Stoopid Chickens

Life as a chicken can be brutal.  One of our baby chickens had died before it had ever had a chance to see the sky, found dead 'neath the predatory foot of a hungry and overly inquisitive Labrador.  Another, after toiling day and night to find freedom, found only her own doom, a pathetic pile of feathers in the back yard the only proof of prematurely prevented poultry potential.
But life goes on, and eggs ain't getting any cheaper.  Of the 5 chickens purchased, only 3 remain alive and only one of them is female.  Though this may be the ideal set up for a chicken p0rn film, it does not represent the efficient egg-producing scenario desired by the chicken's human overlords.  This meant we had to re-stock on chickens which was the mission of the weekend past.
When selecting which breed of chickens to raise we employ a rigid list of selection criteria which can be listed as follows:
        1) the more stupid looking, the better.

A Stupid Looking Chicken

Hence we decided upon two female Silkie's, a breed that has been developed by professional poultry wranglers through hundreds of years of selective breeding, all culminating in a chicken that looks as stupid as possible. They met our requirements perfectly. They were a little larger than our current Seabrite bantams but we were assured they would not present a problem when we incorporated them into the general population section of the coop.  However, like a fat kid at a school dance, the new chickens were relegated to the corner and initially they were largely ignored by the other chickens.

Checking out the new crib

Up until now, we had assumed that "Robocop" was ruling the roost.  However with the introduction of the new chickens it would appear that his Alpha Chicken status has been usurped by a hitherto un-named white Seabrite, whom I shall henceforth refer to as "Arnold".  After a few minutes of investigative sniffing and pecking, Arnold decided that he had the new-comers number and would take to charging directly at them.  The Silkies didn’t seem particularly perturbed by this behaviour.  Julian later banished them from the sleeping quarters and stood guard at the entrance to the poultry boudoir, a curious strategy since it meant that the only chickens who had access to food and water were the recent arrivals.  Not the brightest of Seabrites, that one.

Arnold (seen here dressed in white) preparing to charge

Will Arnold remain king of the coop?  Or will he fall prey to the Machiavellian machinations of the Silkies and their alluring head-mop's?  Or perhaps Robocop will rise up to take his rightful place on the throne?  One thing is for certain : for our little chicken empire, THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

Chicks Gone Wild

The last time I mentioned anything about the chicken coop project was back in February of this year (Click here to refresh your memory).  Well, finally the day has arrived for the grand unveiling.  Having chickens in your loungeroom is quite a novelty for a few days but as they slowly get older and more rowdy it becomes clear that they are not ideal indoor pets.

This is how the chicken coop appeared in February:

Concreting some posts into the ground

Some more of the framework

My beautifully crafted door

The end product, all wired up

The main difficulty was in using nothing other than the old, rotting timber we already had laying around from the previous chicken coop (that I demolished circa 2007) which I think was built in the 60's.  The selection of timber available to me largely dictated the design.  I had to take into consideration the possibility that our dogs would do everything in their power to tear the chickens apart, especially seeing as our Labrador had already gotten to one that foolishly escaped the cage in our lounge room. Consequently, this thing is built like a tank.  As it turns out, the dogs don't seem to be the least bit interested in the chickens at all.

So, of the 5 chickens we started with, one was KIA, two appear to be roosters ("Robocop" and "Hawaiian Pack"), one is female and the other one is, I think, a hermaphrodite.  

Here are some videos I shot of the chickens being released into the wild, the first time they have ever been outdoors.  The first thing they did was run straight indoors.  I haven't vetted these videos (i.e. I haven't seen them yet) so I take no responsibility for...anything.

Installing Windows

The title of this entry is a lot more clever than you might think.  You see, on the weekend that I did this work, not only did I install Windows 7 Ultimate on my file server, but I also built and literally installed a window in my bedroom.  See, clever huh?

Before you get excited, the window work was a lot less grand than you may expect from a master craftsman like myself.  You see, I have yet to decide if it is permanent.  Allow me to explain.  When I installed the air conditioners in our bedrooms it was necessary to board up the areas surrounding the air conditioner units.  In the master bedroom this was not a problem because the room has two windows, but in my bedroom there was only the one window.  This meant ventilation was greatly curtailed (to zero), unless I used the noisy a/c unit to provide fresh air.

So a window was needed.  Originally I was just going to install a hinged wooden panel which would have been cheap, easy and quick.  Naturally, I like to make things a lot more difficult so the project evolved and expanded in scope.  Eventually I reigned in my grand ambitions a little and settled on a small square hinged perspex window.  It seemed a decent compromise between a much more involved job and a throwaway temporary job.

The four sides of the window frame, sitting on my home made router table.

The profile of each piece, showing what the router was used for.  As I always say, you would not believe the time and effort that went into this:

The perspex in place in the assembled frame.  The perspex was a $5 off-cut that I got from a local store.

