Chicken coop to cold frame using recycled wood...

Have been dreaming about keeping chickens... 

For the last few weeks, was busy trying to hammer out a mini-mini chicken coop...

The re-cycled wood is sourced from the stone masons in the neighborhood...

This picture is a projection of the finished product...

There are two main, detachable components to it...

The bottom part is for the chickens to roam about in the day time...

The top component is for them to sleep at night...

I have yet to decide where to put the egg nest...

This was photographed mid-way through the construction...

My missus came by and commented, 'Ooh, those large gaps, the snakes will come in for the eggs'...

And being the 'clumsy carpenter' that I am... I scratched my head followed by two slaps on my forehead... thinking about how to close those gaps...

Took me a few more weeks to build, un-build, and re-build again...

This is supposed to be the end product... and I am quite sure that no wild animals (ferret, raccoon), bird of prey (Japanese kite) or snake can penetrate this cage... 

In the meantime, through my contacts with the Lions Club, the boss of a large chicken egg farm has agreed to offer us some chickens...

We ask for only two... yes, only two, for a start...

And I could not believe that he would take the trouble to come all the way to check out our environment... 

Apparently, Japan is serious on the prevention of the bird flu... and the boss of the chicken egg company wanted to make sure that there is no risk on my part with regards to the possibility of 'starting' or helping to spread the bird flu...

In other words, no free range chicken farming... too risky as the chickens will come into contact with the wild birds large and small...

He came one weekend, and was satisfied with the chicken coop or cage that I made...

'Your chickens will lay eggs everyday, because the environment is very good'...

I cheered silently... heeeyyyaaaahhh...

He suggested that we should get the 'Momiji' breed, which is developed by the Japanese farmers...

'Momiji' simply means 'maple', and is named so to reflect the reddish-orange feathers of the chicken...  

The chicks are still small now and he welcome us to visit his chicken egg farm around May...

May is still quite a long time from now..

So, why not convert the top part of the chicken coop into a cold frame to start some vegetable seeds for spring planting?

I did just that and immediately sowed over thirty types of vegetable seeds...

Now, I am thinking to make a larger 'hotel room' (the top component) for the birds to sleep...

And I have a few weeks to do that...

Recycling wood to make sheds...

For the past few weeks, had been spending time to construct 'sheds' to store firewood for our wood stove...
I use recycled wood sourced from wholesalers who import huge stones from abroad...

Am not too much of a 'skilled' person when it comes to these things...
Anyway, the above picture shows one of my newest 'masterpieces'...
Notice the 'shelves'?...

The 'shelves' facilitate more air flow, thus allowing the wood to dry better...
They also allow easier access to the wood especially those that are piled at the lower levels...

Prior to this, I had just piled up the wood, without the 'shelves', as shown above...
'Not very good', said my missus...
I certainly need to re-do this one later on...

Rained out on the weekend...

The raining season has just started...
Coincidentally, a typhoon was approaching and the combined effect was continuous rain for the last few days...
Went out to my potager and was surprised to find that water was vigorously running underneath the surface of one of the vegetable beds...
I hope that portion of the potager will not collapse... 

So, with the rain not stopping, what to do but to take pictures...
This is the scene from our hall, looking outwards to the garden...
It is just wet, wet, and wet... 

Being indoors also allowed me to do something that I had wanted to do for a while...
That is, to learn how to make muffins from my sweeto haato...
Under her supervision, this is my 'masterpiece' rum raisin muffin...
Made 10 of them and they taste really good... 

Also learned from my missus how to make cookies...
We use fresh rose geranium leaves from our potager..
They give out a fragrance just like the rose...
I shall be bringing these to my office to gnaw during the tea breaks...

As in almost all weekends, my request for lunch is noodles...
I am feeling hungry again as I hit the PC keys...
Definitely can't get this combination from anywhere in the world... 

Bought some more equipment for chopping wood for our wood stove...
A 3.6 kilogram hammer, two splitting wedges (1.5 kilogram and 1.0 kilogram)...
These come in handy for wood that are too 'stubborn' for the splitting maul to handle...
Was pleased to see DQ Farms buying the same axe as I did...

Outdoor toilet... masterpiece number two

We enjoy having friends coming over for potluck lunch parties.
Initially, we had them inside the house but I did not want to burden my missus with too much cleaning after the event.
So, I moved the event outdoors, onto the spacious dead-end part of the road just in front of our house.
I picked up a wooden table from the university, which was disposed off as rubbish, and it is just perfect for such events .
The table is probably 30 to 40 years of age and still very solid.
Problem was the toilet...
When we renovated the second floor, I kept the toilet bowl, knowing that one day it would come in handy.
From a stone wholesaler nearby, I picked up some wood which was used to hold the stones together during transportation.
From the tall reeds which I cut when clearing the field, I constructed the walls...
And hoola, my 'masterpiece' number two (see masterpiece number one here).
All from materials recycled, and 'free' of charge...

I sited the toilet at the furthermost south-eastern point of our potager.

The pond beyond is called Sasao Pond, and it makes a beautiful backdrop for the toilet, doesn't it?

In early May, we invited a bunch of friends over and put the toilet out for a test.
The ladies who used the toilet were quite thrilled (or too polite with their comments?)... said they, ' it was like a trip back to the olden days...
how nice it is, to answer the call of nature while enjoying the open sky and the green'...

'Call of nature' here refers strictly to only the 'small' one... I shall be making further improvements to this 'masterpiece'.... care for a test?   

My masterpiece wooden shelf

Heh heh heh... been taking advantage of the cold weather to work indoors... on wood, that is.
We renovated our second floor after we bought our property some years ago and I could not let myself see the 'old' wood being hauled away as debris.
We had them stored in a corner.
And, tadaaaa.... four years down the road, this masterpiece...

As a 13 year-old boy, I took a class called 'Industrial Arts' where the instructor taught us how to make a wooden book stand.
That was just about the only lesson I had on woodwork.
As an adult, I had made a shoe-rack, which turned out to be too rickety...
This shelf is by far the biggest woodwork project I have ever undertaken.
It is quite sturdy, and large enough to store our stuff.
Am now in the process of making some boxes from the left-over wood.
Boxes to store produce like onions and potatoes.