Category Archives: Remodeling and Renovating

Chirping Motivation

Exotic Chick
The free exotic chick is a feathered leg breed

Now that we are hosting the Future Egg-Layers of America (or at least a few in Rincón, Puerto Rico) with us in a plastic tub in our 300 sq. foot cabana along with Kitty we are starting to max out space and feel the chirping motivation to start on the chicken coop. Everyone gets along fine in the cabana including Kitty because he is used to us having chicks in the house from when we had them in Greeley.

Chicks and Kitty
Kitty is more jealous than hungry, though he looks to be plotting something here

The plan is to move them from the cabana into the bath tub that was left over from the bathroom take-down in about 2 weeks and then at about 2 months into the coop. When they are full-sized chickens (around 4-6 months) we will then let them free range and use the coop as a night shelter and laying area. Area for coop
Kitty and the area we have chosen for the coop

We also plan on growing their supplemental food for when they need a little extra in addition to all the juicy bugs and grasses they will find, like this venomous centipede we found in the area we were clearing for the coop. More motivation for getting them outside and pecking away: fewer of these things! Yeek

Centipede

 

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End of the Deck Bathroom

Today we accomplished a big step that we had begun over a month ago: remove the bathroom from the outdoor deck. This was a little tougher than the first part because Britton did the rest all by himself!

As it was coming down (over a month ago) it looked like this:

IMG_4686

They removed the majority of the structure that day (roof, walls, doorway, window, tub, toilet, sink), but left the floor, support beams, and base structure. So over the last few days Britton has been popping out floor boards and planning how to take down the rest of the huge beams.

Popping Boards
Popping boards

Britton head IMG_5063

Today he finished with the floor and was to the point of actually taking down the final main support posts.

Nearly downAlmost there!

That was easier said than done because these support beams were huge and covered in barbed wire! But finally he managed to release them and now the whole thing is down!

Cleared view
By the evening it was gone!
We still have to process all the wood and separate the good pieces from the bad, take out the nails and get ready for its new life. Every end is a new beginning as they say and the timing for the end of this coop is not by chance. Our new little chicks will be arriving next week and the bathroom will soon transform into the chicken coop (we’ve been jokingly referring to it as the Poop Coop in reference to its past as a bathroom -haha). Thanks to my mom’s advice we are also going to use the bathtub as the baby chick home until they are big enough to go outside on their own. We’ve also ordered baby turkey chicks, but they won’t arrive until April so we have some time yet for them.

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Our First Guests

We have had our first guests to the finca (farm) since moving here. They are my mom and her boyfriend Anthony!

Mom and Anthony

 

We really aren’t well-suited for guests yet since we only have one functional bathroom and the wooden house is not really ready to sleep in since it still feels sort of like a haunted house without electricity in some of the rooms.

Hammocks

 

But since the weather is always so nice sleeping outside is ever an option -even in the middle of January. Britton and Anthony literally hung out and slept in the hammocks while my mom and I took the cabana.

IMG_4981

Britton said he may not go back to bed-sleeping because he enjoyed the hammock so much! It has been so nice showing our first guests around and having them here, and hopefully on their next visit we will have more conventional sleeping quarters, but the hammocks are always available! 🙂

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Step by Step

Kitty steps

Step by step we have been transforming the property. Like most properties in Puerto Rico, ours has some steep and therefore slick spots when it rains. So we thought it might be a good idea to have a few steps to help us in our daily walks checking on the plants, especially after I had fallen on my butt a few times. Britton used some of the old lumber as well as some tree trunks from our clearing as steps and paths. Add park ranger to the long growing list of job titles around here.

Steps down

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