Posts by Chuck Curtis
Today the thermometer pushed into the mid-60’s and Izzy and I were able to enjoy our lunch out on the patio. It finally feels like spring. However that won’t last. The forecast for next week includes snow.
Tomorrow the plan is to get up early and get the next batch of birds; this will likely be one of the few times Izzy won’t fuss about getting dressed in the morning.
We picked up our first batch of chicks today from Fleming’s Feed in Preston. We got a total of 6 today, 3 Buff Orpingtons and 3 RI reds. Saturday morning we get the next batch from the Norwich Agway, 6 more chicks and 4 ducks (maybe). The brooder was made from left over lumber and painted. The stencils were cut out on the laser for the decoration. Instead of a heat lamp, I picked up a Brinsea Ecoglow Safety Brooder to keep them warm. After a friend lost his garage to a fire caused by a heat lamp, I decided it is not worth the risk to use one.
This weekend I’ll make progress building the coop. That is my hope. That was my hope last weekend, and the soil-cement slab still sits there unimproved since I put it in. But this weekend will be different.
I did pick up a door for the coop last weekend. I found a listing for free doors/windows in the northern part of the state. Izzy and I drove there and, sliding around on the ice, loaded a door into the back of the mini-van. It is a metal clad exterior door, but in pretty rough shape; not really worth the hour drive to get it. The bottom of the door was completely rotted away, and, deciding that it doesn’t really matter how tall the door is to the chicken coop (I can duck my head, and the chickens certainly won’t care), I cut off the bottom 3- 4 inches of the door.
The paint was in pretty bad shape, so I pulled off the plastic trim decoration and decided to use some fairing compound to fill the holes and then paint the door with some left-over marine topside paint that I was going to throw away. I didn’t spend a lot of effort making it look great, but it does look better than it did when I picked it up. And no one will ever notice it once it is installed.
Now I need to go and get Ben up so he can help me pull out lumber to start building the coop. Plus I can’t forget to make the brooding box – I did pull out the plywood scrap for the bottom, but promptly got distracted with other projects. We pick up the first batch of chicks on Friday and I’ll need a place to put them when I get home.
The old chicken coop is starting to fall down. The roof supports have rotted, and the coop floor is nearly falling apart. We are down to three hens, none of which regularly lay eggs. Much to Izzy’s delight, it is time to build a new coop and get new chicks. Plus, I think the rats have found their way into the composting bin and coop.
The plan is to move the coop inside the last bay in the garage/carriage house. The space is just storage and has a dirt floor, but at least is under a roof, so I only have to build a racoon-proof space for the chickens. I plan on making the coop big enough to walk into, which should make it easier to clean. Which, in theory, will make me clean the space more often. I hope the new location will make it easier for the dog and cats to keep the rats away from the chicken feed.
I am experimenting with the floor. I plan on making it out of soil cement, though I put a load of gravel in that section of the garage many years ago, so I’m not too sure how it will turn out. But it is only for the coop floor, so shouldn’t really matter. I could always add a concrete slab on top if it turns out too lose and I really care about it. To make the floor I mixed in a bag of Portland cement to the first few inches of the gravel/dirt floor, sprayed with water and compacted with a 4×4 post.
The weather forecast for the weekend has temperatures above freezing (though it may drop just below freezing tonight), so I decided to do the floor today. The coop will be approximately 8 feet long by 4 feet deep, and 7 to 8 feet tall.
I’m planning on a few improvements over the last coop. I’ll add a larger self-feeder for the chickens. This time, I’ll make it big enough to hold a full bag of pellets. I’ll also make the nesting boxes set up to have the eggs roll out of the boxes to a collection tray to make it easier to collect. We’ll have an enclosed run off to the side of the coop, as well as a door to the outside behind the garage. I’ll make an automatic door opener for the outside, but that will be a later post and after a trip to the pick-and-pull salvage yard with Ben to get a car antenna motor to control the door. I also need to do a good cleaning on that bay of the garage. It is time to get rid of some stuff that has been just sitting around.
We should be getting chicks in two weeks, and I still have to build a brooder box. The brooder heater arrived today, I’m trying something a little safer than a heat lamp, I’ll see how it works. We will have to keep the chicks inside for a few weeks until they get feathers and it warms up a bit outside. The plan is to get 12 hens and 4 ducks. The ducks will make a mess, but the coop exit will put them in the back by the stream, so hopefully they can get enough water from the stream and keep the mud outside. Once the birds arrive, Izzy will be in charge of handling the chicks daily to get them used to humans. A chore she has no problem at all doing.
