0:02
Before you start your next do it yourself project. Listen to this. You got this is on the air you got this is hosted by abt plumbing electric heat and air owner, Andrew Twidwell and Rosalie Brown. With a helpful hand, here are Andrew and Rosalie.
0:18
HI this is Andrew Twidwell, once again with the show You Got This! It’s a show DIY do’s and don’ts. And hopefully I’m not mumbling because I have a HALLS in my mouth because I’ve got a little bit of a sore throat, a little bit of a head cold right now, but not enough to keep me away from work. I think it’s day five right now this thing and it just won’t. It just can’t seem to get rid of it. But I’m here. And I’m with Rosalie Brown. I’m like, I forgot to introduce you. She’s on the air with me right now. So yeah. And my brains not working so well. I just have to gloat a little bit. I’m not gonna brag there but told me that my wife tells me not to brag, but we just got back from Italy. And it was really fun, got back on Monday, and managed to go to the country where her family’s from. Her father, immigrated about 110 years ago to San Francisco, had a restaurant in the 20s on Divisadero, like I think I’m fell. So yeah, that was cool for her to kind of get a sense of, she’d never been to Italy. So that was kind of cool. A little bit of the Sanguinetti history of our things with you originally.
1:23
Well, I didn’t go to Italy this week. But I did if you recall, when our saga went on pause, I was going to Texas, I was going to Texas, and that we had just lived through a hurricane, right? I mean, we didn’t of course, right. But we had the hurricane, it just happened. And I got to Texas, and the weather was incredible. And when I was asking why the weather was so incredible, like why is there no humidity? Why is this amazing? And some people thought that it had to do with the intense weather that had just happened in Florida was kind of impacting like weather patterns, you know, because I was in a right place in the United States. So I had an amazing weather and safe travels. And it was much easier than having to fly across the globe. Although the sights I saw, while very cool, are not exactly the same as what you saw.
2:21
Yeah, I mean, I saw Yeah. Art from the Roman era, from the Mesopotamia to Michelangelo to Yeah, I mean, it was it was pretty over the top, and then the food Oh my God, why can’t we like, it’s good that we would just go to random restaurants and have pasta and salad. That was amazing. And, and a $13. bottle of wine. Right? You just can’t get that here in the state. But yeah,
2:49
well, how did you? This is a serious question. Because the older we get, you know, the more how should I say this delicately? The more I guess delicate our systems get so did you? So did you guys have any kind of any kind of did you notice your body responding any differently? Because the food I would assume is much richer and kind of sourced differently than what we eat here in the States? So did you guys kind of notice anything there? Or was it easy?
3:15
Ironically, things were better, like Betty has a kind of an intolerance to to milk products. And so we stopped using milk on our coffee. But you know, we’re in a foreign country. And sometimes we’re in smaller towns, so you know, trying to order up an oat milk, cappuccino or whatever. Some places we could get those in the cities, we could get those. But in some of the smaller towns, you couldn’t get that. And we would just have regular milk with our lattes. And and even I have some a little bit of an intolerance to milk products. Zero problems. Wow. See, the milk is different or why? But no, just quite the opposite things were you know, because things are just so fresh. And like, the vegetables are so green, and so red and so vibrant. And oh my god, we have one meal. A pomegranate salad with pomegranate seeds with carrots, celery, and radishes with just a little bit of lime juice, or a little bit of citrus and a little bit of olive oil and some salt. Oh my god. Really good. Really, really simple stuff like that.
