More and more free wood

[milkmansdaughter]

I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13:6)

We are so excited about all the free wood crates, and the extra wood inside, plus now the whole new load of wood. We spent the morning unloading the new wood, and the afternoon working on projects with the wood crates. I painted most of a big crate for a new raised garden bed, and M. and I spent the afternoon building a new henhouse/tractor for our 3 oldest hens. They still lay every once in a while, so they haven't earned the stew pot yet. We want them up by the garden, leaving the big run for our regular laying hens. We plan on making rabbit hutches this week too. And we just finished the rooster house this week. We bought paint (mistints), carpenter cloth, and nails. Oh, and two bolts, some hinges, and a handle, but that's about all. God has been good to us.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

Ugh! My pictures aren't loading tonight.
Garden bed, rooster house, and the beginning of the hen house (more pictures tomorrow)
And thanks for the compliment @goatgurl, but it was all free to us. It's great fun to be able to share. Plus, I've found that we tend to reap what we sow. I gave one neighbor free eggs, and she brought us tomatoes. Another neighbor brought us pears for eggs. And the man we want to help with the wood helped us get the free crates. Bartering and trading is alive and well here!

 

[baymule]

What a fantastic deal! That would have me hopping up and down, more fun than a Ferris Wheel! WHOO-HOO!!!! I love it that you spread the wealth. Adorable chicken coop, love it. I bet you could sell them on Craigslist!

 

[sumi]

What a blessing for you and your friends!

 

[Denim Deb]

God provides, though, doesn't He?
I love it when God does that in my life and He does it quite frequently, clear down to just little things we need and, lo and behold, He provides that little thing and it's just right for the purpose.

How true. A few years back, I needed 1 pickup load of wood to get me thru the rest of the winter, so I prayed about it. God not only provided that one load, but several more as well. I didn't have to worry about wood for the next winter either.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

We interrupted our hen house project (using one free source of wood) for a day to work on another free source of wood. We have pecan trees which are great for shade and pecans but terrible about randomly dropping branches, often still green and very large. So yesterday we dropped a big branch intentionally, and got it cut up, adding to our firewood pile. At some point we might just sell some pecan wood, or let someone come drop some trees and they can keep the wood. We just have to burn the leaves. (can't do it under the pecan trees, they don't like the ash. So that whole pile will have to be moved.)

Today we're expecting rain all day but we should be able to finish the hen house under the carport. We need a taller ladder soon to get to some of those other branches. The tree in the picture has dropped several BIG branches and we want to take it down completely. Those trees are TALL! Lots of work, but great wood for smoking meat!

 

[lcertuche]

The house we moved to has pecan and black walnut trees in the back yard. Every day I go out and pick up what's dropped.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Don't blame ya for trimming up that tree - looks like you've got a lot of things that could be damaged if it drops limbs or falls entirely! Pecan wood is so nice for smoking!

 

[milkmansdaughter]

Yeah, the first really big branch that fell was green. It looked completely healthy and fell right onto the shop. The logs cut from it are about a foot across. M has had a vendetta against pecan trees since then, that one in particular. We're afraid it'll fall on the chicken run.

So today I gave up on the idea of having a carport for the car. We work in there so often. So I organized the carport so we can get to things easily. (I should have this in the organizing the homestead thread...)
The big wood boxes were free. We have at least 10 more crates outside, bigger than these and more expected. I was running out of places to store them until we could get to them. So here's our work area(and several of our "works in progress")
Don't look too close. The paint job isn't the best, and nothing is completely straight, but we don't figure the chickens or plants will mind our mistakes. We're getting better as we go.

 

[sumi]

I would take those trees down entirely!

I love your wood box projects @milkmansdaughter. And wonderful score on those boxes!