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Quote of the Day: From the Chicken House to the Cathedral
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. — Frank Lloyd Wright.
I do like a man who has his priorities straight. Even if I’m not one of them.
Frank Lloyd Wright was, while not exactly a Southwest Pennsylvanian, often claimed as one of ours on account of Fallingwater, a masterful evocation of his theory of architecture in harmony with nature, built for the Kaufmann family of regional department store fame. It’s only about 70 miles down the road from me, and I’ve visited several times. Every time I do, I marvel at how he did it and how he even conceived of such a thing. I wonder at its grace, at the impossibility of thousands of tons of concrete cantilevered over a natural waterfall (and at the windows — OMG, the windows!). And I support the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s efforts to “fix” the inevitable structural failures and shore up Wright’s vision. As of the early 21st century, using modern post-tensioning techniques, they seem to have solved most of the problems. Let’s hope Fallingwater makes it through the next thousand years just like Westminster Abbey and doesn’t end up like Beauvais Cathedral (begun in 1225), which fully collapsed twice before its eventual completion and which has been the subject of ongoing efforts for 800 years to keep it whole and standing.
Today, I entered into a new phase of my microfarming life:
Chickens.
Well, I’ve had “a” chicken now for the better part of a year. His name is Chinggis, and he’s one of a pair of starving, frozen Gallus gallus domesticus I found by the side of the road in late January 2021. (This is me, so of course I did!) His comb had frozen solid and largely snapped off. His feet were red and swollen. His bones were visible all over. But he was feisty! His companion — a hen — was much worse off and ultimately didn’t survive. I give Chinggis credit, though. Pretty sure he protected her, and at least when she died, it was in a comfy, enclosed, draft-free spot in my garage and not being eaten alive by coyotes or racoons. A rooster “knight errant,” if ever there was one, my Chinggis.
Once he was settled, we worked out a pretty nice routine: He’d spend the night in an enormous dog crate (I have two Great Pyrenees — so, that enormous), and then during the day he’d go into a 4’x8′ chicken run I built specially for him, one I moved every two or three days to give him fresh grass to scratch at and into which I’d throw scratch grains and mealworms for him to dig up. He thrived. And became ever handsomer:
But I know he’s been lonely.
And so, for the past several months, I’ve been looking for a couple of hens to keep him company. And I’ve had three different offers of two or three of same, all of which have fallen through due to one thing or another.
Meanwhile, mindful of Wright’s injunction, I’ve been building the chicken house:
Yeah. It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to building a structure to the glory of God. Honest to that same God, I started out determined to build it from scraps and stuff that I had laying around the farm. And to begin with, I did: The posts; the perimeter boards (there’s a name for them, but I can’t remember what it is — no doubt someone reading this can set me straight); the floor; the windows — retrieved from my “old window graveyard” in the barn (doesn’t every girl worth her salt have one of these?); the 2×4 framing. All laying about. All reused. All recycled.
But.
Then I thought — I’m having so much fun with this: What the hell? And I decided to enjoy myself and build the loveliest chicken house I possibly could, and damn the expense. Hence, the T-111, the trim, the hardware (oh, I discovered a few years ago on the driveway gates I built that it’s possible to spend more on the hardware than it is on the lumber), and the steel roof to match the house. And even the expensive paint.
Lord, I had a great time.
And, yet.
Chinggis was lonely.
A week or so ago, my veterinarian (a farm girl herself) came to the rescue and offered me two hens.
There’s a back story. (This is me, so of course there is!) Apparently, these two hens are “red sex-linked,” a cross between the Rhode Island Red and the White Plymouth Rock. It seems it’s easy, with this hybrid, to tell the males from the females at birth by the colors. (Any of you who’s ever tried to sex small chicks will probably understand why this might be a helpful tell.)
Red sex-linked are prolific layers and generally rather nice birds. However, these particular two lovelies were being savagely henpecked by their peers. (Yes. The term “henpecked” was originally coined to describe the vicious behavior of female on female. Go figure.) My veterinarian didn’t like to see that, as their feathers were pulled out and their skin was torn apart, so she offered them to me.
And I took them.
I picked them up yesterday morning on a different kind of “chicken run.” Brought them home. Put them in the coop. Put Chinggis in a cat carrier in the coop for the first 24 hours while the girls acclimated. (Lord, he was pissed. He stomped heavily around, moaned a lot, and didn’t even crow this morning.) Meanwhile they settled in:
And so, this morning, I woke up and went out to check on them, and:
My first egg!
Shortly thereafter, another one:
I let Chinggis out of jail, and they’ve been lovely together since. Relaxed and mellow. Charming.
Meanwhile, I took my first ever farm egg and decided to use it for breakfast. A very British breakfast. One appropriate to Remembrance Sunday, and one that will evoke memories for British children of my generation and before:
Boiled egg and soldiers:
(Please ignore the pcat on the ptable. That’s just Psymon. He’s pincorrigible.) Also, yes. I enjoyed my repast with coffee. Hoping that those who love me will overlook that rather continental affectation.
Lord, it was delicious. Just like the breakfasts my grandpa and I used to enjoy in the 1950s.
And in his honor, because I loved — above all things — taking my teaspoon and bashing in the top of the newly boiled egg, and because he always gave me a second chance to do so, I turned my egg over when I’d finished it so I could enjoy bashing the top in again:
Here’s to childhood memories and — most of all — to enjoying the simple, achievable things in life. Most of us can’t build the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, St. Peter’s, or the Colosseum. But we can build what matters to us and our families.
And if what, or all, we can do is build a little chicken house, then perhaps we should be satisfied with that.
