Living Your Values - The Chickens are Coming!

I've noticed that one of the hardest things for my family to do is to live in a world that has very different values than our family.  It's a constant struggle. The more my wife and I talk about the things that are most important to us - spending time with our boys, eating quality home-made food, spending time in the garden, focusing on living a balanced life of work & play - the more we are confronted with the crazy pace of the world we live in that makes those things very hard to achieve.

This will be our sixth season of growing heirloom vegetables in raised beds in our backyard.  We grow several varieties of carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, loose leaf lettuce, spinach, squash, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, herbs, and tomatoes.  Our tomatoes are our favorite - we grow between 15-20 different varieties each year with 3-4 different sizes and about seven different colors.

About the time we started gardening I started learning more and more about GMO foods and the monopolies that the large agribusiness were creating and the harassment that they've been doing to farmers who still want to save seed and not use their genetically modified products and methods of growing. I read Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma and came to a much greater understanding of how much I hadn't been paying attention to what we're eating or where it came from.  That's when our gardening began.

We started with our tomato garden and the next year began building raised beds and started gardening by the square, with about 130 square feet of garden.  The next year we added another 66 square feet and continued adding every year since.  We currently are planting about 400 square feet of garden and I'm starting to create edible landscape in our regular flower beds out front.  We're adding some new plants to our garden including celery, rainbow chard, and cauliflower.

This year we're fulfilling my dream for the last few years - to raise chickens in our backyard for eggs.  I've been wanting to move out of town (we live in Toledo, OH) for many years.  I grew up in the country and like having space and want room to farm on a larger scale.  My other half would rather stay in the city and likes being so close to everything that the city offers.  One reason I wanted to move was so that we could start raising livestock.  The first on my list was chickens and I've been researching keeping chickens in the city for several years.

Two weeks ago the four of us went to Tractor Supply Co looking for annual clover seed (which they didn't have) to plant as a Spring cover crop in our beds.  To our surprise, TSC had baby chicks and ducks in for Spring.  Our 20 month old, Kaisyn went crazy and would do nothing else but go back and forth to each bin and look at the chickens.  Our 4 year old, Karson, was also excited and they both wanted chickens.  Though we didn't get any that day, my wife looked at me in the store and said 'we can get chickens.'  I was thrilled and the next day went online and found a hatchery in Ohio that had some breeds that I was interested in.  I picked four that are ready for pick-up on April 15.  They're all females and from three different breeds, four different colors.  They are:  Dominiques, Black Langshan, Buff Brahma Standard, & Light Brahma.  We picked breeds that would all be larger birds and were at least good egg layers.  Here's what they're supposed to look like once their grown:

Black Langshan

Dominiques

Buff Brahma Standard

Lighe Brahma

Since placing our order, I've been doing copious research online about feed and chicken coops.  I've reviewed many, many plans and finally settled on one I saw on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zB9DXsQL1M).  I wanted to make a chicken tractor so that I could easily move them around my yard so they could have the benefits of pasture raised poultry - just in our backyard.  My friend Cathie and I mocked up some plans and this weekend we started building.  By this evening, we had accomplished what you see at the top of this post.  The main structure is built and two of the walls and the floor for the hen house are in.  We're hoping to have the other two walls with the access doors, as well as the coop door and the roof completed next weekend.

Today in the van on the way to lunch after church we think we settled on their names:  Molly (in honor of our recently departed lab/chow), Ruby, Bertha, & Bob.  Karson came up with the name Bob from one of his favorite kids songs by Sandra Boynton called Fifteen Animals.  We don't know which one will have which name.  We decided we'd wait and see what their personalities were like and match them to their name once we have them.

The reason I started this post by talking about our values is that they collided this weekend.  Usually we spend the weekend meal prepping and planing for the week so that we have fresh, home-cooked meals that involve as few artificial ingredients and preservatives as possible.  Because of our chicken coop build and Denise trying to get some of our seeds started, we had much less time for food prep.  This is when our values collide with our time.

I'm sure that this problem hits many households on a Sunday night - when you look back on what you accomplished for the weekend and your readiness for the one to come.  Denise & I are exhausted and not as ready for our meals this week as usual but - the chickens are coming & their coop is underway.

