We broke ground on our new state-of-the-art chicken barns the summer of 2017. Writing ‘2017’ feels so long ago, but all of us on the farm agree, life has been a whirlwind since then. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2019 that the four of us started to feel like we could exhale again.
This project has been nothing short of amazing, just the opportunity to build four more chicken houses was/is a big deal for the farm, but adding in the viewing room and education building, opening the farm for tours and navigating the logistics of creating events and community presence.
*cue head spinning*
But hey, here we are in 2019, we made it, we survived all the change a year and a half could bring and literally doubling the farm’s production.
It’s funny, the photos you’re about to see, I (Danielle) took, but I’m not the one who added them to this post. Our web designer—Rural Gone Urban—threw these in here as a blog post placeholder back in the fall of 2017. I had forgotten they were there until earlier this week when I published the “Scheduling a Tour” post.
Even if it was just a placeholder, I’m so glad she did, seeing the farm back in the beginning of construction and reliving those emotions was fun, exciting and bittersweet. “hey we survived,” “oh, I forgot what that spot looked like before big red barns sat on top of the hill,” and Oliver, passed through my head.
Oliver, our Scottish Terrier, crossed the rainbow bridge this January, and even though he was the most unlikely farm dog, he had the biggest heart for it. Nothing brought that dog more joy than getting to ride in the back of the truck, bound along beside us while checking cows and hearing the words “load up” into the Ranger for all the farm chores he knew deep in his heart he was born to assist with.
We (Daniel and Danielle) miss him terribly, but it made my heart happy to see him in these photos are part of our building process.
Oliver and I, checking on the progress after the dirt work equipment moved to the farm to start, July 2017.
You may have driven on or seen the driveway and parking lot, but maybe never thought about what it takes to install something of that scale. Because Kentucky is such a rainy state and anything BUT flat terrain, the chicken house driveway was one of the first things that had to be created.
It took somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 dump trucks to put down enough gravel for the driveway and parking lot.
DaniSquared’s Paw Patrol checking on dirt work progress late July 2017. Back when Cowdog Lily was still a puppy.
Jumping for joy, we have a roof on before the rainy season, October 2017. In both the gravel photo and this one it was pouring rain. We were incredibly lucky we started the project when we did and thankfully didn’t get held up by weather much.
Our first flock was placed in these houses March 14, 2018. Just shy of one year ago.
