On our way back from Enchanted Rock last Friday we picked up 14 quail chicks from a breeder in Dripping Springs. 14  1-2 week old Coturix quail. Coturix are predominantly brown but occasionally you'll get a white one. Texas A&M has bred an all white variety.  They're pretty tiny but well on their way to getting their feathers We put them directly into the quail tractor and quickly realized a fault in our design. The feeding holes are too big for young birds. A couple of over eager chicks crawled right into the food hopper and couldn't figure out how to get back out again. After extricating the wayward chicks we taped up the feeding holes until we could come up with a better solution or the quail grew into them. Quail moved into the tractor. Testing out the watering system. You fill up the blue coffee can with water. When the birds want to drink they tap the metal nipple and it dispenses a few drops of water. Until the quail don'...

Enchanted Rock State Park is one of our family favorites. However, it's been about 14 years since my parents visited the park and probably 20 years or so since we were all there at the same time. You don't want to know how long it's been since we visited our least favorite park. Jean and Dad were hung up on this not staying on the trail thing Fortunately, the got over it. The ascent of little rock Holding down a boulder. Summit photo shoot We already veered off the trail. What could harm could there be in investigating this locker with warning signs all over it?  Yep, definitely still not on a trail. Moss lake Reclining in the picnic area after a sumptuous lunch

For a while now I've been talking up quail as an alternative to chickens. With a small footprint (0.5 sqft/bird), quick maturation (~ 8 weeks), great egg production (1/day), and relatively quiet they seem ideal for the suburban farmer trying to evade the heavy handy of the HOA. While I'm waiting for the shed floor to dry I decided to try my hand at building a quail tractor. If you're not familiar with the animal tractor concept, it's essentially a movable animal enclosure. The idea being that every day or so you move the enclosure to a new patch of lawn for the animal to nibble on and fertilize. Tractors can range from huge requiring an actual tractor to move around to small enough for a person to push around the lawn. I put together a design for a 2' X 2' enclosure in SketchUp . Some major design points I was really wanted to focus on were: Stages of Construction Lightweight Construction : Most of the lumber is either 1x2 or 2x2 rather than 2x4. S...

My Mom got a whole flock of baby chicks a few weeks ago. They're growing up fast.

I finished the poured adobe portion of the floor today. The section we did last week was still too wet to walk on so I estimate we have at least two weeks to wait before we can think about sealing it with boiled linseed oil. I'm sure I can find something to keep me busy in the meantime. This will probably be the last day I used the concrete mixer for this project. Hurrah! It survived! Jean and Currell did a great job on the east and west sides of the building last week. I'm finishing up the center.

While I have quite a list of future extensions to the T-Brick shed (including but not limited to, rain water collection system, biogas digester, solar panels, more shelving and more cob sculpture) we're moving on to what I'm going to consider for the near future the final phase of this project, the floor. With the floor complete the shed will be functional as a shed so that addition to being a neighborhood conversation piece it can also be used to store stuff. Then I can divert temporarily to other projects without feeling guilty. The first load of many of the day. This gravel will form a moisture break to prevent water from wicking up from below ground. The plan is to build the floor up about 8 inches to the door threshold. I'm using the line level to place markings where final floor level will be.  The first wheel barrow of gravel for the day Laying out landscape cloth. The landscape fabric will prevent the subsequent layer of road base(sand, clay and g...