There are chickens in the hen house! Part 2

  So! Today I only got five eggs. Hmm! What's up with that! Fresh water, lots of food, they get to run around all day, only coming home when they want to or if they see me  out side, then it's a chicken stampede cause they think I have a tasty morsel for them. Usually I do, and this behavior works in my favour when I want them in the pen earlier than usual, which is dusk. 

Checking out my house!

 Now , I will never ever profess to being handy with tools, but apparently over the years I have learned something. My first thoughts were to have someone build me a coop. I scoured through books from the library, checked out Pinterest and Google for the ideal hen house plans. Then I decided I would buy one and spent oodles of time on Kijiji and Facebook yard sale sites. Even when I was driving I kept an eye out for suitable chicken accommodations for sale. With all this searching I kept coming back to some plans  found in the  books I had checked out from the library.

  I knew I wanted a raised coop with the run extending under the house so the hens could have some shelter from the elements and still stay outside. The run had to covered and the wire buried a foot to keep predators out. There was lots of evidence of attempted break ins the first few weeks of residence. After spending the Winter and early Spring searching, I decided to build one myself.

  I started with the plans I really liked, from the book and proceeded to make significant design changes. OK, yes, a buddy did help framing up the house, and my brother did help with the run, but closing in the coop and run and building the doors, window and gangplank was all me!!  Hardware cloth (it is sturdier than chicken wire) was my choice for the run. The cloth covers the top of the run to prevent aerial attacks and is buried about a foot to deter subterranean excursions. The floor is plywood. The walls and roof are OSB, because, after all it is a chicken coop, with asphalt shingles on the roof and wooden shakes to go on the walls and a couple of vents for air flow. The coop needs to be airy for the Summer and draft free for Winter habitation. Inside are two roosts and three nest boxes. The actual house measures 8 by 6 feet. Plenty of room for seven hens at 4 to 5 square feet per lady.

 All said and done it cost me about three hundred buck, buck, bacaaaahs!!! (in chicken lingo), for the materials. Labour was free. Thanks guys!  A lot less than buying one or paying a real carpenter (no slight intended guys!). I think it 's pretty nifty and should serve the girls and their successors well for years to come.

DARN PROUD OF MYSELF!!

EDITH, BESSIE, EMMA, JOSEPHINE, LEONA, BEATRICE

NOTICE: SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

AND MARGUERITE  ARE PROUD TOO!!

  And all from looking at a book on raising chickens from the library!!

 

Tim Jackson

Community Engagement Assistant:

Annapolis Valley Regional Library,

Small Scale Chicken Farmer

and Rough Carpenter (Retired)

 

Picture Book Month

November is Picture Book Month, an international literacy initiative that celebrates the print picture book during the month of November. On the Picture Book Month website  they state, “In this digital age where people are predicting the coming death of print books, picture books (the print kind) need love. And the world needs picture books. There’s nothing like the physical page turn of a beautifully crafted picture book.”

I can’t agree more. Last year, I served on the Caldecott Committee, which awarded the best picture book published in the United States to The Adventures of Beekle, the Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat.  I spent the year completely immersed in picture books. I read over 500 books—and many of those I read over and over. I looked at the art, how it interpreted the story, how well it was done, how it appealed to a child audience. I spent many hours soaking up the beauty of children’s picture books.  This year I will be watching from the sidelines, making my own predictions and seeing what others think. One great place to visit is the Horn Book blog, Calling Caldecott. Check out their list of books they will be discussing. There are some great choices on that list!

Ask any child—picture books are fun! Even if you are an adult who has no children to share these fantastic works of art with, you can still enjoy picture books. I recommend picture books over on my blog, ValleyStorytime in case you are looking for a few good titles to while away the hours. And if you want to really get immersed in picture books, I have compiled some blogs & sites that celebrate the form on this Pinterest board.

We have a few programs scheduled this month where you can come and look at some of the books that I am loving this year. Picture Book Palooza will be held in Middleton, Annapolis Royal, and Bridgetown. We are also having a contest—take a picture, tag your favourite picture book with #AVRLpicturebook on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, and you’ll be entered to win a bag of picture books! Contest ends November 30.

Tell us your favourite picture book in the comments. Read picture books to kids. Look at the art, share your favourite with others. The picture book is a portable art form that can be shared just about anywhere.  Find some of these wonders in your local library !

--Angela Reynolds, Community Engagement Coordinator

Planning a Wedding? We can help.

In the Valley, the spring and summer are certainly the most popular seasons for getting married.  There are so many choices out there with a wide variety of venues for both the ceremony and the reception.    

If you are planning a spring or summer wedding, now is the time to finalize your plans.  We have some wonderful books that are sure to give you some ideas and help you make some important decisions.  As well, there are some terrific electronic resources available on-line.

 The  Knot Ultimate Wedding Lookbook : more than1,000 cakes, centerpieces, bouquets, dresses, decorations, and ideas for theperfect day by Carley Roney is organized into colour themes which is a great way to get an overall picture of how things can go together.

To compliment this, have a look at The Knot website.  You will need to register, but it is a good site and worth that extra step.  The Martha Stewart Weddings website is a site that is also full of great colour combinations, as well as lots of beautiful and creative decorating ideas.

A Bride's Book of Lists :everything you need to plan the perfect wedding by Marsha Heckman has as it says, everything, including the things you hadn't even thought about yet. With the help of this book, you won't miss a thing.

The New-fashioned Wedding :designing your artful, modern, crafty, textured, sophisticated celebration  by Paige Appel is certainly worth a look, it has lots of great ideas.  These and many others are sure to spark some inspiration. 

We really can't forget about Pinterest.  "Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organizing things you love."  I really, really like this social media tool, especially for collecting and sorting out ideas, it is a graphical representation for websites, like bookmarks, but with pictures. Within Pinterest, you search for things like "yellow wedding bouquets" and you will get lots of images for your search.  You can then repin them to your Pinterest account.  When you go back to your account later you just need to click on that image and go to the website where it was pinned from.  It is much better than having a list of websites where you can't remember which one had that grey bridesmaids' dress that you really liked.  It is also great for do-it-yourself crafts, recipes, knitting patterns, well actually, just about anything.

Charlotte Janes,
Head of Systems and Administration