The window on the right, and the flyscreen on the left which will be affixed on the exterior side of the timber panel:

Traditionally this is where I would put the final photo of the project demonstrating how well it all came together.  I am not going to do that this time, mainly because it did not all go together well.  What happened is that when I built the flyscreen I made it identical in size to the window.  This was a big mistake, since it needed to be about 2 inches larger in order to conceal all the staples and fixings I had used to construct it.  The upshot of all this is that it looks completely ratshit and I don't want anyone seeing it.  It will do the job I needed it to do but it just didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.  I console myself with the knowledge that I will be re-installing the original window sometime next year if I decide to upgrade the air conditioner.  Otherwise I may re-build the entire thing.

Suffering for my art:

The new dog snuggling up with Milly prior to Milly going to her new home with Carrie's Aunt:

Ceiling...Thing (I'm a bit low on inspiration for the title of this entry)

I have a confession to make.  My bedroom is pink.  No, not just the walls, not just the skirting boards.  The ENTIRE god damn room, including the ceiling.  The same is true of our kitchen, but I'll save that for another day.  It is yet another reason I want to hunt down the previous owners and, well, kill them.

Needless to say, a man of my stature cannot have a room that looks like it is straight out of Barbie's Fashion Fairytale Party Palace, so something had to be done.  As you may have guessed, that "something" was painting.

I have lived in a pink bedroom for four years, proof that you can get used to pretty much anything

...and below is...a white ceiling.  Bet you haven't seen one of those for a while.  Bet you're glad you visited my blog now eh?

Being the middle of Canberra's winter meant that the paint actually took well over a week to dry, despite using the heater to help things along.  This meant that I was reluctant to start painting the walls until it gets warmer.  I am hoping to get the walls done sometime September or possibly November.  I am still undecided on color schemes though I am leaning towards something exiting, such as manly beige.

And now, some dog photos, in a futile attempt to save this entry from being 100% tedious.

Meg, being cute.  Coz thats how she rolls.

Meg and Milly working on their Ying/Yang impression.  They never quite got it right.  Since this photo was taken we have upgraded Milly to a better dog who's name varies between any of the following: Ringo, Mango, Bosco, Rosco, Risotto and Placebo.  Oh, and Bob, Meathead and Dufus.

I am sure photos of the new dog will appear somewhere in my blog sometime soon.

Odds and Ends

Well it is Easter which not only means a long weekend, but this year will be an extra long 5-day weekend.  Naturally this means a bit of renovation work.  I am finally beginning to work on the drainage for our property which is long over due.  Our house is located halfway down a hill which means a lot of the rain that falls further uphill naturally ends up flowing over, and under, our property.  This is further exacerbated by the fact we have  large open back yard that is just sitting there waiting for rain.  The end result is that we get more than our share of water.

For various reasons I am not going to document the phases of the drainage that I am currently working on, so I have instead decided to finally document some other jobs that have hitherto slipped under the radar.

We had another curb side garbage collection so I took the opportunity to unload some crap.  As you can see there were two TV sets included in said crap, both of which were fully functioning.  One of them was my 80cm flat screen CRT TV that in 2005 cost me $1350.  Not only was I unable to sell it, I couldn't even give it away (believe me, I tried).  Even the Salvos didn't want it.  The end result - a perfectly functioning 80cm wide flat screen TV dumped on the curb to go to the tip.  Kinda sad, I can remember being very happy with it, but when you have a household of two people and you have six TV's, some of them have to go.

We got the usual assortment of curb crawlers checking out our stuff (who would later return at night to take stuff under the cover of darkness, like we gave a shit).  I was certain someone was going to take the tv and had the remote ready to hand over if anyone asked for it, but no one touched it and instead chose to take the broken clothes drier and other stuff that I can't remember.  It was kind of funny, each morning I would get up and there would be something missing but I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

After the big clean up I was able to make the front porch a little more presentable and even arranged our dead and dying pot plant collection.  Three years and 189 dead pot plants later and we have figured out that cacti are the way to go.

Over the 2010 Xmas holidays I also installed a couple of small air conditioners ("windows rattlers") in each of our bedrooms.  I went with small Kelvinator KWH20HRB's which would be powerful enough for our bedrooms and are also quite energy efficient.  They are also reverse cycle.  The main unit is removable from the chassis, simplifying installation but it still ended up being a bigger job than I expected (as usual).

The A/C chassis located in the window:

Brackets are not supplied with the units so installers are left to fabricate their own solutions.  Due to our protruding window sills, fifty year old window frames and cement-board cladding this ended up being quite time consuming, especially when attempting to maintain a 5 degree declination as required to enable condensation to drain.

