Goodbye, Mystery. You were loved.

Last Friday, less than an hour before I needed to leave for the Good Friday service at church, Eldest came in from doing his chicken chores with a scared look on his face.

"Something's wrong with Mystery," he said. "She's curled up in the corner of the coop, and she's not moving."

Oh, no.

We have been so blessed in the last two years of chicken parenthood -- every one of the seven little chicks we brought home in February '08 grew into a healthy pullet, then hen. No sickness. Only one neighborhood dog invasion, from which all but Jackie Blackie escaped untouched, and she recovered quickly.

Mystery was our only Rhode Island Red. Sometimes she was at the bottom of the pecking order, being a little smaller and shyer than her Orpington and Rock sisters. But she laid more faithfully than any of them. She was also Eldest's favorite -- he named her.

When he came in with that worried look on his face, Scott and I hurried out to the coop. Our little red hen was curled up in a little corner of the chicken yard, against the garage and the fence, her head tucked down as if asleep. But she was not asleep.

Scott put her gently into a cardboard box, and the boys helped me dig a hole in in a shady spot at the back of yard, near the blackberry vines. They laid yellow flowers on top of the grave, and wept a few tears in my arms.

Eldest dreamed that night that Mystery was alive again. But, of course, there was no Easter for her, poor baby. Sadly, I have few pictures of her, since her sisters were the camera hogs, and Mystery preferred to stay busy on her nest.

You will be missed, Mystery!

In the garden: Signs of spring

I really don't mean to make any of you northerners jealous when I talk about spring arriving in February. Try to remember that our spring ends in May when the 95-degree weather arrives.

Summer here is kind of like winter in the north. Except that we can grow eggplant and chili peppers. We stay indoors a lot. I do all my summer gardening before 9 a.m., or after 7 p.m. when it's shady. Summer is our indoors-or-in-the-pool season. Except, we don't have a pool.

In any case, it's not summer yet, and I'm happy to be enjoying spring, whether you're jealous or not!


We've been outside as much as possible on dry days. I go out to weed or take care of the chickens, and the boys beg me to jump on the trampoline with them.

I oblige, partially because they're so cute, and partially because I'm hoping to lose the 15 pounds I gained in 2008 by the end of April. Otherwise, I'll have to go shopping for a whole new summer wardrobe in a size I never thought I'd wear again unless I was pregnant. Wish me luck.

Scott built a new fence for the chickens this month, at my request. In November I had him put a removable chicken wire fence around the winter vegetable bed. But it seemed like a lot of trouble to do that around all the new beds, too.

As much I love to let the hens roam free around the yard, they've made quite a mess of my perennial beds. And the kids kept tracking chicken poop into the house. Plus I don't want them eating up my new plants when I put in the spring vegetable garden.

Last year I shooed the chickens away from the tomatoes as much as I could, but they got their fair share. They LOVE tomatoes. And carrot tops. They totally dug up the carrot patch. I ended up with two carrots out of the four rows I planted.

But I didn't want my girls confined to the covered coop, either, as nice as it may be. They need some uncovered area to scratch for bugs and weeds. Right now there aren't too many weeds inside their fence, because it was too well mulched.

I let them inside the winter bed a few days ago, so they could nibble on overgrown arugula and young dandelions. Of course, they thought the tiny new broccoli heads were tasty, too.

Silly chicken.

Do you see the little bit of red on black inside the feed bucket? That would be Jackie Blackie looking for a private, cozy spot to lay an egg. Silly chicken!

We've been finding eggs everywhere but in the three $10 nesting boxes I installed last month. After discovering Jackie's latest spot, I put a pie tin over the top of the feed canister so she wouldn't try that again.

Mystery, our Rhode Island Red, started laying this week, too! And I think one of the Barred Rocks is close. The Buff Orpingtons are older than Mystery and the Rockettes (as we call them), but they might be the last to lay.

In other news... We picked the last of the peaches off my mom's second tree on Sunday, and finished off the last cobbler of the summer yesterday. I canned six jars of peaches, so we'll save those for wintertime, when we actually NEED the extra calories. Now I have to go on a diet so I can fit back into my summer clothes! Apparently I've been enjoying my own cooking a little too much lately.

At work and play in the garden

It's supposed to be over 100 degrees all week, so we headed out back this morning to give everything a good soak, let the chickens graze in the shade, and see if Jackie had another egg for us. She didn't yet, so we watched her go in and out of the henhouse, listened to her scratch around in the bedding, and waited for that proud SQUAWK!

While the other chickens found their happy places in the shade...


...the boys built towers out of outdoor toys, and attempted to set a world record on longest swinging time. ("Has it been an hour yet?!")


