Welcome to my blog, where a 30-something couple from the UK renovate and extend an old cottage, build some outbuildings, raise some hens and grow firewood trees and vegetables on our Acre in Hampshire. It's a bit like a smallholding but without too many animals, so we call it a homestead - living within our means, relying on ourselves and having a wonderful life!


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Saturday 12 July 2014

Chicks and Pegs

Tomorrow may be D-Day for our chicks - we currently have five fertile eggs donated by one neighbour under a broody hen loaned by another neighbour, in a chicken run and being fed by a third neighbour! Not wishing to tempt sod's law, we dashed to Scats for a bag of Chick Crumb - I had a feeling that if we hadn't bought any, they would have arrived on Sunday morning when the store was closed! Fingers crossed - we may have some new arrivals this weekend!


























I also started on the first bit of work for the Barn - I've done a lot of prep work, but this is the first time I've worked on actual components of the barn. Starting with the smallest parts, I made 48 blanks for the oak pegs that will hold the structure together. I estimate I need about 150 - so a few more to go! They will need planing into octagons and tapering yet - but this feels like a real start to the project...

2 comments:

  1. Good luck with your chicks! As for the oak pegs we used to have a piece of 3/4inch steel with a hole in. We'd then drive a square peg through a round hole to get our pegs out. You'd have to drive them through with a sledge hammer but it worked!

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  2. Kev, that was a method we tried on the course I attended - I was sceptical when the technique was explained, but it did work well. Quite a lot of work afterwards to smooth the pegs with a spokeshave though...

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