July 25

The tour de coop--more to come.

The color of dinner

I picked a zucchini and cooked it up within 5 minutes of its trip indoors. It was sweet and fruity raw, then meaty sauteed with a bit of olive oil and pepper. I made this! And as I cut it I realized my bedroom is the exact, vibrant greeny-yellow of the gently dewy insides. I'll sleep well tonight with courgettes inside and out.

Chicken song

I love my friends! And I guess they love my chickens... I didn't even realize they'd been playing old timey music for the ladies until Val showed me this today.

Luna and Sol (aka The Heathers)

When I did all my research into chickens and breeds, Wyandottes came up again and again as a good choice. They apparently take to captivity well, lay through the short days of winter, and best of all are supposed to be lovely, calm, and very friendly.

So home I came with two Wyandotte chicks. From day one they hung out together, chased Ruby and Minerva around, refused to be picked up, and demanded first crack at any new food or outdoor adventure.

All this female cliquishness brought to mind one of my favorite movies of all time, Heathers. Though I can tell them apart, I just mentally refer to them as Heather 1 and Heather 2. If the guy from vector control comes to count my chickens that's the story I'll stick to--Minerva, Ruby, and Heather. The allowed 3 hens, and no sir, not one more. Maybe he's been drinking at lunch if he thinks there are 2 beautiful black and white birds.

Anyway, not wanting to give up altogether on this bossy pair, in the interest of redemption, they are more formally Luna and Sol--as babies, one was silver and black, the other the color of butter and black. They're lovely and ingenious, and the glamour girls of 4630. And for their sake, I hope none of the local raccoons goes by J.D. or Veronica.

What's this got to do with the price of eggs?

So this week, I can begin to imagine the fruits (vegetables?) of my labors. The chickens look huge now, and the Wyandottes are starting to get wattles and combs. Some very weird noises have been heard over the last week, but nothing I can, even with my urban ear, mold into a crow. Generally sounds akin to strangling and acute distress, usually the result of one of the four not noticing that the group has moved on and left her behind. WHERE are they? HOW can I find them? WHAT were they thinking with their tiny bird brains, leaving me here???

Sadly the group rarely cares, and the bereft lady is left to her own devices, or herded with much laughter back to the backyard by the wingless ones.

So that's a bit of a digression. In my chasing the ladies around the vegetable garden, I've finally noticed a first zucchini and some tiny tomatoes. Our single struggling basil is getting larger as well. In another month or so, the girls should start laying. At $4 a dozen for free range eggs, and $1.50 a pound for summer squash, we'll be rich and well fed. Bring on the fritata recipes!

a trip to the farmer's market

Minerva CluckGonnagal

Minerva is a Plymouth Barred Rock. She had a spot like the moon on top of her head as a baby.
Now as a teenager (in development, though not yet even in weeks), the moon has set and she's flecked like city snow. From pics, I guess her stripes will get more pronounced as she reaches her egg-laying age this fall.

Being a bookish type, I've read a lot about chickens in the past few months. Learning a few things that apply to Minerva. Barred means stripy in chicken lingo. So M Cluck is actually a Plymouth Rock that happens to be barred.

My friend Emily (my oracle of all things chicken) told me that her barred Rocks were always really friendly, and Minerva seems to be no exception. She stretched her neck up as far as it could go to see what I was reading in the garden this afternoon. And yesterday, we had breakfast together. I'm not sure she's a fan of Stumptown...

harvest

meet the Ladies

I've grown vegetables for years. However I felt no compulsion to write about it until there were critters involved. This is really all about the chickens. So, it's time for a more detailed introduction I think.

Ruby
Ruby was supposed to be a gold-laced Wyandotte, but once I did a little research, it was clear this was not the case. She then became known as the Mystery Chicken. That first night I thought she would end up what Val termed "overage"-- the extra that didn't make it, bringing my flock down to the Portland-legal number of three. Luckily she perked right up and wasn't a Wyandotte (we'll get to those ladies later). She's the most inquisitive, and the friendliest. Though she squawks a bit, I still pick her up and carry her around every day. My little gem!