I watered the vegetables, and harvested eggplant and tomatoes. LOTS and LOTS of tomatoes!

And finally, Jackie layed her morning egg!


The tomatoes in the bowl are from yesterday, the ones on the counter are all from this morning! Two dozen large and small Romas, and one round Italian heirloom. I have to figure out the name of it, because the stick is buried in the mud under the plants somewhere.

Scrambled eggs with salsa, anyone?

(Sorry no Menu Plan Monday today. You were right, of course, Mrs. Ballinger. The plan is a starting point, but it's no guarantee of what we'll end up eating! We ended up with enough leftovers that I have two day's menus left from last week.)

We have eggs!!

A few times in the last week, I'd heard Jackie Blackie squawking out in the chicken coop, and commented on how noisy she was. I knew it was her, because she's always been the noisiest of our seven chickens. Black Australorps have a tendency toward loudness, I've read at least once.

She's also our biggest pullet (young female chicken), and I knew she was close to beginning to lay. (We actually wondered if Jackie Blackie might end up being our only rooster because she was so big and noisy from the beginning!)

I put the nesting boxes in the coop a few weeks ago, and meant to stick some plastic Easter eggs in them to show the girls where to lay when they were ready. But I've been tired and busy this week, and while I checked the coop from the egg collecting door a couple of times, I didn't do a thorough search. Friends had stopped asking about eggs, for the most part, although I'd been telling everyone a month ago we should have some by the end of June.

Last night we had friends over for dinner, so we were out in the back, barbecuing and watching the kids swim, and letting the chickens out to forage. My oldest was checking the nesting boxes, when he noticed a tiny round brown thing on the other side of the coop under the sleeping perches. Our first egg!

I was so excited, I forgot for the moment that I was supposed to be heading inside to fix the veggies. And that I was wearing a white skirt and knit top -- not exactly attire for climbing into a chicken coop. Actually, I didn't care. And thankfully, my arms were long enough that I only had to go in from the waist up to reach in and collect, not just one, but EIGHT eggs!

Apparently, Jackie had been laying all week, and hid her little clutch of eggs in a spot under the window. The single egg we saw from the collecting door was separate from the clutch.

So, there we have it! At least one laying hen! I'm assuming they're all Jackie Blackie's because they're all the same pretty shade of coffee-with-cream brown, and the same sweet, medium size.

I'm in love.

Fun for days

Whew! It's been a busy, fun few days. Just to share some highlights...

On Friday we almost got caught in the rain while blueberry picking -- not that we minded. It hasn't really rained in several months, so we needed it. I was so excited, I had to take pictures.

Our 3.5-month-old chickens had never seen rain in their short lives.

The downpour (only here would we call it that!) didn't begin until we arrived home with 8 pints of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries. It was the perfect day for baking! Plus, we were headed to the Swanlunds for Wii Knit and dinner, so we had friends to share the cobbler with.

UberDad left for Fresno Friday night, so Saturday the boys and I took care of picking up our CSA produce and grocery shopping. Then we headed to the Bowmans for a bbq lunch! The weather was perfect -- the rain had cleaned the air, and it wasn't broiling hot like the weekend before. It was great to catch up with our friends, and the kids played really nicely. After that, I got busy decluttering with my mom.

Our Sunday School had its 2nd annual children's service and picnic this weekend at our local history museum. Our church held a service just for the kids and their families in a 120-year-old chapel that was our parish's first building, and is now preserved at the museum. We sang songs the children knew, the priest explained the meaning of each part of the service, and the sermon was nice and short. Afterward we headed into the old hotel building for lunch, since it was oddly too cold and wet for a picnic. Unfortunately I didn't get any great photos, despite the beauty of the museum campus and old buildings. Maybe next year.

Monday was our home improvement co-op's work day at the Swanlunds.


While the guys tackled making sun- and pet-resistant screens for all the windows, the moms washed and repaired curtains, cleaned windows, cupboards and shower tile -- and nursed toddlers, of course. The big kids played outside, watched movies, and even offered to help on occasion.


We finished off with spaghetti for dinner at our house, and everyone got to see how much our pullets have grown since they were here to help build the chicken coop.

We are blessed beyond measure to have good friends!

Early summer fun.

(Um, yeah... I really did try to blog yesterday.)



I haven't met my pre-7 a.m. wake-up goal yet. But we did eat breakfast outside on the patio yesterday morning. We sat under the Chinese elm, where it was a nice 77 degrees or so in the shade, but already warmer in the sun than the boys wanted. We ate our oatmeal together, and then they played and I did some cleaning up.

Spider webs had already overtaken the patio furniture and playhouse, so Grouper helped me sweep and hose those off. I let the chickens out and watered the veggies, then went next door to my parents' mini-orchard to move the hose from the apple to the pear tree, while the big boys climbed the fig tree.

