Sorting Lumber and Tearing Down the Swingset

The outside work on the chicken coop began today, with two exciting developments.
First, my order of lumber and other parts arrived from Home Depot, right in my driveway. With the help of two volunteer friends, we were able to sort and count all the parts. They include a massive amount of 2"x4"'s, cinder blocks, caulk, roofing panels, hardware cloth, and a lot of other boards and parts. I'm missing two 2"x2"x8' pine strips, however--Guess it's time to go shopping again!

Ray and Mary help unwrap the goods!

My personal lumber yard.

We collected some small pine tree trunks my dad had cut previously down, and trimmed them to use as roosts for the coop, and rung for the chicken access ladder in the coop.

Second, we tore down the old swingset in my backyard, to use the area for the coop. It proved to be a difficult task--the swingset is about 15 years old and has seen a lot of action, so most of the nuts and bolts were rusted together. A lot of sawing was involved.

Conquering the beast at last.

Ray the reindeer hauls a piece of the swingset to our junk pile.

After removing the swingset, we were able to start clearing the peastones from the area to make room to plant grass and lay the leveling piers for the coop.

With all the supplies organized and counted, and the swingset cleared, I'll be able to get the building in swing soon. Constructing the frame starts this week! Stay tuned, and thanks for visiting! :)

SOME OLDER PREP STUFF:

I went out to Erikson Grain to pick up some chicken goods on Monday the 7th. I came back with a slide-top chick feeder, a brooder lamp and red heat bulb, a valve waterer and a 22-lb plastic feeder for my coop. The excitement is mounting!

Over the past weekend, I gathered some tools, and borrowed some from a close friend. The tools shown include a drill/driver and bits, a hammer, wire cutters, a tape measure, a speed square (borrowed), a combination square (borrowed), a level, an electric sander (borrowed), and a miter saw (borrowed). There are other tools I will be using that are not pictured.

A couple weeks ago, I ordered a hardware kit from the same folks I bought my coop plans from, thegardencoop.com. The kit includes all the metal pieces needed to build the coop, including screws and nails of various sizes, plates, door accessories, deadbolts, and poultry net staples. I opened the box and counted the materials. They're all here!