Cooped up with Joe

Joe has had chickens for over a year. Recently he became seriously interested in them, reading about how to properly care for them and about all the different breeds. Since one of his pair perished, Joe has taken it upon himself to be the remaining ones playmate - sitting in the coop, talking to it, teaching it to let him hold it, setting up a cleaning schedule and system for the coop. Pretty in-depth for a 10 year old. Sue has been so impressed with Joe's level of commitment, she got him two more adult hen's to join his other one. Then she mail-ordered him 25 baby chick's - due to arrive this week. This meant the need to build a new, bigger chicken coop. Joe had plenty of ideas and with Sue's help had already scoured the scrap pile for salvagable materials. So - I had my weekend project. Normally when I build, I retreat into my own little world, ignore the family, forget to eat, etc... Jamie is usually the only one who ever wants to help, but this time Joe - who can't focus or sit still long enough - wanted "in" on every aspect. So father & son spent 6 hours (ask Joe) working on saturday and more on sunday. Joe learned to use the drill and change the bits with the chuck key. He got to climb on the shed roof. He cut boards with the chop saw, hammered nails, used a post hole digger, planned and contributed ideas - and maintained a sense of amazement and pride throughout. He didn't fight me over things I said wouldn't work. We shopped for what lumber we couldn't scrounge, and picked out hinges. In two days he turned from a monkee into a carpenter. Now that I'm back to work and he's home, I have to hope that with his newfound knowledge of power tools, he doesn't turn into a danger! I'm afraid I'll come home one day to see what he "Built" while Tim was babysitting!