Despite being only ten degrees today it was sunny and, working in the lee of the house meant I was often overly hot. The adaptation of the guineapig run was not a fast job - particularly as I had to think through the problems as they arose - but it was finally finished at four this afternoon and the roosters moved in. How I will get them out is another matter entirely.

This is the hutch end - there is a door in the blue box that now has a draw bolt on it (previously it just stayed shut by will power). I have added timber frames at the midway point (previously the end of the run) and at the end. The one at the far end has a door in it also, for providing food and water (blue icecream container). As you can see, it was quite late in the day before it was ready for roosters to move in.

This is the bit of the orchard I have been working on clearing up. The tree on the right is actually the last tree I planted, but has taken off with a bang. Perhaps this is because it went in beside the spot where the geese used to camp, or perhaps it benefits from the concentrated water supply from the shed roof - who knows. It, along with the rest of the trees, failed to produce this year, but is usually overburdened with plums.

This is the other end of the coop - as you can see some aesthetic work still needs to be done to the wire etc, but i felt it was more urgent to get the chooks out of the small travelling box and into a bit more space. As you can see, the progress at this end of the yard is not quite so impressive, but at least the cleared sections are also devoid of humps, so moving the run around has been fairly easy - pulling rather than pushing seems to be the go. I left extensions on the top side bits so as to provide handles - these too need a little refining, but work well enough as they are. Certainly for the duration of these boys's stay they will be just fine.

All of this work meant I didn't get any wood cut for tonight which is a bit of a bummer as it is going down to minus two and seems to be determined to get their fairly fast if the nip in the air is anything to go by. But there should be enough to see me through to bedtime if I am careful.

At the critical juncture during construction a friend dropped in. Fortunately she is fairly handy herself so she was able to make some intelligent suggestions about how to get around the issue (all I needed was a clamp, and an extra pair of hands). She is planning to move into a cottage in Parattah but has first to sell her house - the present potential buyers have pre-approved finance and the price on the cottage is minimal so I don't anticipate any difficulties this time around (phew, this has been on-again, off-again for almost a year now). She will make a positive contribution to the village I think so I am rather looking forward to her joining our merry crew.