By 10 o'clock the boys wanted to go inside, so I stayed out just long enough to refill the chickens' water and get them back in the coop.

Supposedly it was 100 degrees out by lunchtime. Thankfully we had plans to go swimming and bbq with friends at 6, so I didn't have to cook dinner and we could lounge around the house (and I could fold laundry) all afternoon. (Despite my concern about our carbon footprint, I did turn on the A/C.) After I got Baby down for his nap, the big boys and I played a game together, read the latest issue of Your Big Backyard, and counted down the hours until we could go swimming.

By 3:30, though, they were ready to get back outside and play some more. And I still needed to clean the chicken coop and finish watering. So we lathered on the sunscreen and braved the heat, knowing we'd get to cool off in the Swanlunds' Grammy's pool soon.

It was SO nice getting to hang out with our friends last night after two weeks of being mostly isolated. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my bathing suit, so I didn't get to rinse off in the pool, but the boys had a great time freezing their bottoms off in the cold water in between gorges of watermelon and veggie dogs. Baby wasn't interested in the pool at all, but he happily played with the toys on the watertable for three hours.

It's a good life. :)

Growing things

Maybe someday I'll be a dependable blogger. Lately I've just been trying to be dependable in real life.

It's been a good couple of weeks, actually. Even with the flu bug that swept its way through our house and is still working through the neighborhood. (I hope everyone feels better soon!)

I finished painting the coop. Mostly. I worked on it the week after Easter, and then got busy washing bedding and keeping an eye on my pukers. But the chickens are growing steadily, and don't seem to mind that I haven't finished the eaves or the back studs.

Here they are devouring some treats -- leftover lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes are their favorite!



Here's Josephine first in line for visitors. She's the queen of the coop, but she rules gently.



Mystery tends to hang back and let everyone else go first. She's the most wary about new foods. She keeps an eye on the littlest girls (the barred Rocks), who don't seem to be afraid of anything.



The vegetable patch is doing well! I was starting to worry that all the carrot seeds we planted wouldn't come up, but they finally peeked out a few days ago. We have one row of seedlings I started in February that are several inches tall. Then four or five more rows that are only tiny little grass-like babies.



The lettuces started from seed look really good. The tomatoes and bell peppers are also doing well. I got them as seedlings, so they had a head start. And the Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins are growing like crazy! I'm going to have to transplant several of them to another mound.

But only three green bean plants, and none of the cucumbers, watermelon or cantalope came up. The kids must have made off with the cantalope seed packet, so I couldn't start those again, but I started some more watermelon and cucumbers, plus cilantro and Italian parsley, fresh in my seedling starter kit. That seemed to work better than sowing them in the ground. I'm a little disappointed that my amendments to the soil aren't making as much difference as I hoped. But this was really a very basic first effort. I haven't had our soil tested, but I know a lot of it is pretty bad.

We also have one plant each of peas, zucchini, strawberries, leeks, basil, and eggplant. Not nearly enough, but I ran out of room in the bed I'd prepared, and ran out of time to work more soil.

Away from home... Last week we met friends at the local native animal zoo, which is always fun to visit. My littlest boy was finally big enough to see into the reptile cases on his own. "Sssnake!" was the word of the day. He is talking a TON. More than I remember the other two doing at this age -- or at least more clearly. 'Course, my memory could be off. :)



On Saturday, we joined friends at the local MS Walk for Life in honor of my friend Sarah. It was a gorgeous day, and we all had a lovely time. Puffer also did his own fund-raising the weekend before when his kung fu studio held a Kick-a-Thon for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. He raised the most money of all the kids! Thank you so much to all our donors for helping both causes!

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, too, but I'll have to save that for another post.

The chicken coop

This is the story of a little henhouse built by wonderful friends and a devoted husband...


Last Saturday, our home improvement co-op came over for our first Work Day since 2005. The men, with the help of the kids, put up the walls and roof of the coop. The kids also helped my friend Emily and I put in the spring/summer garden. Everyone worked really hard!


UberDad was on Easter Break, but it wasn't much vacation! He shingled the roof, fitted the enclosed portion of the coop, put in windows, and trimmed all the openings.


My friend Cassandra spent all day Thursday helping me paint the beams and trim, so Scott could get the hinges and chicken wire on. She even stayed after I had to leave for an appointment I'd forgotten about!


The chickens got to come outside with us while we worked. We couldn't just let them run free, unfortunately, because the neighborhood cats were definitely aware of their presence!



The chickens got to spend their first night in the coop after the doors were finished. They were very excited to have so much space to flit around in! They went from 6 square feet in the brooder to 32 square feet in the coop.


