Building our Pizza Oven - Part 2

I am not sure I realised how much hard work this was going to be, Pizza ovens certainly don't build themselves.  The oven itself is not a lot of work but we are building a full outside kitchen including a sink, a small barbeque, a preparation space and a tiled area just off the deck.  The pizza oven however is the priority and I am aiming to get it complete before Christmas.

Clearing the ground proved to be one of the easier tasks.  From there, I had to build the reinforcing for the concrete slab that would form the base of the tiled area.  This meant mixing and pouring nearly 0.5 M3 of concrete which certainly wasn't a job for hand mixing.  Here is the site with the reinforcing in and the concrete ready to pour.  Tia Belle, our springer spaniel isn't too sure what is going on, what was her running ground is now covered in blue tarps.

With the first slab poured, it was time to start on the pizza oven itself.

 

The oven weighs in at about half a tonne and with the base weighing in at nearly a tonne, the foundations need to be strong enough to handle the whole weight.  Deep trenches, rebar and half a tonne of concrete...

Once the foundations have been cast, the next job is to move the mains water pipe out of the way so I can build the base for the pizza oven.

Building the oven base has taken a lot longer than I thought it would, hoping to get the rest of the base finished over the next few days so I can then start on the oven itself...

See Next Pizza Oven Post

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Daisy, Geraldine and Boris - Part 2

With the coop and chicken run complete the girls have now moved in and have settled well into their new home.  We kept them confined to their coop for the first week so they could get used to their home but for the last few weeks, they have been scratching around their run, getting to know their new surroundings.  They have tried to escape once and one of the trio managed to get out but once out she seemed to want to go back to the company of her "flock".

They love our kitchen scraps, so what the compost heap used to get, the chooks now get.  They seem to love celery and fennel so they are living in a great home!  They are also getting through most of the weeds I put in their run so finally I have found a use for weeds.

Each of them is showing some of their own personalities, Geraldine is always the first one to come out of the coop each morning, she is showing all the signs of becoming the boss.  Boris is no push over and we have seen her squaring up to Tia Belle our Springer Spaniel.  Daisy is the shy one, last one to come out and first to go back in.

They are still a way of being ready to lay but I am looking forward to those first poached eggs on a weekend morning!

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Daisy, Geraldine and Boris - Part 1

Each year here in Australia, the end of August to beginning of September is always a treat for me. With my birthday on the last day of August and Fathers Day normally just a few days later, I get treats in heaps and this year was a particularly bountiful one.

As part of my goal to be more involved and knowledgeable about the food we eat as a family, I have long wanted to keep chickens.  I don't think I am ready to keep chickens for meat (and my kids are certainly not) but fresh eggs from chickens where I knew exactly how the chickens had been cared for, what they had eaten and how fresh the eggs are seems to be attainable to me.  

So, my birthday present this year was a chicken coop big enough for 4 chickens. The day after my birthday was a Saturday so I spent part of the morning assembling the coop and building the chicken run in a rarely used part of the garden to one side of our house.

Here is the coop in pieces, how hard can it be! 

And partly assembled before being moved to the chicken run at the other side of our house.

 And finally, fully assembled in the chicken run on the west side of our house.  The chickens will get good shade here, and also, once I have finished building the fencing for the chicken run, will be well protected from Tia Belle, our English Springer Spaniel gun dog who loves chasing Brush Turkeys and no doubt, chickens.  It is very unlikely our dog and our chooks will get on!

Daisy, Geraldine and Boris are getting used to their new home and I'll post an update in part 2 soon.

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