Batten Down the Shed

Installing the battens.

My son and I got up early Saturday morning to beat the bad weather that was approaching and get the battens on the shed we have been building. As you know if you have read previous posts, this shed was built with green lumber so as it dries the cracks between the boards get bigger. 

It is dry now so we put up 1 X 3 X 8 pine strips to cover up the cracks. The trick to installing them is to pound your nails through the batten and into the crack then into the 2x4s that support the wall. These go horizontally inside the wall. You don't pound anything into the siding itself. 

The Cat Who Thinks He is a Chicken

Our cat Jaguar, who really should be named Panther, but we already had a cat named Panther and the kids were little so they named him Jaguar in spite of his lack of spots. Now that I've got that out of the way, I'll get to his peculiar behavior. Her really wants to be part of the flock.

When he was small he spent a lot of time with the flock, and was often put in with the chickens at night, because we were afraid something would get him. We live atop a mountain and there are coyotes & etc.... lurking. At the time the chickens had a large portion of the bottom of our old bank-barn as their home. It was secure, so the kittens often went there.

At first the chickens were afraid of Jaguar, but not for long. They soon looked at him as a small wingless brethren. They treated him just like any other smaller fowl would be treated. If Jaguar was sharing in the chicken scraps (clean leftovers from our kitchen) and a hen wanted what he had, he got a peck on the head and moved away. The same happened when he would drink from the chicken waterer. Even when he was fully grown and quite able to dispatch his feathered friends, he deferred to them, and he still does.

He loves to be among the chickens. When they are out in the yard he's usually out there with them, sunning himself and enjoying their company. Or as pictured if they are in the cow barn scratching around he's nearby.

Building and Hanging some Old-Fashioned Barn Doors

My son and I put the doors on the shed this weekend. This shed is a 12 by 16 foot pole building that we built this summer. We just built it, no plans. It changed and grew as we worked on it. It is made of rough-cut pine from a Mennonite sawmill down the road, so to speak.

We debated about what kind of doors to put on it. We initially were going to put a sliding/track door on it, but the side we wanted the door on wasn't big enough for the track, and we didn't want it to stick out from the building to make it work. We put the door on the 12 foot side of the shed.

We eventually decided to build two swinging barn doors. We built them a while back, but let them sit inside the shed for about a month for them to dry out a bit and lose some weight. They were really heavy because the wood was a bit green.

We got the largest hinges they sell at Tractor Supply, our cordless drill, a ratchet and some bolts and hung them. We also had to do a bit of site work, digging out a place for them to swing out. 

They were a bit tricky to hang, and the fact that we just built the shed eyeballing it, not worrying about it being too square, and figuring we could make it look square enough with our finishing touches, made it a bit trickier, but they turned out pretty good.

 We wanted it to look like an old-time farm outbuilding, and it does. The opening was 7 foot wide and about 6 and 1/2 feet high, so I could walk through without ducking. The doors were pretty big and heavy, considering we built them with rough-cut, real-sized, one by eights, We braced them up in the back with a Z pattern backing, and we put a one by eight cross beam to put our lock onto the front, an old fashioned board holder. You just pull the two by four out when you want in, and the door is nice and snug.

We still need to put the battens on the shed before the snow starts flying, and we plan to put a loft in on the high side, where it is about 10 feet high.