Published in General
Soldiers without Marmite? Is that allowed?
An English friend once mentioned Marmite. It sounded intriguing, so I found some at a little shop up in Long Grove that specialized in items from the UK. That amused her to no end, and she instructed me in the grueling culinary endeavor of producing “soldiers.”
The posts; the perimeter boards (there’s a name for them but I can’t remember what it is–no doubt someone reading this can set me straight).
T-111, a popular and inexpensive type of plywood siding. I’ve built a couple of chicken houses in my day. Yours is very attractive.
Never had an interest. However, per Wikipedia it’s a by-product of beer brewing: OK, that sold me.
Thank you She for yet again brightening my day. Your Psymon is no doubt named in the spirit of Psmith and I love it. I am reminded of our Napoleon, who is similarly mottled but grey tabby instead of orange.
Fallingwater is a beautiful and inspiring work of art, but hardly practical for those of us who like to have our “stuff” around us. Perhaps a Vulcan would find it homey. The chicken coop, on the other hand, seems to have plenty of storage space for the necessities. I admire its practicality.
Animals, construction, writing, cooking – I don’t know how you manage to do it, but keep on. I really enjoy it.
Too old to be named in the spirit of Psaki.
Certainly your chicken abode is better designed and constructed than anything Wright built. Another quote attributed to him was “If the roof doesn’t leak, the architect hasn’t been creative enough.”
Good artist, crappy architect, moral reprobate.
But— nothing is as tasty as a farm fresh egg!
She, it sort of sounds slightly unseemly about you procuring some “chicks” for your rooster to um “rule the roost”.
Kind of something, something, transporting, more something, minors, state lines, additional somethings, immoral purposes….
And of course I love seeing Psymon lord over the breakfast table, what a cat he is….
Also beautiful hen house. We will have to check it out some time this coming summer.
I’m not quite sure how you post tension concrete that’s already been poured.
I’m sure you meant “a used to be inexpensive plywood siding.”
They are boring holes thru the cantilevered sections of the floors that are over the falls, then running high strength steel cables thru the holes and “slowly” bring them under tension. It is to make up for the fact that Frank was allergic to using the correct amount of rebar in his projects.
He was a great architect, but lousy as a civil engineer.
Relatively speaking. I haven’t priced building materials in a couple of decades.
As others have said, some of his houses are beautiful from the outside, but mostly unlivable.
It was a different age, of course, but it surprises me that no real engineers were involved in the design.
I don’t recall the details, but he was having perpetual arguments with the contractors building the place, and some of the structure aspects were definitely part of the animus.
I wish I could point you to the articles I read about this one particular “oversight” but I was spurred to research it after my second visit the home and talking to the Park Service docents about what they were doing with the drilling equipment.
Here is a good account of the construction of Fallingwater. There were engineers involved…
but Wright’s ego prevailed. From a letter by Wright to Edgar Kauffmann:
Sakes alive, a woman who can use lie/lay correctly and build a chicken coop. You were a catch, Mrs. She.
Wonderful post. One of your best.
“Pecking order” came from chickens, too.
Cats are rather cautious of chickens.
I can’t top that! What Kent says. A hundred times over.
Loved this! How thrilling! To raise your very own egg and then dine on it! The best description of from farm to table that I’ve ever heard. And of course your chicken coop is a masterpiece. You should enter it into some kind of building competititon. Frank Lloyd Wright would be envious!
BTW, I am absolutely sincere–not teasing you! I can’t imagine having just received a hen and–voila!–an egg! It really is thrilling.
Indeed. As with most things, it would have been so much better to do the work and take the precautions beforehand. (Pre-tensioning, as it were.) But it seems Wright was an obstreperous coot who–in his determination to bring the natural world directly up to and even inside the living space–thought he could bend the laws of physics to his will.
Yeah, I bought at the height of the lumber price increases of last summer, and the costs were exorbitant. They’ve come down considerably since, but I’m not sure how long the supply will hold out. Thanks for the compliment on the coop, @jimmcconnell.
FLW built several building for Florida Southern College, and they’ve spent years restoring them. I still haven’t gone on their tour, but I must plan it for 2022!
Thanks, @kentforrester, and all who’ve made such great and nice comments.
This morning, I opened the coop door, and–what to my wondering eyes should appear:
Success!
Yes. The social order of chickens is strictly hierarchical, and the stronger, more dominant birds will unmercifully harass the weaker ones, and bully strangers. If conditions in the coop are crowded, or if they’re so minded, they’ll push them off the roosting bar onto a lower level (thereby establishing the “pecking order.” I put my little outdoor roosting bar (it’s only about 4″ off the ground) in the coop last night in case these guys got stroppy with each other, but they seem quite harmonious.
In post-tensioning, the tendons aren’t tensioned until after the concrete sets up.
I’ve been combing misty memory (and googling chicken breeds) to determine what Grandma was still raising when I was very young. I think they were Rhode Island Whites. Could have been Leghorns.
You’d have loved Grandma’s farm, @susanquinn. The milk, the eggs, the beans, the sweet corn, the bell peppers, the tomatoes, the potatoes, the onions, and the chicken dinner on Sundays, all raised within about 100 yards of the farmhouse. Anything that didn’t get eaten was either sold, canned, or given away to friends. The horseradish was from just outside the outkitchen. You had to walk around it to get to the pump.
Grandma was a miracle worker. She not only made lye soap; she made the lye first.
Store-bought cottage cheese though. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I visited Falling Water on a school field trip. I can still picture the orange 50’s furniture. It was a very neat place. But I like your new chicken coop even better. That has to be the luckiest rooster in the world!