Finishing Up the Week at Hawken Farm

My senior project is with Allie, Nate and Liam to build a fully functional farm capable of housing chickens and growing vegetables. On the first day, I scouted out the area in which we had to work and made rough sketches of how where I wanted the beds, composing bins, and chicken coop to go. Me and Nate then made a materials list for the chicken coop and wrote down measurements of every piece of wood that we were going to use. I called the lumber yards and reserved our order, which Nate and Liam went to pick up the following day. I read in the afternoon about permaculture and how to make the garden as yielding as possible.

The next day, I worked with Allie on the layout of the garden, staking out beds and where the chicken coop would go (she thought it was going to be too small!). Nate and Liam dropped off the wood, which Nate and I cut into the appropriate sized pieces to begin building the coop with. We also bought all of the hardware (screws, hinges, etc.) at the local hardware store.

We began to build the coop on Wednesday, beginning with the posts. We build the frame partially indoors and trucked it out to garden where we fastened it into the ground with a simple concrete foundation. Nate and I spent a lot of time meticulously leveling every board on the frame to make sure that the coop came out absolutely perfect. We had to run back up to the hardware store to get more brackets.

Allie brought in the chickens yesterday, which turned into a major event. I spent a lot of my time playing with the chickens and naming them. However, I also stained the walls of the coop and fastened them in, along with the floor and roof. I did some more thought on the gardens and the placements of the beds, drew up more sketches, etc.

Hopefully today we can finish up the chicken coop!