Upgrade Fail

There are lots of things I've loved about having a chicken tractor this year:

the free eggs, the free fertilizer,

the satisfaction of learning something new,

seeing floofy chickies in our yard every time I roll up our driveway.

The only thing I don't love is that the tractor is so dang heavy.

I can rarely move it on my own,

and even with the help of family members, I've hurt my back a few times 

dragging this adorable behemoth of a tractor across our yard.

For the last few months, I've been researching ways 

to solve this mobility issue.

I considered replacing the tractor with a lighter one,

but decided it made more sense to add better wheels.

This afternoon, Anna tended the chickies as they free ranged in the yard . . .

. . . while we put their tractor up on blocks . . .

. . . and added some bigger wheels that we could lever up and down.

 Unfortunately, either the idea was flawed,

or we made some rookie mistake in the way we attached things,

because it was even harder to move the tractor on the new wheels.

So we took them back off, and we're back to square one.

Siiiiiiigh.

At least it's a little easier to roll the tractor now that the ground is frozen in the mornings.

Hopefully we'll figure out a better mobility solution by springtime

when the lawn thaws out and turns all wet and squishy.

Squishy + Heavy = Stuck