New Coop Finished/Weird Weather, My Free Skywarn Storm Spotter Class I Took With The National Weather Service

 

New Coop Finished/Weird Weather!

We finally finished the coop! We had a lot of really weird weather in April thru July. We had hot weather, cold weather, Monsoon rain, thunder, lightning and wind. It really held up the coop construction, we just had to wait it out. In April Dave decided to bite the bullet and get started. We set up a temporary coop for a few days for the chickens, which worked out great! They even used the cardboard box I put in there as a nesting box and laid. Dave and I talked a lot ahead of time about what we wanted to do and basically we used the same footprint of the previous coop. Our main thing that we did different was the roof line, and we have the nesting box with inside access only because we like the way it looked. Dave did most of the construction, I had to protect my back. I helped with a few two person holds! Old coop below showing the damage, ready for a tear down. Here are the photos!

 

 

 

 

 

Dave started the tear down, we recycled what we could

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My last picture of Debbie, she lasted 2 years after the Vet said she would, passed peacefully in the house with me, RIP  

 

 

 

 Temporary coop with rain cover

Dave wanted to build the foundation with concrete blocks on the ground but I suggested that it would be really hard to level. So he used recycled bricks that we had with pressure treated lumber on top of that, then leveled. Then he did concrete blocks on top of that. Should last a long time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Girls using the nesting cardboard box!

 

 

 

We bought a used window and used storm door for the coop. Dave cut up the old storm door to create a window vent which is great to get cool air in from the north side in the summer. We also have the glass for in the winter when we can close it up to keep it warmer. The storm door also has a panel that goes up and down depending on the weather so it's nice cross ventilation along with the little window, also has a metal vent on the southside-

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided to paint the coop the same color as the house, and leave the cedar trim natural for contrast. I basically did all the painting except for the part that I couldn't reach, love the color! 

 

Plastic roof over the plywood, Dave added soffitts

  

I repainted the "Eggs 5 cents" sign that we got from a yard sale years ago

 

We put the wind vane back up, and added some Japanese wind socks as they go with the ones in the garden!

Garden windsocks, love them! 

Bye bye old coop, she lasted 13 years or so mostly from recycled materials-

Interior pictures coming soon...

 

My Free Skywarn Storm Spotter Class I Took With The NWS-

A few months ago I took a free live online class with The National Weather Service. It was fun and very informative! Lots of good info. For more information go here NWS SKYWARN Storm Spotter Program for classes near you. They gave us all a nice packet afterwards with other resources we could use. It's great to be able to know who to contact if you see something important. 

I'm Back! Prepping For Winter and Beyond, Over One Million Views!

 

I'm Back! Prepping For Winter and Beyond, Over One Million Views!

I am back to blogging! I recently retired, had a nice refresh and will start posting more now.  Obviously there's been a lot going on in the U.S. and the world recently. I had some mixed feelings about retiring recently given the state of the world.  The good thing is that Dave and I are both pretty resilient, I have a lot of skills if I do have to go back to work at some point. Time will tell. We recently got some of the weather from the bomb cyclone on the West Coast. Then our first major snow up in the mountains last month. Dave and I celebrated our anniversary up in McCall, Idaho. It was cold on Saturday and when we started to drive back on Sunday morning it had snowed about 4 inches-

 

Snowed steadily on the way back, turned to rain in Boise. Since then we've had some rain and dry weather. Sadly we went through an inversion for a few weeks with poor quality air and very cold! Today the sun is shining and most of it is blown out, but maybe coming back next week. Built a new sunroom for the coop-

 

 

The previous one used a somewhat flexible PVC pipe which did not turn out to be sturdy enough. Weight of snow I knock off as needed and wind. I had the idea for Dave to design something that would use the heavy PVC or 2' x4's. Dave came up with the idea of the one, then he built it. We can store off-season easily. It is much more stable. Chickens are already using it! I'm planning on probably getting a few more chicks in the spring. Not sure if I'll be working, probably part-time after the first of the year. We'll see how things go. Retiring from the federal government was quite the adventure! Lots and lots of paperwork.

Preparedness-wise I went through our pantry closet, pulled some things that I had bought.  Made some donations to the Idaho Food Bank. I called to see if they also needed toiletries, as we had a lot of brand new mini toothpastes, etc. that we just didn't need. It's always good to think of others needing all kinds of things and they were happy to have them. I've been re-stocking the freezer a bit. Always watching for deals! I thought I had about the effects of the new upcoming tariffs. I stocked up on some things online, as well as some things locally. I already bought some needed things like bed linens, clothing and misc. stuff. We invested in a sorely needed new mattress/frame, replaced old worn out couch cushions. The couch is a flex steel, but cushions were in really soft. We both need to take care of our backs. Those were good investments! Here's a good video about some things to stock up on soon, I really like this Youtuber, he's very non-political-

I had read about the Japanese budgeting system called Kakeibo. They talk about mindful and wise investments. Great intro video here-

 

 

Lots more on Youtube and books out there. It's great being home full time, I have more time to do meal prep and I'm losing weight which is great. My back seems to be doing much better being home with not being stuck at a desk all day. I'm really happy that one year after my back surgery my back is completely healed and doing well. Also cleaned out my craft closet and donated some different decorative items I just didn't want anymore. Lots of them were already thrifted items so not much of an expense initially anyway. Will be donating more winter/holiday decor. Now I have the time to really sort and sift! Dave did get me a fun retro Santa for my birthday that I was looking for to go by our front door, courtesy Lowe's

My lovely daughter needed me some Scandinavian style wool mittens I had requested a while back. She did a beautiful job!