Saturday was sunny and warm -- the perfect day for the girls to come outside to play for the first time! Another 80 sq ft of space to play in -- plus grass to nibble on and bugs to search for.


I still have to finish painting the eaves and walls this week, but for now, we have seven happy chickens in a henhouse built with love!

See how they've grown!

Here's a peek at how big the chickens have gotten! They're officially "pullets" now because they have all their feathers. They'll be pullets until they're one year old, then they'll be grown-up hens.

Baby chicks update!

We've had a full week, and I have plenty else to post about, but I thought I'd better give an update on the chicks first.

They are all doing wonderfully, growing every day and getting new wing feathers. They seem to like each other quite well. If we weren't planning to get a few more, I might decide to name them "Meg," "Jo, "Beth," and "Amy." But the boys are pretty set on Vampire for the littlest Black Aussie.



They are starting to recognize our voices, and came peeking out to greet us this morning. The little Australorps still run when I stick my hand in to pick them up, but the bigger Buff seems to know what's coming -- an adventure!



A top shot of the brooder, which we made out of a Rubbermaid storage bin, duct tape, and 1/4-inch wire mesh. They have plenty of room to run around and spread out when they feel like it, but they prefer to hang out together most of the time.



The daily routine is pretty simple. We go in to say "good morning" and change their paper. I'm using newspaper with a layer of paper towels on top, and I change the worst pieces twice a day. They poop a LOT!! (And I dump it all, paper included, in the compost bin!) I hate to use so many paper towels, but it's temporary. I'll pick up some wood shavings this week to give them more to play in, and the poop will fall underneath so they won't be sitting in it when they nap and I can change the newspaper less often. I have a spare Rubbermaid container next to the big one that I move the chicks to while I clean.



I have a one-gallon waterer, and so far I've just dumped out the brim once a day and let the waterer refill itself. I changed the water completely the fourth day just to keep it fresh. They don't drink much yet.

In the evening, we go in to say goodnight, and I put a flannel receiving blanket over the window in the top of the brooder to keep the warm air in. They're in a room that doesn't get heated, so it cools off a bit at night.

In a few weeks I'll start taking them outside on nice days so they get some fresh air. They still need the temperature to be around 85-90 degrees. UberDad should have the coop finished by Easter.

That's it for now!

We have baby chicks!!

We are now the proud adoptive family of four two-day-old chickens -- two Buff Orpingtons and two Black Australorps. Aren't they adorable?!



We are all totally in love. The boys and I picked them up this afternoon. We haven't decided on names yet. "Blackie," "Vampire," "Shadow," "Buffy, and "Goldie" are all possibilities the boys have come up with.



The feed store didn't get Wyandottes in this week, so we'll go pick out three more chicks next week. Probably two Silver-Laced Wyandottes and a New Hampshire Red. I planned for six, but there's a chance we'll end up with at least one male because sexing is only 90 percent accurate. So, I'm doubling up on the breeds I like best, and adding a seventh chick just in case we have to sell a noisy cockerel (young rooster) in a couple months.

Here, chick, chick, chick!

As the name of this blog implies, I have a crunchy side. Underneath my slightly bland, t-shirt and jeans suburban mom exterior, hides a radical hippie chick/earth mama/urban farm girl just dying to raise her own chickens.

Yes, chickens.

Despite my lack of experience with any kind of live fowl -- and despite the worthy efforts of our friends to lead us down the path of vegan righteousness -- I have not been able to give up my dream of raising those fluffy, waddling birds that paint the Norman Rockwell picture of rural life.

I want pet chickens, dag mannit (as Grouper likes to say). I love eggs. I love their pretty feathers. I love the idea of my hens clucking beside me while I water the tomatoes and pick the green beans, tossing them plump, green hornworms as I go. I love the idea of raising our own food, encouraging genetic biodiversity, and fighting the atrocities of industrial animal production (not to mention Big Brother) with a daily trip to my backyard hen coop.

It's political activism that truly "starts at home."

So, this week I've been engrossed in learning everything I can about raising chicks, chicken breeds, chicken coops, municipal chicken laws, etc. There's a surprising amount to know, actually. For instance, who knew that sometimes chickens need DIAPERS?! Uberdad likes to tease me that I have a thing for hobbies involving poop. But I'll tell you now, I'm NOT washing chicken diapers with Baby's Fuzzi Bunz.

Happily, UberDad and all three boys are just as excited as I am. Puffer can recognize and name both a Silver-Laced Wyandotte and a Buff Orpington. And Baby Fish goes around "bawk bawk bawking" all day, and begging to look at pictures of chickens on the computer. We've been watching the Hen Cam during breakfast while we await our own happy flock.

Maybe I'll have my own chicken cam for you to watch someday.