Normally, we do our hygeine run on Sundays. This week, we really needed a workday, and as we choose not to work on Saturdays, we did the run yesterday, and got to work this morning, earlyish.

We really need to get the chicken run finished. The birds have been stuck inside for FAR too long, and with SkyFalling (our rooster) being Spring-Mad and nasty, we cannot clean the pen out with him inside. They need to go OUT. The fence had been lacking a couple support posts, so first order of business was replacing one badly leaning pole and adding another two. The last time we installed posts, we simply had sharpened posts and a heavy hammer. This time, we had the manual auger, and WHAT a difference that makes! Our soil is fairly soft clay, and the auger chewed through it with a minimum of effort.

Once the posts were in, and the fencing stapled in place, since we already had the auger going anyway, we drilled the holes for the clothesline poles and got those in place. I had a package of the Silco expanding foam post-base, so that was kind of fun. Messy, but fun.

Next job: chicken pen GATES. We have to think ahead to when the goats are here, too, so the gates need to be strong. Good hefty hinges, cross-bracing (yet to happen), etc.

One gate is fully installed (short a latch), one is framed and has the hinges on, but we didn’t get the wire onto it. I’ll do that tomorrow or the next day, depending on how my pain level is, and then we can get it up and installed, too.

And I said it was a big day, right? Well, for our little off-grid dirtpatch, it is.

We’ve been here for a bit over a year and a half, now, with no refrigeration. We’ve managed, with your basic Coleman cooler and bags of ice, but now we have an actual, real, propane-powered refrigerator. It is very small, but as I said, we’ve exclusively used a cooler, which certainly isn’t large. And ice was costing us $240/month in the warm weather. This will be about 1 tank of propane (around $30) per month. Even with the cost of the unit itself, it will pay for itself in one warm season.

Our final job for the day was to build a platform for the fridge to stand on, so we can reach into it easily.

We know we CAN get along without refrigeration, but we have definitely lost food over the last year and a half, and I hate having to throw out/bury food that certainly wasn’t cheap to aquire. Better than food poisoning, of course, but still suboptimal. We’re moving up in the world of luxury!