It's the boss's birthday at work today!

And I made a cake.

Sunday Ride

This Sunday we went for another ride around Claude's property.

The forecast had been calling for rainy, snowy, windy, crappy weather... and it did not disappoint. We had a snowy, rainy morning and when we were on the trail wind gusts were up to 50km/h! It was insane (and made the animals a little jumpy)!

Aside from a little hiccough right off the hop (mum and I rode over to "pick up" Claude and Tracey then came back towards our place to start the ride) when an INSANELY noisy dirt bike met us on the road and spooked the horses (mine was the best, Max turned around and flat out galloped back to Tracey and Claude's driveway!!) No one got hurt and we continued on our way a little more excited than we'd like, but on horseback nonetheless.

A couple hours on horseback, excitable or not, windy and cloudy, or sunny and warm, (it really doesn't matter to me) is ALWAYS better than a couple hours spent in the house.

The horses are in full shed mode right now so I am spending some quality brushing / shedding blade time with my man. It seems to have taken a while, but the horses are finally relaxing into the place (they should, they've been here over 4 months!), both of them had been laying in the hay in the bush the other day, sunning themselves while I was at work... Lucky buggers!

Coop Building!

So I told you I was working on the coop, I promised photos and I don't want to disappoint!

My floor, wall and a couple of door panels

Last time I left the coop (last week actually, I just got around to typing earlier today!) All I had was a floor and a bit of a wall framed, Saturday I got some REAL work done.

The primary building materials on this job are a thing we call door panels. What they really are, are when a steel door is made to have a window, the center is cut out to make room for the glass and what's left is a slightly smaller than standard door sized piece of Styrofoam that has steel on two sides. This is an insanely lightweight but freakishly sturdy building material that's super affordable!

By the end of Saturday, my framed wall had panels screwed to it, a second wall framed and the bottom lined with panels (ready for my windows), a third wall framed and paneled and the roof rafters in place. Talk about a busy day!

Pending weather today I'll be working again after the day-job on the coop, I sincerely hope to have it finished and home by the long weekend so I can figure out where it's to sit until the lawn is melted enough for it to find a permanent home (There's still a couple feet of snow covering the front lawn where I'd hoped to put it!).

I'm learning so much right now in the construction. Even though I'm not doing much of the hands on building, I feel like I'm gaining SO much experience that I KNOW I'll be using down the road (hopefully sooner than later!!).

The chickens will be here in less than 2 weeks!! It's crunch time!

It's coming along! (Very muddy and snowy there!)