Building Activities at Tres Colinas

Tres Colinas on the road less graveled

In my 12/1/2013 post, I outlined my plans for our chicken coop along with my intention to build a swing/play set.  I also shared that our house construction was finally underway.  The weather was uncooperative for about a week but that left plenty of time for lots of accomplishments.

Chicken Coop Update

I managed to get most of the coop built and one coat of paint on it before we had a week of rain and very cold weather.  I finished it around the middle of  December.  I used finished broadly as I still have to install my feeding and watering systems.  As, we won't be getting any chicks until around mid-March, I will wait and use the cooler weather for other outdoor projects (fencing and fruit tree planting being top priorities).  Here are pictures of the coop construction:



The framing is in place and the metal roof is on.  You can see
the hardwire mesh floor and venting just under the roof eaves.
 



The siding is on and the nesting boxes are built.

 
 

Painted and basically finished.

 

 

This shows how the nesting boxes are accessed from outside
the coop.  You can see the "human" door on the left.  The
"chicken" door is on the opposite side, going to and from
the chicken yard.

 



 

Swing set Construction

This little project was a Christmas gift for Ava and Cora, so only had a week to complete it.  Fortunately, it was fairly easy and the weather was good.  Here's how it was done:

Framing the play fort with 4x4s and 2x6s. 
It should handle anything the kids can throw at it.

Decking, railing, ladder and roof support added.

Finished product.  A little tricky building it by myself
(especially installing the swing legs and beam).  That's why
tractors have front end loaders.

House Construction

After signing a contract in August and seeing no activity until mid-November when the foundation was framed (picture in last blog), we were a little discouraged about the lack of progress on the house construction.  We realized a good deal of that time was spent on finalizing plans and other paperwork but still thought a lot of good weather days were passing without any construction.  Then December arrived and so did the builders.  Here are pictures showing the major phases of construction to date:

The plumbing is roughed in.

Digging out for the beams.

Cables in place and ready for concrete pour.  These blue cables
will be stretched to increase the concrete's strength.

Starting the concrete pour.  We used about 90 yards of concrete.

Concrete pour half finished.

Pour finished, finishing work underway.



Slab finished and curing. Note the cables (not the toe plate bolts
sticking up) sticking out near and horizontal to the ground.

Finished slab curing for about ten days.

Applying 33,000 psi of pressure to each cable to
stretch it tight.  Each cable was stretched five inches.

Walls going up as the framing begins.

All walls up along with some OSB siding.  Starting on the
ceiling and roof.

OSB siding on and major progress on the roof.

Framing essentially complete with moisture barrier in place. 
Adding soffits and siding at the eaves.

At this point, the house is considered forty-percent complete.  It's amazing to me that this required a total of eight days of work.  Allow me a moment to editorialize about that work.  So far almost everyone that has worked on our house has been of the Hispanic race and most likely Mexican heritage.  Many have limited English speaking abilities.  It is fascinating to me that so many Hollywood types complain about racism and stereotypes when almost all of my stereotypical opinions are due to what I've seen on TV and in movies.  Everyone knows that Mexicans are slow and lazy...always taking siestas (again from Hollywood productions).  I've been blown away by the work ethic of every one so far.  They arrive about fifteen minutes before sunrise and get prepared to work.  As soon as there is enough daylight to see, they go to work.  The first break they take is for lunch (many worked while they ate-especially the concrete workers) and that lasts about thirty minutes.  They work non-stop until it is too dark to see and then return the next day to repeat the process.  Everyone was busy all of the time, NEVER standing around talking or wasting time.  They have been professional, polite and respectful.  While this is the work ethic that made America great, I suspect it's hard to find among most citizens now.  That's all I will say on that other than I am very impressed with the workers I've seen to date.  

 

The next steps should be the installation of the windows, doors and the roofing.  Once that is done, I just might start sleeping in it.

Chicken Coop Plans

I have been researching chicken coops most of the summer.  There are a lot of plans and ideas on the Internet but none seemed to be exactly what we wanted.  Raising chickens is growing in popularity but most coop plans are designed for small yards (less than eight birds) or for someone intending to make a living off chickens by raising hundreds of them.  We plan to have between fifteen and thirty birds and so fell somewhere between what is commonly needed.  So, I was left to take what I considered to be the best ideas from various coop designs, mix in a few ideas from local farmers and meld them into a coop design to meet our needs. 

 

Here are some standards/requirements for a chicken coop:

• Minimum of two square feet of floor space per chicken
• Eight inches of roosting space per chicken (roost should be at least two feet above the floor)
• At least one nesting box per four hens
• Protection from predators (snakes, raccoons, foxes, etc.)
• Good ventilation

In addition, we had the following preferences:

• Easy external access for egg collection
• Easy provision of drinking water and food
• Easy cleanup of the coop
• Easy collection of waste products (chicken manure is a fantastic garden fertilizer)
• An attractive coop

After taking all of these factors into consideration, we came up with the following design features:

• The coop will be eight feet wide, eight feet deep and approximately five feet high.  This sixty-four square feet of floor space will accommodate up to thirty-two birds.  While that might be a little crowded, they will only be in the coop at night and will have a thirty-by-thirty foot pen for daytime use along with some free-ranging opportunities (after I train the dogs to ignore them).
• There will be eight nesting boxes that can be accessed from outside the coop by lifting a hinged door. 
• The coop will be three feet above the ground with two doors and two windows.  One door will be for the chickens (with a ramp) and the other for us.  All doors and windows will have spring catch locks.
• The top six inches on all walls will be open and covered with hardwire cloth for ventilation as will the windows.
• There will be a PVC feeding tube that is accessed from outside the coop to drop food into a pan.  The tube will be big enough to hold several days of food.
• We will buy and install an automatic drip watering system.
• The floor will consist of two inch by six inch joists covered with one-quarter inch hardwire cloth.  This will allow chicken waste to fall to the ground for easy collection with a shovel and no need to clean the coop floor or have or replace litter.  In fact, we intend to never go inside the coop.  Any inside cleaning can be done with a spray hose from the door. 
• The coop will be covered with wood siding (painted barn red) and covered with a white metal roof.

I hope to have it finished by the end of this week if the weather cooperates and will post a picture of the finished product.  Pam plans to order the chickens for spring delivery.  She has been studying the various breeds with a strong interest in heritage breeds.  She claims she will be the queen of the chickens after I get the coop built (we shall see). 

 

Once the coop is finished, I have to construct a swing/play set before Christmas for Ava and Cora.  I bought a kit that has everything but the lumber which I will buy, cut and put together.  Any spare time will be devoted to continued clearing of brush and repairing fences.  Last, its time to plant fruit trees and bushes.  While I am busy with all of this, we hope to see significant progress on our home construction.  The builder only worked about two days in November so this is as far as they got.

 

 

After twelve months, twenty four days and twenty and a half hours of living in this camper...we are ready for this house to be built.