This poultry endeavor just keeps chugging along. I get so much fun from these silly birds that they’d be worth the effort even if we weren’t planning on edible byproducts.

We moved the first batch out to the coop and left them locked in for at least a month. Finally, we finished putting up the fence dividing their pen from the sheep pen. I still had to chicken-proof the back fence to keep them from getting onto the highway. I had to dig a trench, lay chicken wire in it, staple that to the wooden fence, and then bury the end. It won’t keep a determined raccoon from getting in, but those are prone to go over the fence anyway. I just didn’t want to make it easy for my birds to become pancakes.

So last week we opened their door and let them out. They were dubious for the first few days, but by now they’re jumping out as soon as it’s open, and spreading all over their yard having a good old time picking at bugs and grass. I’ll probably lose a couple to hawks but this is just too big of a yard to put a roof on.

The next batch of birds was going to come from the incubator. Only two of the twelve were developing, so the day they were due to hatch, I bought two more pullets, Barred Rocks this time, to keep them company. And Junior saw the turkeys at the feed store and decreed that we should try a couple of those too, so there they are. They endearing in their idiocy. Of the two chicks that hatched, Easter Eggers, one got pretty sick at around a week old, so I had to put it down. I think the remaining month-old hatchling is a cockerel. I may keep him. They’re about ready to join the bigger chickens in the coop, but I’ll have to put up a cage so they can get acquainted without too much fighting.

I thought I’d try one more time with the incubator, so as soon as these were out, I put 16 more fertile eggs in, half Silver-Laced Wyandottes possibly crossed with Blue-Laced Red Wyandottes, and half Mottled Houdans. My fertility on this batch was really good, and fourteen made it to lockdown. Of that, half hatched, which is a decent percentage for shipped eggs. Two are the Houdans, which have a feathered topknot like the Polish Crested chickens I had as a kid. All of those seem to be doing well in the baby brooder at a week old.

I got fed up with fiddling with my cheap incubator, so I ordered a homemade job over the internet. That may have been a mistake; the construction quality certainly isn’t anywhere near what Junior would make. I’ve been instructed to leave wooden things to him for now. We can’t tell if it works until we get the fan fixed and some more eggs to incubate. Frankly, I’m a little sick of babysitting temperatures and humidity, so I may just leave that until next year. 30 chickens is a fine number for now, even if half are roosters. We’ll keep some of those and eat the rest, as the other part of the project. They’ve been an interesting diversion.

There are so many circumstances beyond my control lately that it’s infuriating to be so powerless. I can’t talk about the actual issue online at the moment but I will one day. Possibly after the flames stop shooting out of my ears. Possibly not. It’s kept me quiet and it’s time to stop letting this nonsense keep me from doing what I want to do, when I can. So I really want to start writing more again, but you’ll understand if I stick to the trivial for the now. At least it’s something.

One of the rare things that Junior and I can do something about remains the house. We’d already committed to spending a chunk of money on the concrete around the house, so we drove on with that project.

The driveway is long, plenty long enough to park on for a party. That’s good, as we don’t have a ton of street parking due to the shape of our lot. The bad part was that it was really hard to park two vehicles next to each other, or pass one to get out, without dinging a mirror.

The line of the driveway continued on behind a gate next to the shop. This would have been an ideal place to park a trailer, as I think the last guy did, if it wasn’t about four inches too narrow. It was fine for a bumper-pull, but the fifth-wheel is higher and would hit the roof of the shop by just a little bit. A little bit is not acceptable.

The previous owner had also put in a weird planter right in the middle of the driveway. It harbored a couple of extraordinarily shrubs and when we pulled them out, it still blocked tractor access to the backyard. So that had to go.

There were a couple of other little spots that wanted concrete. Two more ugly planters and a path to the garden would be nice to have paved.

So in comes the concrete guy, who is someone we know. Junior’s project even got expanded after they demolished the ugly driveway planter and noticed all of the cracks in that section of drive. He decided it would be best to start fresh, and they jackhammered it all out. We took it, truckload by truckload, to a concrete recycler that I know. Our friend worked after his day job to form things for oh, about two months now.

And finally, Saturday was the day. Just after dawn, here came a crew of guys, with a concrete truck idling in the background. These guys wheeled three trucks’ worth of concrete, about 26 yards, into these forms by hand, lest the weight of the truck crack the existing driveway. It was a long day but they moved very efficiently. While they were here, we did some minor yardwork, like painting the gates we’d had to take down anyway.

It was maybe not the right time to spend the money to do this, but I’ve let that anxiety go, as we were already committed. And wow, is it nice to look around and see the clean expanses of concrete. I can see where I’m going to put barrel planters and where Junior’s going to build an outdoor grill. I see all the changes we’ve made to this place and how nice it’s going to look when we’re done, or as done as a house ever gets. I see home, and I’m happy in it.