Me and Mr. Bernoulli

Daniel Bernoulli and I come from the same part of Holland. I studied his theories of fluid dynamics quite some time ago, and they help me to explain blood pressure and heart failure and how to hose down the dog runs and all sorts of things.

So setting up some tubes to water the plants shouldn't be so hard. Yet there were loud pops as covers were blown off, and founts of water gushed onto the sidewalk. Coils of tubing writhed like snakes through the foliage and refused to lay flat.

Today I think I have it, though I understand why Michael said he couldn't set up the drip system until after the plants were in. Much wiser to bring the plants to the water than the reverse, I've discovered. I've got all manner of little tubes and wide tubes and dripper thingies set up at random distances to water all the vegetables I dropped willy-nilly into the ground. Yep, I'm a city girl. Next I'll try to raise rabbits like Jean de Florette.

that kind of night

It's that kind of night. The kind that keeps me in Portland through the gray and the rain and the 4:30 sunsets. I ride my bike home through the warm dark streets. Watching red lanterns in front windows, breathing in the roses and the lavender. I turn the corner and for a moment the air is perfectly still, breeze and forward motion creating a space like water the exact temperature of my skin. That kind of night.

out of the kitchen!

At long last and with a cast of thousands, the chicken coop is complete! Here Mom models the Taj Mahen while the ladies go about their business. Thanks to all who contributed time, support and materials. Truly a neighborhood effort.

The gals spent their first night in the coop yesterday after frolicking in the pen during the first sunny afternoon we've had in a while. There was lots of loud worried cheeping as I closed them up, and four chicken faces looking very concerned at the window. The run is very secure, as I can attest after locking myself into it (with my cell phone perched just out of reach on the top). Luckily my cries for help were heard and I avoided a night in the barn.

Just before bed I crept out to make sure no varmints were afoot, and all was peaceful in the hendom. And there's a bowl of fruit on my kitchen table, once again.

Cheepdog

My rockrose has a single flower. It's hiding the papery white and maroon petals, turned away from the house (or maybe I should be more generous and say it's inviting the neighbors in). I would have seen it sooner, but I didn't do my usual walk around the block this morning...The farm has lost its cheepdog.

My beloved Jojo, older than the hills but still with plenty of wag in him, decided he was plain old done on Friday. Weak on his walk and not up for breakfast, he could hardly get up by afternoon and was gone by evening.

He came to me so late in his life, and was such an easygoing and loving dog, I looked on every day with him as a bonus for us both. Thanks Jo, you are missed.

Growing things

Growing, living, green, and feathered things. Flowers bees, earthworms and chickens. The first peas that are just starting to push outward from the white flowers. A space near my house where my friend Val and I can sit at dusk and listen to the world and watch the roses fade from pink to blue as twilight slides into dark.

The warm, soft, chickens as they're carried in for the night. I'm proud that they've learned the routine--into the recycling bin, into the house, peek, hop, then into their house for the night. They're out of their awkward stage, looking like little hens now.

The beans are preparing to twine up the trellis, the dahlias just breaking through the soil, the dogwood blossoms spent for another year.

I look to the growing things around me for some solace this week. Val's cough that was asthma last week, is now suddenly a tumor in her right lung. She makes a fist when she describes its size and placement. I make one to the sky.

Tractor time

So I got these chickens. To lay eggs and eat weeds and fertilize the garden. Only they're living on my kitchen table, eating organic chick starter and kicking sawdust all around the room. No eggs in sight for at least 2 months.

...and in my basement, is all the crap left by my lovely but former roommate. He says he's coming to get it someday, but that day keeps fading into the future.

This weekend, an inspired solution evolved--make a tractor out of the junk in the basement! You know every farm needs a tractor (in the chicken world, a little portable daytime pen is called a tractor).

Just a little whirligig with the power tools, a couple of near misses with the saw, and presto, a futon frame becomes a daytime pen for the ladies. Valerie and Tulip made sure there would be room for the chickies even if they got VERY large. And did some stapling as well.

The next day dawned sunny, and the ladies spent their first day soaking up the rays and decimating the dandelions.

