We got started on the coop midmorning last Saturday, at the beginning of our area’s first summer heat wave. The coop will be 8′x12′ and have a shed roof and a storage room.

First we nailed together the presure-treated base and studs. The whole contraption sits on skids and cinder blocks lest my new house make this country property look too classy. I leveled the base, and then we added floor joists 16″ on center.

Then came three sheets of pressure-treated plywood nailed into the joists.

Over that went a layer of OSB, overlapping the pressure-treated plywood joints for stability. This floor is rock solid! As the light was fading, we mocked up the positioning for the front and back walls, tinkering to get the right proportion and roof slope:

Both Dad and I had worked right through the heat until 10:00 p.m. at night and made ourselves sick. Working in full sun on an almost 100-degree, humid Virginia day is no good. We learned our lesson and planned Sunday’s work day to start at 7:00 a.m., with a break during the heat of the afternoon.

The next morning started nice and early, but already the temperature was in the 80’s. We laid out and framed the front and back walls, using the newly built platform:

We tipped the walls into place and temporarily secured them in order to frame the door and window openings, which aren’t shown below. And that’s when the weekend ran out, at 10:00 p.m. Sunday night.

Monday morning I got up and got ready for work. On my way out, I stopped by the garage to feed and water the guineas. I knew something was wrong when I tried to open the garage door and was met by brief resistance followed by a flurry of feathers. You guessed it. Another jailbreak. So there I was, powdered and perfumed and the clock rapidly ticking toward 9:00 a.m., when I was due in the office…and I was again chasing guineas around the garage.

I got them all caught, one at a time because they are so big they need two hands to secure, and hit the road. Walking into work, I was still picking guinea feathers out of my hair.

Well, my dad sprang into action that evening and when I’d returned from work, he’d whacked together an interim housing solution for the birds using two sheets of plywood framed into a bottomless box set on thick plastic in the garage. These expansive new digs, 8′x4′x4′, were just what the birds needed. He made access doors at both ends for easy cleaning, and I stapled chicken wire to the top and filled the box with pine shavings. The birds love their new home, and are enjoying the chance to stretch their wings and fly from perch to perch. It was really a great idea because they’d definitely outgrown their last cardboard box, and were obviously wanting more space! Plus, it takes some of the time pressure off getting the coop proper finished.

It was very late when I shut the garage up Monday night and headed back to the house. I heard a rustling in the field and with my flashlight discerned two green eyes coming toward me across the field. Some animal, with its head held low, was headed right for me. I got ready to do battle with my Mag-Lite, but when it came into view I saw it was a tiny fawn. Once the creature realized that I was most definitely not its mother, it turned away and slunk around the driveway and off into the night.

I came home from work Thursday night to find the hay had been cut in the fields around the house.

As much as I enjoyed the tall hay glowing in the sunlight, I like this fresh and clean look too. And just in time! I was out late last night buying material for the chicken coop that Dad and I are going to start building in the field today. It’s no small undertaking, this structure, so stay tuned for progress reports. Here’s the coop thus far:

Last night, the farmer who takes the hay showed me a photo he took of a gigantic black bear that lives in the neighborhood. I had suspected as much after seeing some incriminating looking bear poo under the cherry tree. A lone bear doesn’t worry me much, but he’s seen mothers with two and three cubs as well, and that’s not a situation I’d want to walk into in the dark of night.

At last count, the predators I am battling in this quest to keep birds include: fox (saw one run though the back yard the other night), raccoons, snakes, coyotes, hawks, eagles, weasels, mice, rats, dogs, and now bear. A more sane person might ask, “Why bother?!!”

I stopped by my parents’ house right after work today to go over some of the final billing for the house. The whole time I wanted to get home because I was worried about the guineas in the garage. It was 93 degrees here today and they’ve outgrown their waterers, which are usually empty when I get to them each morning and when I return from work each night.

It was after nine and dark when I got home, and before I changed clothes, I stopped by the garage to flip on the outside light. I opened the garage door, called out my usual, “Hereee chick, chick, chick,” and listened for the soft guinea peeps in return. They were there, so good, the birds weren’t dead of heat exhaustion or dehydration. But then I flipped on the light, and when I looked toward their box I saw a cracked door and a seething grey mass peppered with 32 bright blinking eyes. “Hereee, chick, chick, chick, oh shit, oh chick, chick, crap.”

I quickly flipped the light off and shut the door, figuring that in the dark they’d at least stay calm. Then I headed into the house to pull off my daily Superman routine, changing from my work dress and dainty sandals into grubby pants, a long shirt, and chore boots. I grabbed my leather gloves, figuring I’d need all the protection I could get from those prehistoric beaks and claws when I went in for the Great Guinea Roundup.

When I returned to the garage and approached the birds, they dove for cover. And not in the direction of their half-open box:

So this wasn’t going to be easy. I was worried about causing group panic, because my garage is a pretty hazardous place for a young, dumb bird stupefied by groupthink and high on the instantaneous discovery of their powerful new wings. It’s still full of left over construction supplies—lots of sharp metal and plate glass and rolls of insulation and about a million places to get trapped or squished or beheaded or eviscerated. But while I was formulating my strategy, I did as any parent must and flew through the window of opportunity amidst potential misfortune. While the guineas huddled and scrabbled and cried in the corner of the garage, I cleaned out their box. Which is much easier without the birds in it!