And, for the much anticipated update on the dishwasher. The repair seems to be working for now. The dishwasher is back to functioning and the basement no longer rains when the dishes are getting cleaned. Knock on wood.
Or, why one may not want to buy a GE dishwasher.
Last week, Susanna noticed the dishwasher was making a whining noise when it was running, and it wasn’t cleaning the dishes properly. I did a little online searching, and it seemed the likely culprit was the pump motor.
This morning, I noticed water raining down in the basement when the dishwasher was running. Not a good sign. After the cycle finished I pulled out the dishwasher and looked underneath. The water was coming from a rubber hose between the dishwasher pump and the main diverter valve assembly. The part is available online for around $60, but the reviews said the replacement part had many failures in the same manner that the original did, lasting less than 2 years in most cases. One reviewer mentioned patching the leaking hose and I took that path.
Ben and I drove to the local Home Depot and I got some Flex Seal paste for the inside of the hose, some E-Z Fuse Silicone Tape to wrap around the outside, and new hose clamps. Hopefully that will repair the leak.
The leak is on the outlet (high-pressure) side of the pump, and seems to be a design flaw. If the repair doesn’t hold, I’ll order the new part, and add a few wraps of the silicone tape to the outside to hopefully extend the life of the new part.
Next step is to wait the 24-hour cure time of the Flex Seal and see if that fixes the problem (for now).
We started the year with a short hike at Poquetanuck Cove Preserve, just around the corner from our house. It was cold, but nice to get out of the house.
After a crazy year, we were finally able to see family over Thanksgiving. My dad had and recovered from COVID this fall, so was able to travel over Thanksgiving without having to quarantine. We were able to get out and do some hiking, worked on the kitchen, and even replaced the bumper on the truck from the accident Will had the week before Thanksgiving.
I’ve been a little behind on posting to the website. Here are pictures from a photo shoot with the family last month. I had a little fun with Photoshop – something I don’t often play around with.
We pushed hard throughout the summer to get the kitchen back to functional. With Susanna not working, the boys stuck at home, and no family vacation, we were able to move back into the kitchen a few months. Once we were back into the kitchen, things slowed down a lot.
In September, the kids went back to school, Izzy started school, and Susanna started work. And things slowed down. That isn’t to say, I got nothing done. I have installed most of the trim, cabinet toe kick trim.
I have a few things left to finish at this point. We are tiling the backsplash ourselves. This last weekend, I tiled the nook behind the stove (seen open in the picture above). Susanna and I plan on tiling the wall this Saturday.
After we tile the wall, I need to finish the trim around the windows. It has been nearly impossible to remove the window sill trim without breaking it. I’ll need to make new sills and finish trimming the window. The window sills aren’t difficult to make, I just need to take some time in the shop and just build them. I even have an old one pulled out to duplicate.
And then it is just finishing touches. I need to order and install the baseboard trim. Again, and easy project – it just requires measuring the walls.
The final project that needs to be done is to build a radiator cover. But that wall isn’t part of the functional kitchen, so the windows and radiator are last on my list…
I’ll try to get some better pictures tomorrow.
Our plans had been to have a family trip to Europe this summer and renovate the kitchen in 2021. When the craziness of the spring spilled into the summer, we cancelled our tickets to Europe and decided to instead renovate the kitchen.
Susanna and the boys started the demolition in the beginning of July, and then I spent a few weeks updating services and hanging the drywall (with some help from Ben). The boys were stuck at home for the better part of the summer, so we had lots of help during the hard part of the project.
Earlier this month, Susanna spent two weeks finishing the ceiling and walls, from the joint compound, through sanding and finally painting. Then, last weekend, we rented a sander and spent 8+ hours sanding the one hidden gem we found during renovation – a hardwood floor under the linoleum kitchen floor.
The kitchen layout is similar to the old layout, however we did eliminate a window to give us more cabinet space, and moved the fridge. Eventually we will pick up a counter depth fridge to fit with the cabinets. We purchased cabinets from IKEA, and while I don’t really like their furniture, their kitchen cabinets are pretty easy to install and seem to be of reasonable quality. The rail system for hanging the uppers makes lining them up a snap. So no complaints there.
This weekend we hung the cabinets on the wall where the fridge will go. The next week or two will be doing the other two walls and working on trim and other finishing touches. We aren’t too far from having a partially usable kitchen!
