Here are the original plans

It's moving forward slowly, despite rain and distractions.

November’s almost upon us, and we can hear its chewing: Both teachers out, half the kids home sick. The leaves are being stripped from the branches, and underfoot the bright yellows and oranges are darkening into forest-floor compost. We stop and check with different neighbors, maybe lend a hand — but all you really do is stand beside them and respect that things are difficult. Flu’s going around, apparently, and chicken pox and pneumonia as well. And loneliness. That’s probably going around too, this falling-away season.

This photo was taken a couple days ago. We’ve actually made a bit of progress since, but I’ll post more photos tomorrow. I’m excited with the design we’ve come up with; it’s simple, but I think it’ll work really well. It’s not actually as much in the woods as it seems in this picture; it’s at the north side of our clearing, next to the garden, so it gets all the possible sunlight.

Our chickens were hatched on June 5, so they’re almost 5 months old. They’re currently spending their nights under a converted truck-bed canopy. (It’s been elevated slightly, and has roosting bars in it). But we can’t have trailer-park chickens during the cold weather, and also presumably the hens will start to lay in early spring and will need proper nest boxes.

We’re going to make a chicken yard attached to the chicken house where we’ll want some future garden beds to be. We also will continue to let them free range in the afternoons, so we have to fence in the garden. Chickens, it turns out, are crazy about cabbages. People who talk about letting the chickens into their garden to eat grubs must not grow any cabbages.