100% Recycled Chicken Coop

As I sit here typing this I am hearing "Cockle-doodle-doo!" for the first time in almost 20 years and I couldn't be happier! Did you know in Germany their roosters say Ceekle-dee-dee (or something like that)? My German exchange sister taught us that many years ago, and I laugh whenever I think of it. I have always wondered how roosters know the proper language, but I guess they do somehow-Ha!

Tom and I have taken our recycling and repurposing to the extreme with this chicken coop. I know that not everyone has an old ranch with a few old junk piles dying to be repurposed, but everyone has friends that have some junk that they need to get rid of. Some of our lumber came from a neighbor, who was happy to get rid of some of his "trash".

Our tack shed for the llamas is an old six seater outhouse that was used in a different location for a conservation camp. It is very well built (Aah, the good old days!) and has really withstood the test of time and animals! We started our hen house by using recycled plywood and built a box attached to the side of the old outhouse and put a lid with hinges on it. This will make it easy to keep clean and allow for extra hours of sunshine for the chickens in the cold winter months. The roof of the house will work by a pulley system that Tom has laying around, but we ran out of steam, so a strong board to hold it open will work for this week. We then used old shelves taken out of a laundry room and turned them into nests by cutting them to size and simply screwing them together (simple for Tom anyway).

The yard is built with 2x4's and 2x6's that we already had (and borrowed from our great neighbor, Dan) and the posts are all 4x4's, again recycled. Tom is great at posts; he digs the hole and then wedges rocks in to keep the post upright and then buries it. His posts have also stood the test of time!!! We had chicken wire on hand because we had to wrap the pine trees in the llama pen so they would not kill them. The top of our tack shed was a great way to attach the wire and bring it down to the posts and then lower, to the ground. We left a couple of feet of chicken wire that we then buried, the number one defense against predators. We even went so far as to use the wire that held the chicken wire bundle together to "tie" all of the large pieces of chicken wire together every 8 inches or so, number two defense against predators, especially the flying ones!

While Tom built the door, I painted the hen house; red and white of course, to match the ranch house. The door is a frame of 2x4's with cross braces and chicken wire. We used a jigsaw to cut the door of the hen house out after I painted it so it would match the rest when we put a hinge on it to lock the chickens in at night.

As usual, we had the poor chicken before his house was done because he just had to find a new place to live! Working under pressure really gets a lot accomplished though. After a long day in a large dog crate, PW (Phillip William) was released into his new estate.

The pictures show the progression of our work, and the arrival of our rooster; we are hoping to get his girlfriends this week. That is Tom hard at work, and also my kids Nathan and Isabella (the blonde) with her friend Danielle. I'm wondering how Two Eagles worked his way into this photo shoot!!!

Good morning GreenSpot-On readers,  I decided to not cross post today, I wanted to let you all get to know me a little better.  This is a post from my blog Royal Ranch Green from the "Bottom" Up that I did last summer when we first got our chickens.  I think it is a great example as to how dedicated we are to running our ranch in an environmentally friendly way.  It is also a great way to get to know us and our critters!!!

Garden prep; moving into heirlooms

The growing season is short in my Wisconsin climate zone. I don't dare put in tomato or pepper plants until late May, usually Memorial Day. At the end of the growing season, when die-hard locavores are canning their salsa and preserving their heirloom seeds, I'm starting a new school year. I've used that timeline as an excuse to plant only mass-produced garden center seedlings for years. This year, I'm branching out.

I planted seeds for broccoli, two tomato varieties, and several herbs, using the handy dandy cardboard egg cartons. These will ultimately biodegrade into the soil as the plants grow in their garden homes. The other containers are from Chinese take-out food; they're plastic, so I'll have a little more work to transplant the herbs inside as they grow.

The tomatoes and broccoli are organic heirloom varieties. I took the step of labeling each packet. Sounds simple, yes, but I rarely bother when I'm only planting Best Boys and Early Girls. This year, it's important. I'll be preserving the seeds from the yellows and the pepper-shaped paste tomatoes, so I must know what they are!

I also noted the source of the seeds. The broccoli and the yellow tomatoes came from Hometown Seeds as part of their variety pack. The paste tomatoes were a gift from City Slipper, host of Small Kitchen Garden. I'm looking forward to seeing, eating, and cooking with these exciting new additions to my garden!

