The Grand Opening of Henbogle House aka the Chicken Palace

Surely this deserves a bottle of bubbly -- Henbogle House is officially open and occupied. We thought construction this weekend would be rained out, but amazingly, after heavy rains last night, the skies lifted a bit, the sun almost appeared on a few occasions, and construction commenced.

Working quickly, expecting the skies to open at any moment, I primed the window, soffits and door trim while Dan cut the stainless steel for the roof. As always there were a few moments of problem solving, but we got it all together, and it looks great.

We were SO excited to show the girls their new home, we brought them out to look the place over before we even put the wood shavings in! Of course, once they got in the coop, we realized getting them OUT of the coop would be nigh-on impossible, so we added the bedding and voila, they took posession.

Clearly, the girls are loving it. There is lots of room to practice flying, and Iris even managed to fly directy to the roost, although the rest have to climb the "Stairway to Roosting."

The wheels work great. Our neighbor down the road stopped by the other day. Roland has a couple of hens and a rooster living in an old truck cap in his back yard. He stopped the car and rolled down the window and said, "What'ch ya building?" Dan answered, "A chicken coop."

"That's quite a coop," Roland said. Dan laughed, "We call it the chicken palace." Roland shook his head, clearly thinking we were two crazy fools with way to much time and money on our hands. "It's got wheels?" "Yup," Dan pushed the coop, and it rolled a few inches, "so we can move it."

Again, Roland shook his head. "You know, the theme for Richmond Days this year is Redneck Rodeo. You could put that in the parade." Dan laughed, but I could see the gleam in his eye, I know he's thinking about it. Redneck Rodeo indeed....