I also recently invested in my first solar panel to go with my Bluetti solar charger. They were doing a Black Friday sale and so I bought one. I fired it up, even in part sun and shade it started charging!

 

 

 

 

We did buy another car after our Mazda 3 started having some odd intermittent problems that nobody seemed to be able to diagnose. It was at the point where we just didn't feel like it was worth investing anymore in it. We wanted something that would be super reliable for a LOT of years. Even though we didn't want to get into a car payment we felt we got a really good deal. We bought a used 2023 Subaru Crosstrek, only 8,000 miles on it. Basically like new. We like the fact that actually has a little bit less technology than the 2024 (better price). (The 2025's finally just came out.) We didn't like their huge infotainment screens. This one was smaller screen-wise and actually had a CD player (yes, we're old school)! I don't think it's safe to be scrolling through my phone while I'm driving. We did have the front tinted windows tinting removed. Driving around on really gray days, at night made it way too dark and we felt it was a safety issue. It didn't cost much and luckily it came right off. When we drove it around much better! We still have our old 2011 Outback, still going strong!

 

Over One Million Views!

I was shocked when I saw this blog had exceeded One Million views! I started this blog in 2011 when we bought our current house. I wanted to really track our improvements. I was reading other people's blogs, getting a lot out of them and thought I might contribute my own little version. I had no idea I would go this long, and far with folks from all over the world reading it!!! While blogging is kind of a dinosaur to some when it comes to social media there are still actually a lot of us that like to read! I know a few people migrated to Facebook/Instagram and their blogs are just sort of sitting there unattended. I may get to that eventually, who knows? But for now I guess I'm kind of a storyteller at heart and we'll see how things go. I've never really made any money off of this which was never the point anyway. Now with the whole huge monetization of social media sometimes I do scratch my head. Anyway, thanks for the views! Bring your friends, bring your family!!!

 

Thinking Outside The Box About Retirement- Five Ways to Prep for Retirement That Don't Include a Bank Account

 

Thinking Outside The Box About Retirement- Five Ways to Prep for Retirement That Don't Include a Bank Account -

When I am thinking about when I can "retire" I think about a lot of things besides money. When I saw this blog post, by one of my favorite bloggers, I knew I had to share it!!! Please read and let me know what you think? She sums it all up quite nicely. Thanks Wendy!!!  Five Ways to Prep for Retirement that Don't Include a Bank Account    (link fixed)

Costco Shortages/ Prepping Deals! Harvest Time, 2023 Winter Forecast?

Costco Shortages/ Prepping Deals!

We're still in the 100s/upper 90's and the heat dome will be moving on soon. It's been a cooker! I am very grateful that we have air conditioning and well air-conditioned workplaces. I feel sorry for some of my co-workers who don't have central air. I grew up in Southern California, never had air conditioning though and we survived. Just keeping everything well-watered has been a daily project. We have mulched even more this summer. The chickens are doing well but are not laying as much as usual. They just get over heated, nature's response. We're making sure they have plenty of water, cool treats, they have already lots of shade, and keep wetting things down. Was 55 this week which was a nice change and days getting shorter! I made a nice summer dinner this weekend, spicy fried chicken (great cold!), potato salad, fresh homegrown organic tomatoes and green onions. Yum! 

We went to Costco recently and they were out of their famous apple pies. NO APPLE PIES! Staff told us they were out of apples. Dave mentioned that this last spring a huge apple storage facility in Washington state was hit with ants. They lost their entire facility. Good reminder to not assume anything nowadays with perfect storm of supply issues. The good news is they had bags of unbleached bread flour $9 for 25 lbs. Since I've started making homemade bread regularly, I bought one bag and then went back and bought two more. It's Turkey Brand from Lehi Mills in Utah-

           25 Lbs for $8.99!

 

I also bought more local honey, a bottle of vanilla, raisins, not only for winter baking but just food in general. Our summer garden has finally kicked in! 

The "before" picture-

After-

Cukes, kale and collard green

Tomatoes

Peppers and tomatoes

Strawberries still alive!

A pot of color on the deck

As far as harvesting we're getting a regular supply of blackberries, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, Kale and Collard greens. We also harvested all of our peaches! I canned about 12 quarts, froze about five and we have more in the kitchen that are ripening. Most of those I will probably bake with soon or eat fresh. If that's too many I will freeze the rest. I love the Red Haven variety, amazing color and flavor-

Liquid sunshine! 

Ready for winter

Rack ready for canned pears soon!

Ripening in the kitchen, or squirrels will eat!

Nice pears soon and lots of them! 

From Farmersalmanac.com

2023 Winter Forecast?

Interesting forecast! Any signs of Autumn in your next of the woods???