February 12, 2023 - Brood

Dispatch from a Tucson, AZ yard

Feb 13, 2023

Last month we decided, somewhat on a whim, to drive to the feed store and see if they had any chicks. We have been wanting to introduce a flock to the yard and the new year felt like just as good a time as any. We ended up with (2) New Hamphsire Reds, (3) Rhode Island Reds, and (3) Easter Eggers. They have been brooding in the old shed for a few weeks and are growing quick, so the need for a proper coop is getting real. We also have a shipment of (15) assorted Silkie chicks coming next weekend, so need to clear the brooder!

Decided to build a block foundation to assemble a wooden airy coop on top of. This will hopefully help with raking out soiled wood chips and slow the decay of the wood by having a vapor barrier of sorts. It is somewhat designed, but will mostly be designed as it is assembled in place. You know the drill.

I don’t like working with concrete. Layout is especially tedious and it is times like these I wish I had paid more attention in geometry class. Regardless, it is almost square. Square enough for a chicken coop.

A combination of an overcast saturday morning, getting paid the friday before, and coffee with a friend who disclosed that he had never been to Desert Survivors Nursery culminated in a little bit of a shopping treat. It is research. My profession requires me to plant plants and see how they behave. Don’t hate the player. I have long been obsessed with the front fence condition at the nursery (chainlink + mature mesquites + atriplex + a wall of wolfberry). Trying to match the vibe on our southern chainlink fence property line. It is still in the early stages.

I try to always purchase a couple plants I like, one plant I have never seen before and no nothing about, and at least one plant I actively despise, to give it the opportunity to change my mind. It is a handy method in procuring more plants than you probably should. Part of the game.

I asked and these fence line wolf berries are Baja Wolfberry (Lycium brevipes), a near native tropical variety that appaterently just go off. They had a few 1g cuttings rooted, so I picked one up and will see how it compares to the native wolfberries I already have in the ground.

Finished the weekend helping some friends install a culvert style rain tank. This will be a 750 gallon cistern set into a concrete slab. Many hands make light work, and a cement mixer never hurts! We got the culvert set into the slab, pharaoh style. Heavy lifting is complete, curious to see how the slab cures and then all the waterproofing and plumbing comes together. Always great to help on other peoples projects, the best way to learn either “oh, shit, I can do that” and/or “oh shit, I don’t ever want to do that again”. This was fun and pretty straight forward. I’d mess around with a culvert cistern again, for sure. The rust potential kinda creeps me out, but they do look pretty charming.

peace b w/ u.