their own.

I had begun building the panel sections for the chicken run and certainly now have a much more urgent need to get them completed. I will continue working on them today and may even have them finished this afternoon. I may be too optimistic, but should definitely be finished with them tomorrow at the latest. The girls need to be "cooped up" for a few days to get used to the idea of their new home anyway, so that gives me plenty of time. :)

"Coop Arrival"!!!!!

The new chicken coop arrived today! Steve, the delivery and set up guy did a fantastic job. I thought I was going to have to move one of my largest blueberry bushes and sacrifice some strawberry plants, but Steve suggested an alternate route.....one that would be more work for him but would not harm any of my plantings. Nice, eh?

This first photo was taken by our driveway trail cam. The rest of the photos are either taken by me or Don.....

Steve used a motorized piece of equipment called a "mule" to move the coop.

Instead of taking it along the side of the deck, he suggested we take it the long way around, past the garage and behind the beds of plants.

Into its own little wooded clearing..........

Talk about precision placement!

Here it is set into place. Now to set up/organize the interior (feed and water equipment has been ordered) and build a "predator proof" chicken run. :)

"Another Day of "Assembling"..........."

Todays afternoon project was to assemble a large Rubbermaid Storage Shed. I had actually bought it yesterday but it wouldn't fit into our car so I had to leave it there for a later pickup. I was able to get our neighbor, Harold, to agree to drive me in his truck to pick it up this afternoon. Hooray for good neighbors!
Wouldn't you know that it did not have any assembly instructions in the box except for how to install the "optional" pieces, "not" included with the shed.? Once I figured out how it went together, it was very easy to assemble.

I wanted something to store garden tools "closer" to the garden.......plus it seems when the tools are stored in the garage as they have been, somehow they never got put back to their assigned spot. Yep, I am guilty of not taking the time to properly store tools as they should be. If nothing else, the garage will stay much more organized without the garden tools cluttering it up.

It fit nicely up against the house on the far side of the house. Today I will move my gardening tools into it which will "de-clutter" the garage.  ;)

"Chicken Coop Ordered"!

I have been looking for a chicken coop for sometime now. I checked locally, asked the local Facebook chicken group for suggestions on a local builder, perused Craigs List daily, searched online, but didn't find anything I really wanted. After seeing some sheds and barns displayed at a fence company nearby, I got the name of the builder, an Amish owned company that works out of Manistee. After calling and talking with him about what I was hoping to find, he recommended another Amish builder over in Manton, a mere 40 miles away from our house to his shop.

After speaking with John at Cedar Creek Barns (sorry, no website), he suggested I come down and look at his sheds, which he would customize into a chicken coop for me if I liked what I saw. Long story short, I ordered an 8'x8', wood gable style shed. It will be stained to match our house, and will also have a green metal roof, too. I ordered it adding 2- 22"x27" windows on each side (total of 4), a skylight, and a transom window over the double door entry. My girls will be having a good amount of light, considering the coop will not be sitting in our sunny clearing, but in a smaller, shady clearing off our main clearing. It should be delivered sometime near the end of this month. Once the coop arrives, I will be customizing the interior myself.

This started yesterday when I started assembling a new metal nesting box that I bought, literally, over 20 years ago. I bought it when I lived in Niles on our 3 acre "farmette", but never even took it out of the box. I have moved it each time I relocated, hoping that I would someday have a larger chicken coop and be able to use it. We had chickens when we lived in Madison, but we could only have 4 hens in the city, so we had a much smaller coop. The nest box packaging, although never having been opened had been battered and had been taped and re-taped to hold it together, but that all ended yesterday when I finally opened the box to begin assembling the nests. Since I had bought it so long ago, I thought it was only a 5 nest piece of equipment, but found out upon opening, it is a "double decker" and has 10 nests! Way more than we need, but now the girls will have even more nests to choose from to lay their eggs.

After opening the box, I found that mice had used the box as a home, so I had some scrubbing to do before I could begin assembling the nests. As if that wasn't enough, the mice had also chewed up and shredded the instructions! Back in the house I went and sat down at the computer to find a photo that I could use for a visual. Seems nests boxes haven't gone through much of a design change since I found exactly what I needed right away.

The beginning.........front.......

and back.......

a little more assembled.......front......

and back.......

At this point I had to quit. Not only did I not have the assembly instructions, but many, many small nuts and bolts were also missing. Were they there 20 years ago? I have no idea, although the box did contain 1 bag of bolts, just not enough needed to complete the project. I'm thinking they might have been missing all this time because one bottom plate (each nest has a metal insert for inside the nest) is also missing, but I cut a piece of wood, replacing it, so no harm, no foul.  :)

After purchasing more nuts and bolts this morning, I continued the assembly again this afternoon. Again the front.....

 and back......

Once all the metal pieces were assembled, I moved it outside (with Dons help), sprayed it with undiluted bleach, then hosed it down completely and let it air and sun dry. The wooden rails were added last (these each fold up if I would want the hens to use only the top or bottom rows of nest boxes. I'm thinking I may leave them all open and let them choose which nest "they" like best.

Here is another photo which better shows the inserts that go in the bottom of each nest.

The nest box is now ready for the coop to arrive. Can you tell I might be just a wee bit excited to have chickens again?  ;)