A Feeling of Deja Vu

So here we are again, loading up the car with wood to attempt to shore up the main coop roof. Thankfully, the rain has held off for most of yesterday which means we could actually catch up on jobs at home for the first time in three weeks. However, lunchtime saw us jumping into the car to go back to Wickes.

As we have only one section of the roof that needs reinforcing, we bought a 3.6m cross beam and a shorter, 2.4m one as a backup. I know from long experience, it’s always a good idea to have an extra piece of wood. Too many times, I have had to trudge back to the shop to buy an extra pack of screws because I had thought that one pack would be plenty. Determined not to be in this situation today, I made sure we had over 2.5m of extra wood and half a dozen extra screws.

Back on the plot, my husband started to dismantle the remaining parts of the old greenhouse shield and the quail coop and loaded them into the car. I measured up the length of beam we needed. Armed with a rip saw, a drill and a handful of screws, I cut the beam, drilled holes and partially put in the screws. Once my husband had packed the car, he came into the coop and helped me secure the beams into place. After spending most of last Saturday doing this, we have this down to a fine art. Mere minutes later, two beams were up!

For good measure, I then decided to use the remaining wood to build two crossbeams on the last panel on the opposite side. Although this panel has two supports running perpendicular to the roof axis, there was a slight bowing. Knowing more rain is on its way, I repeated the process, putting up two small crossbeams.

With the entire roof now supported by new beams, I’m hopeful that the roof will survive the winter. The only area of concern are the apex panels which aren’t massively secure. But that’s a problem for another day!

The plan for the next few days is to clean out all the chicken coops. It’s a big job with so many to do and limited daylight I suspect I’ll need a full day to get them all done! The two big coops will take ages to dry but thankfully the Omlets are quick to sort. Catching the quail and putting them into the pet carrier is definitely the longest part of cleaning them out, putting them on par with cleaning out a chicken coop!