CATCH UP!!!

Sorry it has been so long! Life and a business trip have intervened with my blogging, but I am here to jump back on the wagon so to speak...
5 weeks ago, after we finished putting up the siding with the scaffolding, it was moving day for the girls. They were 5 weeks old and out growing their little tub in our extra room. So P, Mariah and I got up early and went down to the barn. We filled their feeder and their water, and threw new pine shavings down, (about 4" deep). I came up to the house to get them...my plan was to put them into one of our old dog kennels. I got the kennel, put a towel in the bottom, and started putting them in one by one with Mariah's help. A few tried to "fly the coop", but it only took about 15 minutes to get all 26 of them in there.
Our plan was to put them in their new coop and then continue working on the back of the barn for the day so we could monitor them. And everything went great! They huddled together for a little while, and I was afraid they wouldn't be able to find their new water....so I dipped a few beaks (I guess I shouldn't have done that at their age...) but I wanted them to know where it was at and to tell the others!!!
So we watched them for about 30 minutes, and then Mariah and Patty climbed up the scaffolding to paint the barn. There was no way it was going to be safe for the 3 of us to get on the scaffolding, so I pulled up a lawn chair and watched them. It looked like a Norman Rockwell painting...two girls painting a barn red...butt cracks peeking out over the tops of their jeans... And it was such a perfect day...the chickens in their new coop...my girls and me...a beautiful day, sun shining...and my dreams coming true seeing the barn turn a beautiful red. Patty kept complaining that the red looked pink, and Mariah managed to get the paint all the way up her brush, her hand and up to her wrist. Thats my girls. :) After the paint dried it was perfect barn red...( "Cherry Tart" at Home Depot).
They ended up painting the top half of the barn, we closed up the coop and returned the staging. Later that night, we both looked at the barn from our window. It was pitch dark, and we were both worried, but not wanting to admit it. We knew they were secure, and they had their heat lamp that was also secure... Wait...was that a flame? I cupped my hands to the sliding glass door and strained my eyes at the tiny orange glow which seemed to flicker in the black barn. I asked Patty if she could see it as I started to pull my jeans back on. We grabbed the binoculars (the barn is about 300 feet from the house,) and I located the orange glow. I called Mariah, (her young eyes are better than mine) to determine what the orange glow was in the barn. My only solace was that I had been staring at the barn for 5 minutes, and it hadn't erupted into flame....were they being abducted by aliens? Was somebody down there? I was about to walk out the door to go check on my children when Mariah and Patty said almost at the same time, "Isn't that the end of the extension cord? The cord you used to plug in the heat lamp?" Oh....I didn't want to go down to the barn anyway... :/
In the past 5 weeks, "The Girls" have grown tremendously. They know where their water and food are, they show off by jumping up on their 2nd and 3rd perches, and a few of them cluck now, but most of them still peep. We give them vegetable scraps, (they love tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries the most. They also love grapes, but we have to slice them in half because the skins are too tough for them to peck through.) A few weeks ago we gave them their first treat of cottage cheese which is suppose to be really good for them...It was gross to watch them try to scratch in it, but I imagine the cold felt really good between their toes? We also started them on grit. We give it to them in a separate feeder.
Next is the chicken run. It is 24 ft, (the length of the back of the barn) by 15 feet. It is going to be made of pressure treated posts which will be set in concrete, pressure treated lumber, a combination of horse fence and chicken wire, and will be fully enclosed with a slanted roof for rain/snow run off. Now I know this is excessive. Most people build their chicken runs with pallets, a couple branches and some wire. But this house and property was a junk yard when I bought it, and the last thing I want to see when I look at my barn is a pile of pallets and junk housing animals. So we are going the extra mile!!!