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What a week we have had. Blue sky, sunshine, and a glimpse of warmer weather to come. I don’t know about you, but we have been trying to get little things done that have been neglected for too long. It is too early to start planting the garden, so we are taking this opportunity to work on older projects.

One of these things was install a new door on the duck run. When we 1st built the duck run (originally to hold pigs) the door was put on the north side, which is the lowest side. After we moved the pigs out, we installed automatic watering nipples for the new flock of ducks. When we 1st did this, we didn’t think anything of it, but over the years, we have discovered that the combination of wet winter months, the watering nipples, a lot more ducks and regular foot traffic, the area in front of the door became a deep muddy mess, regardless of the erosion control we added to it. Last week, after dealing with it for years, we built and installed a second door to the duck run on the south side. Now when we collect eggs, we don’t sink down to our calf muscles and risk dropping cartons of eggs.

Duck run
Duck run

Another fun project we have worked on is not Ranch related at all but all about backyard fun. We spread black fabric over a 45-foot square in the backyard and put in a border of railroad ties. We then installed a new-to-us playground structure and filled it in with 30 yards of wood chips. It is still a work in progress, but it is slowly coming along. We moved our cedar picnic table out there and will eventually move our propane fire pit table out as summer gets closer.

Our goal with the area is to have a little entertainment area for adults and kids. Rather than having all these things in the grass, they have a designated area. We don’t want to mow and weed eat around a hundred different legs.

We designed it to be 45 feet long because that is the length of a corn hole court. The plan is to leave the front area of the chips open to be able to set out the corn hole game and play. We are excited to see how it progresses and gets used over the summer.

Progression of back yard project