4:24
Well, and maybe that’s why your body responded to it so well, because I think that there’s something too and I’m not a dietitian, as you know, I treat my body like it’s a like it’s an old abandoned building, not the vessel. Right right. I mean it pretty much is like an old abandoned skate park or something but but but I think that this the more simple you know, I mean, that’s kind of what they talk about right is like that’s why when people are in the Mediterranean diet because it’s basically very simple stuff. So so that so then my question is so you guys didn’t you don’t feel like you guys packed on a bunch of weight while you’re gone? Because I do know you did a lot of cycling too. So so
4:56
ironic. Yeah. Okay, so again, so we’ve stayed in one place where we was just a bicycle tour. It was basically a cruise ship type of thing. We’d leave the the, we’d get up, they’d feed us, we go for a bike ride, we’d come back, they feed us, we’d go take a nap, they’d feed us, and the wind was flowing, the food was flowing. And you know, so at that point, and the desert and everything, even though we were riding 40 miles a day. I think we, I my stomach, I felt that got bigger. We didn’t have a scale. So that was beneficial. So but I could, you know, when you lay on your side, and all of a sudden your stomach starts to hit the bed when it didn’t used to hit the bed, and you’re like, oh, wait a second, what’s going on there? So I think even though we’re recycling so much, but the food was outrageous. But after that, some friends went straight home, and they said, Yeah, they gained like five or six pounds. But they told us that way, we were still there. And we’d spent another week. And so Betty and I started just having two meals a day as opposed to like four and not going back for seconds. And you know, only splitting a gelato instead of having one each right. And so yeah, we started watching what we ate a little bit better. And now we came back and we’re, I’d gained like a pound. So Wow. Okay, and it will just just from walking. It wasn’t when we weren’t doing a lot of intense exercise after that. We’re just walking returns, maybe doing, you know, three to five miles a day or sometimes seven. But yeah, but oh my god, the food was just ridiculous. to somebody. So
6:28
I bet that you guys are gonna have an interesting Thanksgiving, maybe some Italian inspired dishes. I mean, you know, I like to look at it like that, like, what did you learn? Like, what did you take away? I will say
6:42
they want to make the pomegranate salad. Well, that’s immigrants are hard to process, right? Sure to be able to get that much out of them. But I gotta do that, because that was just ridiculous. It was so good.
6:52
Well, I mean, I really, before we get into the topic, because this will segue I promise. But I’m going to take you back to Texas for a minute so that we can get to the chicken to the ends of the coyote. And to all the amazing adventures in my life. I become like a wildlife explorer, I moved to an urban environment and I’m like, surrounded by like wildlife, but just crazy. So
7:14
you live on the interface. So you don’t exactly you’re in you’re in an urban area. But there’s an interface at the at the fence, right? Where you have 1000s of acres that are in my wild.
7:26
I have plenty of coyote stories to regale you with but, um, yeah, I’ve got, I don’t want to get off topic. Okay, because now I’m thinking about the coyote encounter since I saw you last there’s been several, and some of them have been not at my own home. It’s been like walking the street. So that’s been fun, right? I mean, like, it’s crazy anyway. So I really think that like when you go somewhere, you should take a piece of you know, you exchange, right, like, take a piece of you to place and then bring the thing back. So when I went to Texas to visit people, I brought a little bit of myself. So there were some screwball peanut butter whiskey that was was brought. And that was well received, I have now converted more people in multiple states. But one of the things that was so cool when I was in Texas is that and that’s what gave me the idea for the show. Because we keep talking about plumbing and electrical and each back and that’s all fun and in, but like some cool projects, right? So when to stay with my friends and they had this really cool chicken coop in the back. And they have reinforced their little chicken enclosure because next to said, Coop, there was a bunch of, let’s just say feathers everywhere. And so I had asked, Oh, what what happened here, because it looked like there’d been some activity. And that’s when my friend shared stories about the coyote in Texas. And we’re coming from the chickens. So everywhere I go, I’ve got coyote on the mind. But but you know, kind of chickens and homesteading and all that stuff has become like really, I don’t want to say wildly popular because maybe it’s always been popular and I’m just becoming attuned to it. Right aware of it. Yeah, I was never like a chicken person. I mean, I eat chicken. You know, I don’t think we’ve got a lot of vegans in on the show, but that listen to the show, but like I’ve always eaten chicken and I’ve never been mean to an animal. But I just I never saw the I look at chicken
