Soon, my growing turkeys will move into a beautiful new coop.
Here at the farm, my property manager, Doug White, and Pete Sherpa from my outdoor grounds crew, have been working hard to complete the structure located at one end of the chicken yard. The 10-foot by 10-foot coop has windows on all sides for proper ventilation. I also wanted it to be tall, so it could house a ladder upon which the turkeys could roost. At the front is a large and very practical sliding barn door, which slides open and closed easily, stays put, and is out of the way. And on one side, a turkey-sized hinged door, which will offer the birds another way in and out of their new home.
Here are more photos, enjoy.
On this warm, sunny day, the framing is all complete and the walls are all going up, plank by plank. Window openings are also framed out on every side.
Fernando Ferrari has been working with me a long time. He does a lot of the painting here at the farm. Our favorite color – Bedford Gray, of course. Here he is starting on the back of the coop’s exterior walls.
From the inside of the coop looking up, one can see the horizontal slats on one side along with the shingles that are secured to the slats.
There are still a lot of shingles to put up. We’re using cedar shingles for the roof of this coop. Each piece measures about 16 to 18 inches long and about four to 14 inches wide. Wood shingles can last between 15 and 40 years depending on the climate, exposure to the elements, and the slope of the roof. As a rule, the steeper the roof, the longer the material will last because rain won’t pool on it and ice and snow won’t accumulate.
Batches of shingles are placed on the roof, so they are easy to reach.
Here’s Pete putting up the shingles on the south side if the roof. Each piece is hand-selected, so it fits perfectly.
And here he is working on the ridge of the roof. The roof ridge is the horizontal line running the length of the roof where the two roof planes meet. This intersection creates the highest point, sometimes referred to as the peak.
Down on the ground, Doug works on the casings for the windows.
I brought these windows back from Maine. They are from an old house I took down on my property next to Skylands. They are perfect for this project.
Fernando cleans the front window and prepares it for painting.
This window is repurposed as an awning window – hinged on the top, so it can easily open and close with the turn of a handle. It will provide plentiful light and ventilation into the space.
Here is a look from the inside.
More windows are installed on the sides.
On this day, the process was interrupted by a brief rain shower. Doug and Pete tested the coop and stood inside for the duration of the rain – no leaks anywhere!
On the back is a door just for the turkeys. They will be able to walk in and out of the coop through this smaller doorway which will be connected to a ramp.
Here are some of the parts of the sliding barn door. These are the rollers, part of the tracking system. They will go on the door rails and be used to slide the door open and closed.
Here, Doug measures where the rollers should be installed.
Here is the barn door rail – stainless steel which is good for both interior and exterior use.
Doug installs a piece of wood over the rail to further protect it from the elements.
Here it is complete – a small piece of wood on the right stops the door from sliding off the rails. Everything will be painted Bedford Gray.
The turkeys are all waiting so patiently for their new home and yard. I know they will love it.
The latest building project here at my Bedford, New York farm is nearly complete - a new coop now designated for 13 growing turkeys.
The poults were incubated and hatched in the feed room of my stable, where they remained until they were big enough to move outdoors. But turkeys grow fast, and I decided they needed more room and a bigger coop where they could live, roost, and nest more comfortably. My property manage, Doug White, is a very talented craftsman and carpenter. Along with the help of Pete Sherpa from my outdoor grounds crew, the two took on the task of building the structure in a separate fenced in area of the chicken yard. The coop is made from diseased ash trees that were taken down here at the farm and then cut into usable lumber with my portable sawmill. This project took several weeks to complete, but it looks great.
Enjoy these first photos of the building process.
These are two of 13 turkeys I am raising here at the farm. These cute babies hatched earlier this summer. Raising baby turkeys is a lot like raising chickens. Both birds need good quality feed, fresh water, safe living spaces, clean bedding, adequate roosting areas, and nesting boxes.
But they grow very fast. Here they are shortly after they moved into their new outdoor enclosure.