Leave No Trace

Royal Mountain (Sept '09)

The Royal Ranch sits right at the base of two beautiful trail heads in Bailey, CO.  A hiker can climb Mt. Rosalie, Mt. Logan and can even reach the Mt. Evans Wilderness from our neck of the woods.  There are two spectacular campgrounds that Tom and I manage in the summertime that ironically enough I used to camp at when I was a kid just a mile from the house here.  So, needless to say, we can always tell when "Spring Fever" has hit by the amount of traffic passing by, and with the warm weather this past weekend here in Colorado, Spring has Sprung!

This has gotten me to thinking about all of the visitors headed our way, and to be honest, all of the trash that is headed our way.  We have some of the best visitors around, I must tell you, but even the best tend to forget a few little items.  The top three offenders on my list are cigarette butts, twisters and straw wrappers from juice boxes.  Yup, tiny little offenders, but boy do they add up!

So, as you are headed out the door on your first or second or any spring picnic, think about using reusable drink containers and don't forget a good trash receptacle.  A lot of picnic grounds are still officially closed until after Memorial Day, so you may have to haul out your own trash.  Double and triple check your site before you leave, and make sure there is no trace of your visit.  The less impact you leave, the better it is on the environment which leaves it just as beautiful for the next time you come to visit!  Oh lord, and don't forget the camera to take pictures of all the wonders of nature!!!

Our new school wellness coordinator is my kind of person: she's a green fiend. One of her newsletter recommendations has been a New Food of the Month. She suggests a fresh food that might be new to some, tells us why it's good for us, and gives a little more information about it. This month's fabulous food was something that's poking its little green leaves and little red stems above the ground next to my garage: You guessed it! Rhubarb!!

The Northern U.S. and Canada are well suited for rhubarb production. Lovely and tart, rhubarb is one of the first spring fruits to make an appearance. Rhubarb looks like stalks of pinkish green r even magenta celery. Its flavor, however, is much more tart, making it ideal company for sugar in sweet dishes like crisps and pie. It is also commonly used in jams or sauces, mixed with a sweeter fruit like strawberry or raspberry. The stalks can be boiled down to a consistency similar to applesauce. In addition to desserts and various sauces, rhubarb is used in soups, salad dressing, muffins, and other sauces like relish or salsa. Rhubarb is also enjoyed as an affordable sweet treat by simply dipping the raw stalks in sugar. With a longer growing season, April-September, rhubarb can be enjoyed all summer long in a variety of dishes. Rhubarb leaves are inedible and poisonous, though the toxicity levels are very low. The leaves do, however, decompose fully so they can be added to your compost pile without harming the soil.
Rhubarb is 95% water, is rich in Vitamin C and fiber, and is a good source of potassium.

Some of that I knew, and some I didn't. But I do know that I'm looking forward to baking and cooking with rhubarb as soon as it's ripe and ready for picking. Mmmm... rhubarb upside down cake....

Royal Ranch's First Post

Wow!  You'd think I was planning to write a piece for the Washington Post or The New York Times with as nervous as I've been about this post.  Not actually nervous, anxious is a better word I would say.  I have to give you a little background here; I am an environmental mountain hillbilly, and darn proud of it.  My very first attempts at blogging were not quite a year ago and I did not start out like most people and start reading and commenting on blogs.  No, I jumped right in and started my own.  Why, you ask?  Because I have a lot to say, of course!

No really,  I have thought and thought about what my first post to GreenSpot-On is going to be about, I mean this is a big deal.  This fantastic blog that is dedicated to everything I believe wholeheartedly in is going nationwide!  Now, I may be a little slow when it comes to the world wide web thing, I get that the internet reaches the entire world, but when a blog has authors from all over the nation, I think that's pretty cool!

So, that's where I decided to start.  Since most of the current authors are from that lakeish (spell check doesn't speak mountain hillbilly?  Odd.)  part of the country,  I want to introduce the readers to the fantastic Rocky Mountains.  I am a native Coloradan, second generation, which is quite rare.  My husband and I have a commercial llama outfitting company that gives us ample opportunities to  take some really great pictures, so I thought I'd share some of those with you.  You can read my bio, on the right side bar to learn more about me, but I'm sure we'll get much better acquainted soon, I love feedback.

Me and my llama string

Meridian Trail (our favorite)

Rocky Mtn. Big Horn Sheep

Colorado Columbine

Ruby Throated Hummingbird

Signs of Spring at the Daisy Household

Tiny little rhubarb sprouts poking their heads out of the ground...

The rain barrels are ready; bring it on, Mother Nature!

And digging for gold, this adorable little creature -- hey, wait a minute. This squirrel doesn't belong in my new tomato patch! Out! Out! Oh, dear. I really need a fence. Honey, do we have any more chicken wire?