9:31
Euler of having chickens. I try to have fun pets. I got chickens. Yeah, I grew up in San Francisco and my my teacher, he would bring chickens into our school in the Mission District. Because he lived in Pacifica and he had chickens in his place in Pacifica. Now he lives actually I followed him up here. He lives up here now. But he had chickens in St. Pacifica, but he did. I gotta get story. This is good because it kind of ties in with what you used to do too. So you every once awhile you get a rooster, right? Oh, yeah. And this is back in the 70s. So, you know, this is a long time ago, but he wasn’t sure what to do with this rooster and he didn’t really want to just break its neck. So he he brought it to school and then went to San Francisco Zoo, and went on the other side of one of the enclosures for some of the more aggressive animals. And Chuck the rooster
10:32
I won’t name his name on the radio, but I love that story. I could I have he told it to me. Probably when I was like 20 or something. We’ve been friends. He my parents were friends and I’ve known him forever. He was my eighth grade teacher. So yeah, that was a good one. Yeah. So what to do with a rooster? Yeah, check them over the fence into the
10:54
zoo. I wasn’t where I thought we were going with it. Wow. Okay, like Yeah, I have two stories too. I’ve got coyote I’ve got zoo I’ve got waterfowl, I’ve got all kinds of stories. I will not I will not take us off topic. I will bring us right back to the chicken coop
11:11
Okay, so yeah, so we’re glad you brought this up and you know in my sleep deprived brain right now I’ve been up since 3am So hopefully I kind of will be able to get through this and I sorry if I bore you guys but yeah, a chicken coop is kind of ideal thing to have if you have chickens especially if you’re not in an even in an urban environment. Christ I’ve got friends that are my family lives on the base of Bernal Heights and they see coyotes all the time in San Francisco and I’ve actually been there in the financial district now since COVID. So you get coyotes and raccoons that get into your chicken coops
11:51
and all kinds of so really if your coop if your coop
11:54
if you have chickens they’re gonna they’re gonna find a way and they’re gonna if you don’t have some kind of not necessarily a fortress but some kind of structure to keep them out. And we were just actually ironically you’re talking about this morning with one of our technicians who just bought six chickens is yesterday chicks because he had to replenish his flock because a raccoon got and went in and got as one let his last egg laying chickens so he was a little upset about so he got six just you know your work the odds right? Make sure you get at least get one or two layers
12:29
is a sad it’s a sad truth right. But I also have seen a lot of really cool on like the DIY websites and the DIY shows, I’ve seen a lot of really cool projects where people have created these really cool looking coops that actually have some curb appeal, believe it or not. And so I always think it’s kind of a neat it’s almost like an accoutrement in your backyard right like so you could really have a cool setup and you could have it I’ve actually seen people believe it or not convert old children’s play houses so like if you had kids that had that really cool play structure you know more like a tree house II type play structure right? I’ve actually seen people that have gone in and like refurbish that so that that’s their their chicken coop their chicken house the house around it, yeah, because the the pen is where the predators get into if you can get that house secure and lock your ladies up at night. You’re okay, so let’s let’s talk about what are some basic things that you would assume would be needed if you’re going to go for it and build a chicken coop? Let’s be honest, this is project this is project season, you guys we have a small window, small window, let’s get the projects that
13:40