And here they are now. I needed to build them a bigger coop in a larger space.
To build the new coop, we used wood that we already had. We lost a lot of ash trees at the farm due to the emerald ash borer larvae which kill ash trees by tunneling under the bark and feeding on the part of the tree that moves water and sugars up and down its trunk. I am happy we can still recycle and repurpose the lumber.
Pete cut the lumber to the appropriate sizes. This new coop measures 10-feet by 10-feet.
Pete is using this sawmill to cut the wood down to size. Some time ago, I decided to gift myself with a portable sawmill, so I could cut the lumber right here at the farm when needed. It’s a Hud-Son H360 Hydraulic Portable Sawmill.
Doug and Pete already created the foundation on a bed of 3/8-inch native stone gravel.
As with any construction project, there is a lot of measuring. Here, Doug measures the wood for the floor and framing of the coop.
And here’s Pete installing the floor – the two work very efficiently together.
It doesn’t take long before the framing is up for one of the walls. Doug lines it up carefully…
… and then Pete secures the pieces.
Within a couple of days, the duo gets the framing up for two walls. They also put in one of several windows. The windows are from an old house I took down in Maine next to Skylands. They are perfect for this project.
Next, Doug puts up temporary braces to hold the framing together until all four sides are done.
And here is the coop with the framing in place.
Next, the roof. Here, the two stop for a quick photo. Looks good, guys!
Doug and Pete install the joists and collar beams. Here is Doug making sure the eaves are perfectly spaced.
The coop will have lots of room inside for the turkeys to roost on a handmade ladder. It’s now looking more and more like a coop.
Once the entire frame is together, Doug and Pete start putting up the planks for the walls.
Here’s Fernando Ferrari, a longtime member of my hardworking crew. He’s getting a head start on the painting – Bedford, gray, of course.
Here’s Doug at the front of the structure working on the roof. The roof requires many different parts to create a system that will protect the turkeys from the elements. Doug makes sure all the rafters are properly installed. The rafters connect to the ridge board and support the roof. They bear the load of the roof.
Pete installs the horizontal slats on the roof. The shingles will be nailed into these slats.
On one side, a door – turkey sized. In addition to the large barn door in the front, the turkeys will be able to walk in and out of the coop through this smaller doorway and down a ramp. The turkey coop is coming along. Wait until you see the end result. It looks great. Stay tuned.
Many of the flowering plants around my Bedford, New York farm have past their prime, but there's still a lot of beautiful and interesting foliage to enjoy.
Some of the most beautiful growth is behind and around my Tenant House, where my daughter and grandchildren stay when they visit. In these areas we planted Epimediums, ferns, Syneilesis, wild ginger, hostas, lady's mantle, and other shade-loving specimens. They're surrounded by a variety of some of my favorite trees - Stewartia, Cotinus, and Japanese maple. And at one side of the garden bed is my stand of tall and stately bald cypress.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
If you didn’t already guess, I named this garden behind my Tenant House the Stewartia garden because I planted several Stewartia trees in this space. Stewartia is a species of flowering plant in the family Theaceae, native to Japan and Korea. All varieties are slow-growing, all-season performers that show off fresh bright green leaves in spring, white flowers resembling single camellias in summer, and colorful foliage in autumn. Some of the varieties in this garden include: Stewartia gemmata, Stewartia x. henryae, Stewartia pseudocamellia ‘Ballet’, Stewartia monadelpha, Stewartia rostrata, and Stewartia henry ‘Skyrocket’. And do you know why I love Stewartia trees? Well, Stewart is my last name after all. However, there is no relation. “Stewartia” is named for Scottish nobleman and botanist, John Stuart, who had imported the plant to his personal London garden. He later served as British prime minister from 1762 to 1763.
This garden is located to one side of these towering bald cypress trees, Taxodium distichum – a deciduous conifer. Though the bald cypress is native to swampy areas, it is also able to withstand dry, sunny weather and is hardy in USDA climate zones 5 through 10.