With a nice, freshly papered box at the ready, I set up an elaborate system of other boxes and scrap lumber and grabbed an old garden stake in each hand. Like a conductor of the world’s most ridiculous orchestra, I herded the birds this way and that across the end of the garage, tweaking my maze as I tried to sweep the birds back in the direction of their open box. I wanted them to go as calmly as possible because I knew they were already stressed from the heat and being without food or water for who knows how long, and I didn’t want to imprint them with terror at the sight of me, any more than I already do each morning when I change their water upon first waking up.

Eventually I got the setup just right and the majority hopped back in the box. Once the two stragglers realized they’d missed the boat, groupthink worked to my advantage and a few more sweeps was all it took to get them to rejoin the flock. With all accounted for, I gave them a full feeder and some nice cold water. I know they were hungry because they actually approached me and ate even with my gigantic camera right in their faces—something they’d never done before.

So everyone’s safely home and tucked in for the night. And now their box has a marginally more secure door:

I got the idea from my classy crawlspace door. ‘Cause if it’s good enough for the guineas, it’s good enough for me!

At five weeks old, yesterday, the keets have taken a marked turn away from what passes for avian cuteness toward vulturine. Not even their cute little head stripes can disguise that they are on their way toward a fairly unattractive adulthood. They seem huge to me, with thick meaty legs and stout bodies. Their disproportionately thin necks are starting to lose their feathers—soon to be replaced with a vivid purple teenage skin. I looked at them last week and saw—wait, what’s that? Wattles!

I felt something akin to what a mother must feel upon noticing a slight darkening on her adolescent son’s upper lip.

Last night, as I was cleaning their cage, one bird let loose with a raucous adult alarm call. My pride was quickly tempered by the realization that this call x 16 was not going to be nearly as impressive. Well, it would be impressive in the sense that the county  may have to write a new clause into their noise ordinance to deal with me, the Guinea Lady. I can already see the headlines in our little podunk newspaper. Oh, the shame!

But until then, I am happy to say that the best part of my day is after I come home from work and clean the guineas’ box and give them new food and fresh water and very tempting sweet clover and seeded grass. I know one isn’t supposed to grow attached to livestock as a perilous future awaits them, but when I sit next to them and they sing the sweetest happy eating song, cocking their bright eyes to look at me,  it’s the perfect end to the day.

The keets turned three weeks old last Tuesday. Last week when they moved to the farm, they got new digs in a much larger box that’s now thankfully in the garage instead of the kitchen. Birds are messy.

The birds had been learning to perch on their water and food dispensers, so I made them a nice training perch that they seem to enjoy.

The keets will be two weeks old tomorrow, and they’re rapidly growing out of their cuteness. They’ve sprouted feathers and have been experimenting with flapping across their brooder box. I need to start building that coop now!

Last week I sold half of the keets to a nice young woman down the road who is building an organic farm. I got such a response from my CraigsList ad that I am think of becoming a keet broker.

The remaining babies, sixteen in all, are still fun to watch particularly when I give them bugs. That’s a good sign, as I got them to control the bug population at my farm. They are supposed to go crazy for white millet, so much so that it’s recommended as a training/taming aid, but my birds don’t give a hoot for the little seeds. Instead, their drug of choice, which I just discovered yesterday, is grass! They love the little seedheads and the only time they willingly approach me is when I am holding a stalk out to them. Otherwise, they are very flighty and not at all as docile as chickens.

Tonight when I was cleaning their cage, I moved them all to a smaller box in which they roiled and cried and flapped about on their new wings. I left the room to refill their feeder and when I returned one keet was wildly calling with a shrill alarm. Much to my surprise I found that this little one had flown the box and was strutting about the kitchen floor.

I scooped her up and dubbed her Bathsheba, she who dared escape the madding crowd. Away from the group think of her flockmates, she was tame and even perched on my finger like a parakeet. Can you imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have all those little pin feathers poking up all over your body?

Today my farm took a giant leap forward in credibility with the arrival of my first livestock: 32 guinea keets. After having had two tick bites already this season, I decided to go the natural pest control route with these little guys. Guineas have a reputation for eating all sorts of bugs, snakes, mice and other undesirables—without scratching as destructively as can chickens. They also make a loud, obnoxious alarm cry that has earned them the nickname “farmer’s watchdog.”

At 8:10 this morning I was on the way out the door to work when I got the call from the postmaster of the little rural outpost office that handles my mail. I sped up the road to receive a small box full of raucous peeping and beady peeking eyeballs. All the way from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa my little babies had flown, having not had anything to eat or drink from when they hatched at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 4. Baby poultry feed off their yolk sacks for a day or so after hatching, which nourishes them through the trip.

Yes, 32 birds in the space of shoebox…but that’s actually what allows them to survive their journey. By being so tightly packed, they can conserve their body heat. I have at least five different colors of guineas, and I can identify pearls, whites, lavenders. The other two variations are somewhat perplexing…perhaps buff and royal purple?

I was expecting to open the box to some losses, but all birds were up and vigorous and ate and drank immediately after I placed them in their brooder. Building a house sure comes in handy when raising poultry—all these giant cardboard appliance boxes make perfect first homes!

My mom took great care of the babies on their first day home while I was at work. She even e-mailed to say that a couple of bugs fell in the box and the birds ate them right up! How precocious are these little pretties!

All this excitement has them a bit tuckered, and they look absolutely hilarious when they fall over and pass out. No this bird isn’t dead, he’s sleeping!

Stay tuned as the birds navigate their potentially challenging first few weeks of life. They are supposedly more fragile than chicks, so I steel myself, like any farmer, to the possibility of loss.

But, I am super excited to now be able to write less about house construction and more about the things I’ve been wanting to do at this home!