Good idea.

Those big spools that electric line comes on might work! hate to admit this, but dumpsters at construction sites have pretty good scraps of plywood for free...
We have 2 big tractor tires you could have if you wanted to truck them from Kansas. I wouldn't use big tires on that, though because old tires catch water and mosquitoes breed there. Maybe you don't have stagnant water and mosquitoes in AZ, though?
I like your buttons idea. That smokestack on the drawing could be a place to pour feed in.
If you did the big back tire like a water wheel you could have rotating roosts!
I want to see this if you draw a plan!

Great ideas, Cindi. I need to think about the scale of the thing. I probably don't want it to be much more than about 4 feet high (excluding the smokestack). If it were that tall it would be about six feet long. But it probably wouldn't fit more than five or six chickens. I appreciate the offer on tractor tires. Sadly, I can't think of how to transport them here.

The idea of rotating roosts has a great element of whimsy. Not sure the chickens will want to be in there when the thing is moving. I'm thinking those aluminum disks used as sleds might work as wheel hubs - or at least as decorations that would suggest wheel hubs.

One of the roses I managed to find was Outrageous. I put it in the ground last week replacing a South Africa. I put it in on Monday and.. wow, did it start to bloom this weekend due to all the rain! I'll have to get some pictures of it.. talk about a gorgeous rose! I wonder why I didn't get one of these before...

???????????????
g.

I have to wait until my camera battery charges.. that's why I didn't get a picture before now & I wanted true-to-color & not use my phone.

I got lucky on a hunt on Saturday. I went to Emerisa Gardens, a local nursery that sells a small selection of roses in 1-gallon and 5-gallon containers, and was amazed to see that they were carrying two roses I like and don't already have: Erfurt and Excellenz von Schubert. I bought them, of course, and was further surprised when I was given a 20% discount on them.

Don't you love it when you go somewhere & get something totally surprising? Gives ya a warm fuzzy feeling.

So warm! So fuzzy! My good friend JD (Calsurf73) had recommended Excellenz von Schubert to me some time ago, but I never expected to find it locally. I know it's available on line, but I've solemnly vowed never to buy another band rose. Too much trouble and too long to wait until it grows to an impressive size. The one I bought in the one-gallon size from Emerisa already has canes arching up 2 or 3 feet and they're loaded with buds.

I'm glad you found Excellenz von Schubert. I saw it at ARE some years ago where it was trimmed into a dense shrub about waist high and covered with tiny pink flowers.

In case you decide to get more, ARE sells gallons. While there is some variation in the size of plants, most are well developed: the very worst are equivalent to the best of bands and the best are three or four times as far along as that.

Just looked up Excellenz von Schubert.. too bad it doesn't have a scent! Talk about a gorgeous little rose!! Wow!

We had another coldsnap this weekend where the high was only like 44degs... so the flowers on my Outrageous got pretty wilted from the cold. But here's some true-to-color pictures (plus my fat paw).

Gorgeous! Yours is much brighter than any on HMF.

There's some gorgeous ones on HMF. I'm hoping that, with Memorial day around the corner & it's supposed to be in the 80s that weekend, I'll see a veritable explosion of roses growing & blooming.. I will be pruning & feeding tonight/tomorrow evening (provided it's not raining).. really need to prune (been too frickin' COLD!!). The few that I pruned last weekend are showing good growth.. and all I pruned was just the winterkill.

Is that really the true color of Outrageous? If so, I need to look for one -- love that color!

Reminds me of Candy Corn. Fun color.

Bummer -- Candy Corn is not in the database. And Toni, I do hope you post your pictures in the database so we can see the variety of colors for Outrageous.

Went to two different HDs today as my coupon was to expire today. Picked up a Brandy & 2 Remember Me (they had normal tags of Sunsprite but had the Weeks band on the base of the rose as Remember Me.) Hoping to go to a new (for me) nursery on Friday & perhaps find Honeysweet (my goal for this year).

Doesn't Roses Unlimited have Honeysweet? I know RVR does, but I would have to be a decade younger to buy it from them again as a band. HD here has Iceberg. And that's pretty much it.

BTW I meant the stuff served in candy bowls at halloween.

RU doesn't have Honeysweet. I looked already. I really really want one. I'll be hunting for one this Saturday I think. It's been raining steadily since yesterday and everything is greening up SOOOO well, especially all my frickin' WEEDS! BLEH! And some of these damned weeds have taproots literally 2-3 FEET long! Thank goodness that the soil is pretty soggy in the clay part (which is the top 12") and then it goes to the native sand.

But I had to admit to myself, my Sweetgum tree didn't make the winter. It started to green up, but then when we had our freak extreme cold (went down into the neg 20s), it just couldn't survive. So I'll be diggin' it up too. *sigh* Think I'll be putting a Golden Rain tree there...