The leaves are compound and feathery, made up of many small leaflets that are thin and lance-shaped. Each leaflet is less than two inches long, alternating along either side of a central stem. They are a medium green now and turn russet brown in fall. Like trees with leaves, bald cypress trees drop their needles in the fall leaving the tree – well, bald.
Down below, we planted Cotoneaster in one corner of the garden. Cotoneaster is a vigorous, dense, evergreen shrub with soft arching stems studded with leathery, glossy, rounded, dark green leaves. These plants work well for a low hedge – I only wish I had planted more.
Its leaves are spreading, arching to horizontal, alternate, simple, and willow-like in appearance.
This area also includes Japanese painted ferns – beautiful mounds of dramatic foliage with luminescent blue-green fronds and dark central ribs that fade to silver at the edges.
In contrast are the ostrich ferns – a light green clump-forming, upright to arching, rhizomatous, deciduous fern which typically grows up to six feet tall. I grow these in large masses throughout the garden.
Pasang weeded and groomed this entire garden. As he works, he neatly piles any cut debris and takes it to the edge of the carriage road, so it can easily be loaded onto one of our vehicles and taken to the compost yard.
Asarum europaeum, or European Wild Ginger, is a slowly spreading ground cover that is primarily grown for its glossy, leathery, heart-shaped, dark green leaves.
These are the shiny green leaves of Solomon’s Seal – a hardy perennial native to the eastern United States and southern Canada.
These plants produce dangling white flowers, which turn to dark-blue berries later in the summer.
This is lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis. It’s a clumping perennial which typically forms a basal foliage mound of long-stalked, circular, scallop-edged, toothed, pleated, soft-hairy, light green leaves.
Epimediums are long-lived and easy to grow and have such attractive and varying foliage. Epimedium, also known as barrenwort, bishop’s hat, and horny goat weed, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Berberidaceae.
Astilboides is an interesting plant with huge, bright green leaves that are round and flat and measure up to 24-inches across. The effect is dramatic, and beautiful among other hardy perennials.
I always look for the most interesting plants to add to my gardens. This is Syneilesis – a tough, drought-tolerant, easy-to-grow woodland garden perennial that prefers moist, well-drained, slightly acid soils. If in the proper environment, syneilesis will slowly spread to form an attractive colony.
Syneilesis is commonly called the shredded umbrella plant and describes the narrow, dissected leaves that cascade downward like an umbrella.
This plant is another great one for mass planting, which is essentially a method of filling in garden area with flower groupings of one or more kinds of plants. This helps to minimize weed growth and to add texture and interest to the space.
These are the dainty leaves of thalictrum. Plants in this genus are native to stream banks, shaded mountains, and moist meadows. It grows best in moist, humus-rich soil in partial shade. Thalictrum has some of the most beautifully textured foliage. The name Thalictrum means “to flourish,” and it does, with elegant, finely cut and rounded compound leaves.
The hostas are so lush with their varying leaf shape, size, and textures. Hostas have easy care requirements which make them ideal for many areas. I have them all around the farm. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
Here is another hosta variety with its darker, more defined leaves.
This heuchera was planted earlier this summer. It has lively peach and orange tones on large leaves. The plant grows into a full mound that is exceptionally heat tolerant. Dainty flowers appear on spikes above the foliage in spring. Heuchera is a genus of largely evergreen perennial plants in the family Saxifragaceae, all native to North America. Common names include alumroot and coral bells.
Here, Pasang trims the foliage of a smoke bush. I have several Cotinus in this bed. Cotinus, the smoketree, or smoke bush, is a genus of two species of flowering plants in the family Anacardiaceae, closely related to the sumacs.
Their smooth, rounded leaves come in exceptional shades of deep purple, clear pinkish-bronze, yellow, and green.
This garden bed continues to be a work in progress, but I love how it looks. Every year, more and more plants cover the space and create a lush, green carpet of beautiful foliage.
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