Like peas in a pod.  The area surrounding the A/C's is boarded up and painted to match the rest of the house exterior.  A butt-load of silicon later and it is all weather-proofed !

We chose the smaller units because although a split system cost around the same and would be far more effective and quiet, the installation cost would result in more than doubling the price.  Also, split systems cannot be installed by a DIYer due to the use of refrigeration gasses.  I don't think I would recommend the units we bought as they are louder than I had expected and although I have slept through the night with it operating it is less than ideal.  I think that in a few years time I will have to shell out for a split system but in the meantime the window rattlers will suffice.

The last time I mentioned the chicken coop project, it looked like this:

I am doing a little work on it each weekend, and it is currently looking like this:

Yesterday we went and bought 50 metres of chicken wire, so that will be enough to cover the chicken coop, Vegetable Patch 2.0 AND Doggy Alcatraz 2.0 (the latter two projects still being in the planning stages).

And here is Meg, just coz:

So I haven't been posting much, not because I am not doing much but because I am doing lots of little things.  I hope to finish the chicken coop over the easter weekend so I am sure you will be waiting with breath bated for the grand unveiling.  Stay tuned.

Airing My Dirty Laundry in Public

Our house has a dirty little secret.  The Laundry.  It's filthy.  Actually, I don't think the word "filthy" does it justice...

The Problem:
The floor in our laundry consists of a concrete pad, covered with linoleum which in turn is covered in adhesive vinyl floor tiles.  God only knows the vintage of the various components, but they had to go...

Hmmm, it doesn't look to bad from this distance...

The problem with this flooring scenario is as follows : any water on the floor seeps under the cracks in the tiles on the surface.  It then seeps under the lino through the joins.  The end result : Water gets trapped between the lino and the concrete, and between the tiles and the lino...

Cracks in the tiles.  The old lino can be seen underneath:

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the laundry also serves as an after hours toilet for our canine friends..

Canine Friends - they look cute when they are not pissing all over your house:

There were also other issues with the old flooring...

This is where the old hot water heater used to be.  It sprung a leak about 3 months after we bought the house.  You can imagine how pleased we were:

My weekends are sometimes so action filled, even I can't handle it:

Walking through the laundry you would hear the floor squelching with each step.  Also, brown liquid would be pushed to the surface as you walked, and you would be treated to a noxious odour usually reserved for abattoirs.

The Solution:

We decided the whole lot had to come up and be replaced with some new flooring.  It would either have to be new linoleum or floor tiles (real ones, not adhesive ones).  Due to simplicity, budgeting and water-proof-ness, we decided on new linoleum.  

First step was to empty the laundry of appliances.

Our empty laundry.  It looks so...empty:

I used a shovel to lift up the lino and scrape up the easy stuff.

It was at this point I started to gag.  I had to concentrate to avoid vomiting and contributing to the mess.  The black stuff is mould, the other stuff is just slime...slime that is older than me.  It smelled like  used baby nappies that have been left in the sun for a week.  I think inhaling that stench may have shortened my lifespan:

The scraping continues, but everything is damp which makes it even harder to, erm, scrape:

Finally, all the flooring is up, now all that is left is the old adhesive, slime and mould:

An hour's worth of scraping, but the shovel just wasn't up to the job.

It became obvious to me that the shovel was the limiting factor in the equation and it was time to get serious.  I could have bought a floor scraper from Bunning's but they cost around $30, or as I like to think of it, a carton of Carlton Cold so there was no way I was going to spend that kind of money (on a floor scraper at least).  I would have to come up with an alternative solution on my own.

There is a line between a "tool" and a "weapon".  This weekend I believe I crossed that line...I call it "The Scrape-inator" !

I had been tempted to give it a wider blade, but I figured that the more narrow the blade, the more force would be exerted per unit width of the blade.  My theory proved to be correct, which is usually the case.

Built with the precision of the finest British Engineering:

The Scrape-inator, kicking arse and taking names...or something.  The red area is the painted concrete that I just scraped:

Several hours worth of scraping.  I stopped when I was loosening more concrete than crap (such is the power of the Scrape-inator)

After ripping up all of the old flooring I found a semi-circle shaped hole in the wall filled with concrete and dirt, reminiscent of those mouse holes you see in Tom and Jerry cartoons.  

Mouse hole?  Or something more  sinister?  I pushed a stick through it to see where it lead:

Turns out, it was the drainage hole.  See the toothpick-like stick?  Thats the other end of the stick in the photo above:

So not only did they fill the drainage hole with concrete, they also rendered over it.  This is the kind of thing I am becoming used to with our house.  It certainly explains why our laundry floor spent most of it's life submerged.  It's like the whole place was built by the work experience kid.  Fortunately, my skills and experience rival that of a professional builder and I am addressing these issues one at a time.

