As well as helping out on the smallholding, I have decided to keep a couple of chickens of my own in the back garden. The most satisfying outcome of this decision so far has been the construction of their run. I employed the help of a carpenter friend and we managed to create a pretty fantastic chicken house, working from a vague plan mixed with our own ideas we had as we went along. I really enjoyed the physicality of getting bits of wood, cutting them up, screwing them together and seeing a new construct come into being. The process was a lot more complex than I had initially imagined, and there were plenty of times when we had to take a step back and think again about what we are doing because some unanticipated problem had cropped up. I’m used to solving mathematical problems, but these 3D problems involving materials and their limitations pushed my mind into new areas, areas requiring much more intuitive spacial knowledge and experience. I learnt alot about using timber, if I had to make the same thing again I’m sure I could do it less than half the time, but I’m also sure that new problems would crop up.

This dabble in the world of construction made me marvel at the immense constructs mankind has managed to create. If we had trouble getting the angles right on a few bits of wood, it’s unbelievable that people are able to make skyscrapers almost a kilometre high. Even looking at classical architecture, roman buildings for example, is amazing. They didn’t have computers, electronic tools or even much mathematics to help them but they managed to construct giant magnificent buildings that are still standing now.

From a different perspective, I was conscious of the environmental impact of our construction. We were only using a few planks of pine, but working with the materials and understanding their carpentry-related properties made me appreciate that we were actually using living matter taken from the environment around us. When you are in a house, or a bigger building, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the construction materials have at some point been harvested or dug out of the earth. When thinking about environmental impact we focus so much on energy use that sometimes we lose sight of this most fundamental of relationships between ourselves and the land around us. I guess they all tie together though, since fossil fuels are extracted from the earth, and they were once animals and plants…

Having completed the run, christened ‘chickenopolis’, it’s fantastic to be able to look out of the window and see the physical outcome of my labour, it certrainly makes a satisfying change from intellectual work.