Garden Set Up

5/29/10 Have to take a break from the chickens today and put in this year’s garden. Sadly this means we are covering up the biggest chicken dust bath in history! Jeff and I will have to find their favorite treat of worms from somewhere else in the yard now.

Toys

5/15/10Jeff starts building toys for the chickens. A cardboard ramp goes in along with a cardboard roost. They seem to mostly just poop on their toys. I went out and bought them bird toys from the pet shop. Again, no interests in toys. Oh well.

First Home

5/10/10 It is time for a new home for the chickens. Sadly they have outgrown their box and we have to move them into a bigger home. Like any mom I am sad to see them grow up. I can’t believe how attached we have grown to “livestock.” Some place in heaven my grandpa (an Iowa farmer) is laughing. While they were still in the cardboard box, we started researching like crazy how to keep indoor chickens but there is almost no help out there for this (another reason to start this blog). Almost everything out there in books and on the internet is geared towards raising chickens in a coop of some sort outside. Apparently to raise chickens in our basement, we are going to have to “wing” it. For now we’ve improvised a “coop” made of some scrap wood, cheap plywood lattice, and an old blanket. The bathroom and the walls of the basement and three side of the “coop”. We duct tapped the lattice to the wall and laid down an old blanket my mom brought over. Funny to think that my chickens are now pooping on the blanket I slept under as a child. This coop looks like something the Beverly Hillbillies would come up with, seems to work.

Biking

5/10/10 Biking through the “ghetto” has turned out well for me. There are a few people who have started to recognize me and my co-worker who wave and wish us well. There is even a bar at the top of a steep hill who cheer for us when we get up there!

Ghetto Biking

5/3/10 I am loving the better weather and am now able to start biking to work today. Biking brings to light some of differences between Jeff and I. The fastest way for me to get to my office is through a really bad part of town. I am of the opinion that if I want to see change the best thing I can do is to be that change and bike through there. Jeff however feels that I should take the longer route and avoid that neighborhood. Well I am the one struggling to bike my tired butt home at the end of the day so I go through the “ghetto.”

Grandchicks?

4/10/10 Jeff’s parents came over and meet their “grandchicks” wish they could have seen them as chicks. They look goofier by the day. We have started to take them outside for “walks” in the backyard. The neighbors’ toddler seemed to notice the birds and wanted to come over and play. His mom didn’t want him walking through the bushes and stopped him; phew close call. While the baby chicks are cute, still no telling how neighbors might react to livestock being raised next door here in suburbia.

Ackward Teens

Jeff decided to take a quick nap- I happened to put Cluck on his head! 

3/25/10 I can’t believe how fast the chickens are growing! They are losing their baby fuzz and are in the awkward teenage look!