Not even concrete is a match for my mighty rotary drill with chisel attachment.  That's daylight you can see there - SWEET!!!:

Thats more like it!!! :

I smothered the entire area in clear silicone, so that any water attempting to leave the laundry will only ever contact lino, metal pipe or silicone.  Yay for dry masonry !!!!

Whenever doing DIY projects like this they say that prep is the most important part.  I find that it is also the most tedious part.  I had reached a point at which I declared that the prep was "good enough".  It was time to start cutting lino.

Canberra, apparently, is suffering a lino drought.  I spent much of the day driving around trying to find 2m wide lino that was cheap enough for this project.  1.8m lino could be had for as little as $7 per metre, but our laundry is 1.85m wide and I also wanted enough to go up the walls an inch or two in order to maximise waterproof-ness so I needed 2m wide.  Also, I was firmly against the idea of having joints in our lino, since joints in the old flooring largely contributed to the problems we were trying to correct.

The only option was some faux-tile lino from Bunnings in Tuggeranong which was quite cheap and could actually pass for genuine tiles (for vision impaired people, anyway).  

As it turns out, I had made a rod for my own back.  The cutting of the lino was greatly complicated by two factors:

1. I wanted the lino to go up the walls an inch or two, meaning the lino would always be larger than the room I was putting it into.
2. I wanted the lino to be one single piece with no joints.

Until you actually attempt to do this you would not appreciate the difficulties that these stipulations impose.  Point #1 means that you can't lay the lino out properly until you have cut around all the obstacles in the room, BUT you can't cut around the obstacles in the room until you lay it out properly.  It was a classic Catch 22 situation, which can be circumvented by cutting the room in half and using a join, but that compromises point #2 - waterproof-ness and defeats the whole purpose of the project.  Just to make it even worse the lino had a regular straight line patern printed on it (tiles), meaning that the orientation of the lino also had to be considered.  You need the pattern to be parallel to the walls or is just looks shit.

I got around these issues by taking an iterative approach - cut a little, re-position lino, cut a little, and so on.   This was complicated by the fact that it is very difficult to adjust the position of lino that you are standing on.  It was a major hassle and gave me a whole new respect for whatever poor bastard laid the lino throughout the rest of our house.  

Anyway, the end result of everything I have been crapping on for the last few paragraphs can be summarised with one photo:.

Yeah, what the hell do you do with this?  I mean SERIOUSLY!!!

Between these two photos I spent like 30 minutes just looking at it and trying to figure out what I was going to do.  It was like some kind 3D puzzle.

After a lot of thought and cutting and adjustment, it looks slightly less crap:

Once I got the lino cut out correctly it was time to start applying adhesive.

The second half of the gluing process.  I made sure the edges had a generous dose of adhesive:

I ran out of adhesive and had to buy a second litre.  Going by the coverage advertised on the container our laundry is around 12 square metres in size, rather than the 5.76 square metres my tape measure reported...

The end result:

The before and after shot.  Click on it for a large-view.  I think it lacks the impact it has when you are within smelling range:

The Bottom Line:

So all in all I am pretty happy with the end results.  What I have effectively done is given our laundry floor a huge condom and it is free to have sex with whomever it pleases, if you see what I mean (like, it doesn't have to worry about any fluids, get it?).

Most of what you read about laying lino suggests that you use a roller to compress the lino.  I didn't bother, since I doubt a roller would have been the ideal solution.  The irregularities and bumps of our concrete floor would have meant that a roller would not have compressed the lino as effectively as walking around in a pair of rubber crocs, which is exactly what I did.  By walking around on the lino every 5 minutes or  so after laying it, any bubbles in the lino were removed because the adhesive becomes more tacky over time.
Also, I would recommend that if it is your first time to lay lino that you avoid patterns with straight lines (such as fake floorboard prints, tiles etc), since this adds another aspect that you need to consider (ensuring the lino goes down in a way that keeps the print parallel to the walls).  I think I got lucky in this respect.

Update
Several months later and "minor" bubbles have appeared.  I have two theories for this.  Firstly, it is possible that the concrete was not clean enough.  Given that I had spent most of a day scraping the crap and old adhesive off, I was not going to spend another minute trying to get it cleaner.  My second and preferred theory is that I was too stingy with the adhesive.  I was trying to get my cheapo container of adhesive to last for the whole job but there was no way I was ever going to achieve this.  In hindsight I think I should have just bitten the bullet and bought two pots of the expensive Dunlop adhesive as it's superiority was obvious the instant I began to apply it.  I believe that using it more generously would have prevented the bubbles I am now seeing.

Having said all that the job was always going to be a stopgap measure and it will still achieve the desired effect (waterproofing and beautifying the laundry floor).  In think that in a year or two I will rip it all up and lay proper floor tiles which will not only be a more enjoyable job but also, I suspect, actually easier to do.