Hello Everyone!
Wrangling chickens, An overbuilt door, Some lanky sassafras, Fire pit assembly, Flavorful pasta & Making ashes!
Alright, I am still a bit bleary eyed but I am slowly waking up all the way... with the assistance of my favorite beverage. I am actually drinking a cup that I made yesterday just before sunset... that I only took a few sips of before zonking out for almost twelve hours straight.
I say 'almost straight' because I woke up around sunset... when there was barely enough daylight left to be able to see outside unaided... and rounded up the chickens. I had finally figured out that they have been roosting in the coffee bar (of all places) and after lumbering over there... and confirming they were there... I took each of them to the new coop and secured them inside of it for the evening.
In the long run, I might wind up moving that coop further up the hill... where it will get more sun during the winter and more of a breeze during the summer. Even after adding the roof (and the floor) to the coop it still is not too heavy for me to move on my own... but I will most likely need to remove the door because whoa it adds a lot of weight by itself.
Part of why I overbuilt the door so much, is due to wanting a solid walkway/ramp for entering the coop... and because I wanted to be able to use the door as a 'work bench' during the day when I am working on other projects. I have yet to find the right tree stump or log to put under the end of the door (when it is open) so that the door can sit level (making for an even more practical work bench) but I will find something to use eventually.
On a related note, when I was in a hurry the other day to wrap up the coop build before the rain arrived... and needed some straight, 'wrist thick' and smaller building material... I went out to an area that is a bit too dense with trees and already needed thinning. After looking around at all the trees, I settled on a certain type that at the time I had no idea what they were... but there were a lot of them... so I was like: These will work!
I have no idea how I missed it, but as it turns out... they were these nimble sassafras trees growing straight as an arrow up into the canopy for nearly ten meters... with only their very tops having a meter or so of crowning branches and leaves. Honestly, I have never seen that type of tree grow like that... and I think that in and of itself is why I did not catch what they were when I was harvesting them for use as building material.
Now that I can spot those trees growing like that, I want to go around and see how many more of them that I can find... because the wood being as straight and as symmetrical as it is... could be very useful. It sure would make for some nice brooms, tool handles, shelf bracing, furniture and of course the more common usage of it as firewood for cooking with... due to how much flavor that it imparts.
Anyways, yesterday turned into another full day of activity even though I did not do anything too strenuous or even all that physically demanding... except for hiking around the place... which is always demanding given the steep uneven terrain. My main goal was to get an above-ground fire pit (that someone gifted me) setup somewhere... anywhere... so that I could burn some burnables.
The secondary thing that I focused on, was organizing the tent more, getting all my burnables together... and packing all my 'pantry' into a twenty-seven gallon tote that the rodents cannot get into. Overall, my solution for the pantry worked out pretty good... because the type of tote that I used has a rigid recessed lid that makes for a very nice shelf to store other stuff on.
It was rather late in the afternoon before I hiked uphill, retrieved the fire pit parts... and began assembling the stand for it with all the parts that were available. Which as it turns out, was not enough... because there were several missing screws, bolts and nuts... but hey after a little thinking I used pieces of 'looped and twisted' fencing wire as replacements for the missing components!
Having a fire was nice and especially so because I have had mainly coffee can sized fires... other than when (on a few occasions) I burned a bunch of cardboard all at once. This time around getting all the burnables burned was not a hassle... and I did not lose any ashes in the process... so at least that has been solved because ugh the fire (and ashes) thing has been annoying.
By very late in the day, I was feeling a bit accomplished by my endeavors... and decided to see if I could treat myself to some pasta cooked on the new fire pit setup. Of course my cooking pans (one pan acts as the lid for the other) were quite dirty... so I gathered up a bunch of small sticks, split some tiny debarked poplar logs... and got a nice fire going in no time at all... to burn the pans clean.
Long story short, the pasta came out tasting quite flavorful, I picked up the bulk of the tiny sticks that were littering the camp site... and I now have plenty of ashes for the compost. Although it was not a big issue this time around, I think that if I cook on that fire pit in the future that I will need to find a way to secure the grill for it better... and of course to make it be level.
Well, I think that is all the words that I have in me for this entry, I hope that most folks are doing well. Ta ta for now.
