Do you like that headline? It’s like a fun news story.

We had beautiful weather two weekends in a row– both weekends that I worked at the library and projects that required two sets of hands couldn’t be completed. Then, a weekend off. A rain, cold weekend off. Scott and I did what we could on Friday evening while it was nice, but Saturday was gross out. We went to Menards (again..) and picked up the last of what we needed to complete the coop. We think.

Sunday morning, we got up to get ready for church. I was getting dressed and coming out to make breakfast when I heard Scott call for “anyone” to come help. He just tells me to follow him. I go downstairs where we have a duck running around free. Apparently she figured out how to flutter enough to fly over the side of the brooder. We caught her and put her back in the brooder.. and made the call that we were about to have the most miserable Sunday. haha! We had our ducks in a large brooder space in our basement (cellar, whatever you want to call it). Our furnace, water pump, etc. are also downstairs and having a duck wandering whenever she pleases is not even close to safe for any involved.

I guess I need to back up. The chicken run shouldn’t affect the duck run, right? We finished the duck house and run many weeks ago. It was at the same time that a friend asked if we could take one of her bantam hens that was escaping their yard. I said yes, absolutely. We knew she would be just fine in the duck house and run while we finished the chicken coop and run. But, when the ducks suddenly need their space, Carmel (the hen) can no longer hang out in the duck area. She is very small, and the ducks are very curious. So, that is why we had to rush to finish the chicken run in order for the ducks to be able to come outside full time.

We spent our entire Sunday building the chicken run. We honestly thought the run was going to be easy. All we needed to do was build the walls for the run and screw on the hardware cloth. W.R.O.N.G. The walls went up so quickly. Framing the door was tricky and took a little longer, but still not terrible. Getting the hardware cloth pulled tight without any slack was a whole different ballgame. We bought an old barn door on FB marketplace that we needed to cut down and reinforce because it had definitely seen better days.

We got the door to the coop put on after dark and filled the coop with pine shavings and moved Carmel over to her new and permanent home. The ducks came outside, also in the dark, and enjoyed their first cozy night in their house. Everyone seems very happy in their new locations. The ducks forage and munch all day. I take our 10 chicks out during the day to hang out with Carmel. It is still getting in the 30s at night, which is too cold for 9 week old chicks. They go back in the brooder at night.

Here is a picture of the coop– it stopped raining while we ate dinner. The picture is so deceiving and makes it look like we had a beautiful day.

We were honestly so cold. We wore our Carhartt overalls over our clothes. We had our hats and coats on with work gloves. We were soaked to the core. I felt like we would never be dry or warm. But, we did it! I am SO proud of Scott. He planned this completely on his own. We built it from the ground up.

Once we get it 100% completed, I will share more pictures and hopefully rope Scott into writing up the plans so we can share them here. We still need to paint the rest of the wood, build a true roost, and bury hardware cloth. None of those will take much time. This weekend, we plan to work up the ground for our big garden– which I think we will call our potager. Potager means “kitchen garden”, which feels fitting. It is great fun, and while we certainly would have preferred a dry day to finish this project, we are thankful to have it almost completed!

How it Started:

How it’s going:

I went out and took a picture of it again this morning. We put the roof on in the dark last night because the wind finally died down. It’s supposed to be windy all week. Womp. Womp.

Our coop is really coming along! We found a ton of reclaimed barn wood on Facebook Marketplace. When we contacted the seller, it was still on the barn. Scott got the base and the frame done on Friday/Saturday. Sunday, after church, we got started on putting the siding on. We had 20-30 MPH winds yesterday with stronger gusts. That made everything extra challenging. We had to hold pieces up to see if they fit. Some had to be cut down to cut out large holes. On the back wall, you can see big gaps and rough pieces of wood. The inside of the back wall will be completely covered by another wall. We are going to make this thing weasel tight. We are also going to reinforce the corners, so you won’t see any of those rough edges or holes. I’m so excited at how it is looking so far.

Scott wrote up these plans himself, and I’m so proud of him. I plan to do a full blog post on the coop plans, size, and costs. If you have looked at the price of lumber recently, you know that it is SO expensive, and the cost continues to rise. We’ve actually watched prices rise as we have priced things over the past month. It’s absurd. The barn wood was a huge blessing. I also would love to leave the wood as is, because it is just so neat. But, we are going to paint it to give it added protection. We put the really weathered looking pieces toward the inside, so all of those cool details can still be seen. I’m just so thankful. Every time Scott and I are outside, we just stand back and think of how blessed we are. It is so much work. There is always something to be done, but we are loving every second of it. God has blessed us so far beyond anything we deserve.