Bernie Rocks, Nest Box, Sawmill, and Spiny Things
September 26th, 2009A while ago, The Chicken Whisperer announced he would be giving away a 2-Hole Nest Box to a lucky winner on one of his radio shows. Exactly this 2-Hole Nest Box, in fact. I showed Bernie the picture and asked “Do you think you could make me one of those? They even have the dimensions listed there.” He looked at it a few minutes and, in a very non-committal tone mumbled “Um. Yea. Probably.”
Friday morning was rainy and chilly, and while I was working Bernie walked back to my office and said “I’ll be out in my shed for a while”. Just after lunch he came in and asked me to come out to shed to see what he had been working on. Imagine my joy when I saw this:
I was tickled to death! It was absolutely perfect! With the exception of one, minor detail.
Bernie decided the 2-hole nest box on the webpage I showed him just looked too small. So, in keeping with his belief that bigger is better, he built this particular nest box large enough to house pterodactyls. Two. Very. Large. Pterodactyls. The next box was so deep, that it would not fit in the one spot I had available for it in the coop. It poked out so far into the coop that I would not have been able to get inside the door.
So, this morning, Bernie and I spent an hour or so rebuilding his beautiful nest box. We whittled it down to something a little more, um, reasonable. And now the 2-hole nest box is the perfect size for my chickens, and my coop.
It’s still larger than the one I had shown him, but it’s absolutely perfect and fits exactly in the space I had in mind for it.
Tomorrow I’m going to hang some curtains over the nest box openings for my hens. They really like their privacy.
And the best part? It was virtually free. He used leftover pieces of OSB and lumber he milled with his sawmill. Beautiful, functional, and dang near free! Lordy, I do love that man.
Speaking of sawmill, Bernie had a neighbor over earlier in the week to saw up some cedar logs. It was a drizzly day, so I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures, but I did get a few to share.
They squared up the log and then stood around measuring and mumbling about the size of boards they were going to cut.
Our neighbor had never used a sawmill before, and he was more than happy to learn how.
Look at that baby go.
And just look at that beautiful cedar board.
The whole yard smelled like cedar. It was heavenly.
You may remember that I make and sell home made soap. Well, for months I have been trying to get nice pictures of my soap for my Penny Lane Bath Products website, to no avail. If I knew how to properly use my fancy schmancy camera, I would not have this issue. But that’s a different story for a different time.
I decided the answer to my nice-soap-picture dilemma would be a light box. And while flipping through a sale magazine that landed in our mailbox, I found one that I thought would be perfect. It was inexpensive and came with free shipping, so I ordered it. I tested it this morning, and I’m pretty pleased.
Putting it together was a whole different story. It did come with instructions, but my Chinese is a little rusty.
And yes, there are English words sprinkled around in there. But, trust me, I was much better off trying to read the Chinese.
And by the time I got to this:
I knew there was no way those instructions were going to help assemble this light box.
So I looked at the picture on the box it came in which, by the way, did not even slightly resemble the picture on the instructions, and started putting it together. Fortunately, there are not many pieces and it ended up resembling a box. So I declared it a victory and now consider myself the proud owner of a nice light box.
I’ll certainly heed the warnings to not shake and fall down the light at work. And I’m always careful with my spiny thing. Thank you, Chinese-to-English-Translator. But you may want to lay off the booze while working.
Tags: 2-hole nest box, light box, sawmill
September 26th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Ah….I *love* men who LOVE their wives! You’re a good man, Bernie! My Jim is outside right this moment, on top of the chicken run, extending the rain roof for my babies…just to make his wife happy. That’s a wonderful looking nest box! Curtains? snort. I like my privacy, too.
Those instructions *cracked* me up. They must use the same translator as the one we used the other day when we were trying to speak Korean (or was it Vietnamese?) to each other.
:-)
September 26th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Danni - YAY for men who love their wives and the never ending coop job!!!! Oh, and it was Vietnamese. You were using a translator???? *snort*
September 26th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
You are so lucky to have a talented man. His sawmill is interesting looking.
How true that is about instructions - although I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any that bad. Congratulations on getting it put together without “falling down the light”.
September 26th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
ROFL…that English translation is horrible!
I love to watch men and power tool…BIG power tools in this case. Great, great job on the nest boxes, handy men who love their wives are simply the best! Kim
BTW, went and looked at your soaps, do you have ingredients anywhere?
September 27th, 2009 at 5:48 am
SVB - It’s funny. Bernie was a computer guy in his past life. When we moved to the homestead, he began building things he never thought he could build. Even now, I tell him what a wonderful job he does, and he poo-poos it. I agree with you and think he is very talented. And it just thrills me that he will tackle just about anything and do a great job at it.
Kim - I really need to get the pictures taken of all the different products, but yes, the ingredients are listed below each soap’s description - just click the “More Details” link.
September 27th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Very funny, gotta watch those spiny things. Don’t think it is covered under Workmans Comp.
Picture turned out nice Penny. Especially funny that it is “Asian Plum”.
September 28th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I love being married to a guy who is handy with his hands… and his tools! He built shelves for the shed attached to the garage last weekend, and so I got that area all organized. There’s still plenty of shelf space left for future organizing too. He was so thrilled with his shelves, he’s planning on more and bigger shelves for our wreck of a garage - that’s another story. This past spring, he built a lean-to for one of our horses, using almost all of our own materials (scrap that he keeps, of course!) We did have to buy some lumber. We are close to finishing it for winter - I just put kilz on the inside OSB board to help protect it a little more from the elements, we need to get some dirt to fix some drainage issues, and then I need to paint the outside metal. Kits ran $2000 and more. He built this for less than $500! Yay, I love this guy!
And we made sure there were no spiny things on the lean-to. I double-inspected it. No wrinkles either. LOL
September 28th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Katey - *snort* I did not even make the connection between Asian Plum soap and those instructions. I’m a little slow sometimes
Oz Girl - Nothing like handy husbands. And you really need to be careful for the spiny things. They pop up at the most unexpected times. Dangerous stuff, those spiny things.
September 28th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Nice double decker nest box. That Bernie. Hes so good to you. And I like the fact that he made it bigger than you had requested. Im sure he was thinking of all the possibilities that “bigger” would provide…….I mean, cuz you know..48 chickens…you gotta get the most out of your space in there.
Oh, and are those curtains gonna be faux blue denim or baby bunny print?
September 29th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Wow, you are certainly lucky to have Bernie!! My dad is pretty crafty also, but he is getting older and doesn’t do as much as he used to. My Tom has so much to do at our house and his parents house that he has practically no time for handy work. He has told me that he will build some new nesting boxes for my baby coop but haven’t seen any yet. They have nest now but they would rather lay them in the feeder and anywhere else in that coop. Those girls are funny. The nest box is fantastic looking and exactly what I need. I will show hubby to see what he says. I really want to run electric out there 1st, but might have to run an extension cord like last year.
The soap looks wonderful and definitely love the instructions, I would have cracked up trying to figure them out. LOL
How is my Duke doing?