we were talking about this off air is like this. Why are we talking about this? Well, this is the time of season where he got 60 degrees 65 Maybe 70 degree weather during the day as opposed to 8090 100 degrees. So it’s time to get outside and start doing some projects where you can actually wear jeans and shoes and not worry about cutting your fingers cut your toe off or having to buy for land on it or cutting your leg or something. So you can actually go out and do some of these more challenging kind of projects and building a chicken coop can be it can be as simple as like you say, upcycling a play structure and putting some steaks and putting some chicken wire around and making sure you got a nice little pen for the hangout and a little house for putting it at night. Because let’s be honest, the majority of the time that you’re going to lose your chickens is going to be in the evening you know the the magic hour as desks starts to set the sun starts to set and then throughout the night they’re going to be trying to find ways in there so you want to make sure you get some kind of structure that keeps the fox keeps the raccoons keeps the skunks keeps the coyotes out and even and I know we had a we used to live up on top of inner mountain look at our neighbor built a chicken coop up there and she went over the top because everything up there it’s you know You got bears, you’ve got bobcats, you’ve got coyotes. And she ended up with a concrete pad, Cyclone fence all the way around to the top with a structure inside and the bear stills got in there. So if you’re up on top of the inner mountain, you may not really want to have chickens. You know, when you’re when you’ve got access to the, to the ditch from your property. Yeah, that wasn’t a great place to have chickens as far as I was aware. But if you’re in a normal space, right here, even Grass Valley, Nevada City on banner mountain where your Deer Creek parks, I mean, that’s we actually had a coop and Deer Creek Park. The main thing is gaining a structure that can keep them out at night. So a roof over the pen is really ideal. And then a solid structure that they can sleep into the door that you can close to the coyotes, but mainly the hole that they can get into a Cody’s not gonna get into that but skunks will raccoons will mix will, you know all these little critters that like to eat chickens, because chickens taste good, right? Everything tastes like chicken is good. And you actually found a really good DIY plan on how to build this thing. And this thing is really sweet. So it’s got a structure on it with a roof and then a pin around it. That has chicken wire with a door and another roof over it. And I’ve actually seen people take something like this and put wheels on the side of them, and then make it like a wheelbarrow. So you can move it around your yard so that you know they can eat up all the stuff in one section of the yard and then move it around. If you’re really worried about them getting loose, but you can’t just let them loose during the day and our neighbor has an issue. They think they’d like 10 chickens, they just let them loose all day, and then put them in put them in at night on the end of Butler road. So yeah, this thing will accommodate six to eight chickens features this four by six coop and a six by 10. Chicken Run sobriety realize you can get that’s kind of a small space for six to eight chickens. But I guess that’s plenty fine, because you’re feeding and most the time they’re not you’re not relying on them to feed themselves. A good place for them to hang out and get a little fun and be outside a good place for them to hide. So and what are chicken? How much are chickens? I just found out this the other day, you can get a check for three bucks.
17:28
So you can get a live check for $3. Yeah. Okay. And then, okay. And then. But you’re I know nothing about chicks, except that the store and the situation. So let’s remove that. So people are buying chicks so that they can lay eggs so that they don’t have to buy eggs at the store?
17:49
Well, also, I mean, we had them. So you know, they’re completely green, right? I mean, no hormones. No, none of the bad stuff that you could possibly get
17:58
from what you’re saying is you grew Ganic Okay, so you grew organic future meals is what you’re saying, right? So we
18:07
didn’t actually eat chicks, but we had the eggs for them from them, which was really nice. And they taste quite a bit better than the eggs that you get at the store. You can notice a difference and you know what? You’re feeding them right and they’re a little happier than the even like the cage free quote unquote chickens that you that the Chicken Story? Yes, right. They say they’re cage free. That just means they’re not in that little itty bitty box. They actually have a place to run around a little bit and they’re still in a house. overcrowded and yeah, filled with bones. And
18:45
listen. I’m not here to fight for animal rights, because I’ve done that in my prior life. I’m not on this. I’m not here to do that. And it’s
18:53
chicken so I could chicken. I like it. I like white meat and they develop these chickens that yeah, can barely walk but they taste good.