A parade of neighbors came on by to admire and inquire and I sat in the sun watching the gals. Way to earn your keep and foster community, girls!
Next project on the list--the coop!

Slow day at work=sow day on the farm

Last weekend, I went down to visit my friend Emily and her much more official farm in Sublimity. A stop at a country feed store yielded many, many inexpensive veggie starts that needed to get into the ground before the predicted heat wave this weekend. Plus, of course a wealth of chicken lore, and the chance to see tiny Leo before he's 2 and not so tiny any more!

When my lovely coworkers called Wednesday to say there was nothing going on I jumped into my stripy pink gumboots and got to work. The West 40 (feet), became the kitchen garden...Now to figure out that gawldratted irrigation system...Luckily it's rained for days and the heat wave is predicted to be more of a ripple.

A new way to weed...

In some cannibalistic cultures, folks believe that eating your vanquished enemies transfers their power to you. So take THAT, dandelions! (That being a delicious salad of beets, feta, fresh lemon juice and some rather chewy weeds). I feel my taproot growing as we speak!

I also gave some to the ladies, who demolished it. Ah, my little gardeners!

Livestock

So now that I'm sort of caught up to this year, I suppose it's time to bring up the chickens. For the past couple of years I've been trying to work my friends with a big yard around to the idea of chickens. We live close, I could look after them, eggs, fertilizer, companionship, what could be better? Many polite nods and plans for fruit trees in my secretly chosen coop spot put paid to that.

Then I read by The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan. A fabulous and funny exploration of what we put into ourselves these days (lots of corn, apparently), and what other creatures and people go through to feed us. Apparently cage free chickens are not necessarily happier chickens. Free to be pecked and poked and still living in a big barn with 10, 000 other chickens. Sure I could give up eggs, but why when having my own chickens AND homemade mayonaise sounds like much more fun?

So I did some research, borrowed some chick paraphernalia, rode all around town looking at chicks, feed stores, you name it. Settled on Wyandottes, and a barred Plymouth Rock. I was in luck, Livingscape Nursery had all the breeds and colors I was looking for! Four fluffballs came home with me before I realized what I was getting into. Ever since they've grown, and grown, and grown. Like feathered kudzu. Still they have no coop and are cheeping on my kitchen table. And today I got vegetable starts; yet another new project. Now to conjure 28 hours in the day (and hope the chickens only grow in 24!)

Starting from Scratch

Last summer, the artichoke went wild, and I grew a few cucumbers for the first time--never knew they could be so juicy and delicious.

However the weeds and the junipers and the sad roses in the shade just looked worse and worse. Sitting in my plastic chairs in the weeds with a cider was a bit of hillbilly heaven, but not really relaxing since our neighborhood "watchman" Vic kept inquiring about my "plans" for the yard every time he saw me in the yard.

Plus, I developed yard envy when my friend Martha had some great folks overhaul her yard organically and put in a rain garden and all sorts of other wonders. Not in my budget, but I called to chat and we came up with our own little plan to get the farm in order. Every day I went to work, and every evening it was like little elves had toiled in the sun gnawing on weeds and sneezing out lovely compost. Joe thought it was great as well, as the entire yard was covered in composted barnyard poop. Yum! Lastly they dug a trench and put in irrigation with some sort of complicated timer gizmo on the West side of the house. Have yet to get that all set up, may be putting my girly hat on next month and calling for help.

After the elves decamped, plant sales yielded lots of goodies, and I put them in and hoped for the best. The biggest upside this past winter has been finding a reason to be happy when it rains--the plants are happy!

In the beginning--

My house was abandoned for years before I took her under my wing. And looked abandoned for years after....My neighbors were very nice, but no doubt wondered just what I had planned for the jungle. Grand plans of my own came and went, aimless trenches dug, repeated rototilling was done to no great effect, plants died, weeds flourished. It was not pretty. My only ray of hope was the small veggie garden I was able to keep alive each summer.

Finally last summer I admitted I was powerless before the yard and called in reinforcements. Michael LaCasa of Apogee Landscapes gutted the yard for me so I could start from scratch. About time...