19:01
Yeah, I I’ve given back to the animal kingdom. Okay, I’ve got my own little nonsense happening right here. So um, listen, my car was good. So let’s just I don’t know how much time we have left. But you know what, it might be really great to remind people that what I’m going to do, okay, what I’m going to do is in addition to you kind of doing a quick run through on the materials, because it’s always nice to get a little quick. Okay, wait, when you’re done with that though. I’m obviously going to put access visual access to this up on Facebook and on our website, just because then you can see if you’re interested in this, you’ll have links, but it is nice to kind of run through it verbally. You know, I feel like give me give me a clue of how many materials we’re talking about. Then we can have the actual plans that for you too. If interested. You can take a look you can download you get some ideas, but
19:50
that’s great. And thanks for saving me because I was losing myself. My brain is not working great. I thought you saw the glazed look.
19:58
I did I did you You got all excited about chicks and eggs and dinner and you’re like I’m ready to go for a nap. So I’m bringing you back. What’s kind of the overall do they have like a little supply list you might consider when you’re looking at creating your own little chicken Oasis
20:14
you have a good supply list here. Yeah. So to build this structure, they use a lot of two by fours. So been two by fours are relatively inexpensive. They have 4812 by 212 foot two by fours. 212 foot four by fours for the the NS five sheets at C 111. Once you have OSB once you to half inch ply, 16 one, one by four to just trim. three rolls of four by 25 foot hard wire cloth, one roll of three by 25 hardwire cloth sheets of corrugated metal for the roofs, a bunch of screws and some nails and fender washers for attaching hardware cloth. You can also use staples and 218 by 23 Shed Playhouse windows, if you want to put some windows in there, and 112 by 18 Playhouse window for back of coop for to provide cross breeze. And you can actually you know you can get the Playhouse windows or you can actually even just you build them yourself of the plywood. This is a pretty nice situation.
21:28
I know I was just I was imagining when you’re saying Windows I’m like, dang, that’s solid. Yeah, really nice.
21:35
And they actually use real windows. So this is a this is for the person that wants to spend a little bit of money and make something that looks really nice to have in their their backyard. Mine did not look this nice because I basically used scrap plywood from jobs and just kind of put something together that would keep the chickens out of the out of the weather and put a light in there for the winter to keep them warm. But this will get you this will get a this is really nice. This is a really nice setup for your chickens, you have plenty of eggs throughout the season. And it’s kind of fun to have little chickens. And yeah, it was really we got it, we got them for our kids. And once the kids got a little older, we didn’t have chickens anymore, just because, you know, they’re a little bit of work to take care of. But it’s kind of nice. Now I just have friends with chickens, which is, that’s like the best. Yeah, it’s kind of like a friend with a boat, right? You don’t necessarily want to own a boat. With a boat,
22:38
I mean, that’s what I’m saying. Like I’ve got, I’ve got a passport, and I can travel anywhere, I don’t have to have all the toys, I just have to people that have the toys, that’s that’s my big thing.
22:49
Okay, include this project, on our website with all the pictures and videos and everything on the how to because this is, this is a fun little project. And especially if you’ve got kids, because this is something you can involve your kids in to build with them. Because this is one of those projects that it’s basically a box, so doesn’t take a lot of carpentry skills. So and not a lot of tools. I mean, you know, a skill saw jigsaw. And if you’ve got to do tables are chops off, that’s great, but you don’t even necessarily have to have those two things. But on that note, if you need other thing that’s different than this, such as a plumber or electrician or a like the name and say that an electrician or HVAC for heating or air you can reach us at 530-230-9092 That number again 530-230-9092 You can find us on the web at easy as abt.com or abt plumbing.com. You can find us on Facebook, where we’ll also be sharing this, I’m assuming that look at you and like I’m making stuff up. But that will be our Facebook page, so you can find it there. And on that note, hope you guys have a great week and we’ll catch you next time. Thanks. Bye.
24:05
Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Rose Lee. Now let’s get that project started. You got this. We’ll be back next Friday morning and nine o’clock on Cancio Newstalk 830
Transcribed by https://otter.ai