One of the big lessons I've learned as my family continues to try to re-prioritize what's important and live in a way that's consistent with our values is that you have to give yourself a break.  Change doesn't come all at once, you have to chip away at it until you've created the world you want.  I have to remind both Denise and I sometimes that just 14 months ago we were living, just the two of us, feeling like we had a handle of things.  Then just over a year ago, two little boys came in to our life and we've never been the same.  So, we had a successful week - we chipped away at our world and are more ready for Spring than we were last week at this time, both boys are sound asleep (and actually went to bed on time) - and we can't wait for the chicks to come!!! 

I've noticed that one of the hardest things for my family to do is to live in a world that has very different values than our family.  It's a constant struggle. The more my wife and I talk about the things that are most important to us - spending time with our boys, eating quality home-made food, spending time in the garden, focusing on living a balanced life of work & play - the more we are confronted with the crazy pace of the world we live in that makes those things very hard to achieve.

This will be our sixth season of growing heirloom vegetables in raised beds in our backyard.  We grow several varieties of carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, loose leaf lettuce, spinach, squash, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, herbs, and tomatoes.  Our tomatoes are our favorite - we grow between 15-20 different varieties each year with 3-4 different sizes and about seven different colors.

About the time we started gardening I started learning more and more about GMO foods and the monopolies that the large agribusiness were creating and the harassment that they've been doing to farmers who still want to save seed and not use their genetically modified products and methods of growing. I read Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma and came to a much greater understanding of how much I hadn't been paying attention to what we're eating or where it came from.  That's when our gardening began.

We started with our tomato garden and the next year began building raised beds and started gardening by the square, with about 130 square feet of garden.  The next year we added another 66 square feet and continued adding every year since.  We currently are planting about 400 square feet of garden and I'm starting to create edible landscape in our regular flower beds out front.  We're adding some new plants to our garden including celery, rainbow chard, and cauliflower.

This year we're fulfilling my dream for the last few years - to raise chickens in our backyard for eggs.  I've been wanting to move out of town (we live in Toledo, OH) for many years.  I grew up in the country and like having space and want room to farm on a larger scale.  My other half would rather stay in the city and likes being so close to everything that the city offers.  One reason I wanted to move was so that we could start raising livestock.  The first on my list was chickens and I've been researching keeping chickens in the city for several years.

Two weeks ago the four of us went to Tractor Supply Co looking for annual clover seed (which they didn't have) to plant as a Spring cover crop in our beds.  To our surprise, TSC had baby chicks and ducks in for Spring.  Our 20 month old, Kaisyn went crazy and would do nothing else but go back and forth to each bin and look at the chickens.  Our 4 year old, Karson, was also excited and they both wanted chickens.  Though we didn't get any that day, my wife looked at me in the store and said 'we can get chickens.'  I was thrilled and the next day went online and found a hatchery in Ohio that had some breeds that I was interested in.  I picked four that are ready for pick-up on April 15.  They're all females and from three different breeds, four different colors.  They are:  Dominiques, Black Langshan, Buff Brahma Standard, & Light Brahma.  We picked breeds that would all be larger birds and were at least good egg layers.  Here's what they're supposed to look like once their grown:

Black Langshan

Dominiques

Buff Brahma Standard

Lighe Brahma

Since placing our order, I've been doing copious research online about feed and chicken coops.  I've reviewed many, many plans and finally settled on one I saw on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zB9DXsQL1M).  I wanted to make a chicken tractor so that I could easily move them around my yard so they could have the benefits of pasture raised poultry - just in our backyard.  My friend Cathie and I mocked up some plans and this weekend we started building.  By this evening, we had accomplished what you see at the top of this post.  The main structure is built and two of the walls and the floor for the hen house are in.  We're hoping to have the other two walls with the access doors, as well as the coop door and the roof completed next weekend.

Today in the van on the way to lunch after church we think we settled on their names:  Molly (in honor of our recently departed lab/chow), Ruby, Bertha, & Bob.  Karson came up with the name Bob from one of his favorite kids songs by Sandra Boynton called Fifteen Animals.  We don't know which one will have which name.  We decided we'd wait and see what their personalities were like and match them to their name once we have them.

The reason I started this post by talking about our values is that they collided this weekend.  Usually we spend the weekend meal prepping and planing for the week so that we have fresh, home-cooked meals that involve as few artificial ingredients and preservatives as possible.  Because of our chicken coop build and Denise trying to get some of our seeds started, we had much less time for food prep.  This is when our values collide with our time.

I'm sure that this problem hits many households on a Sunday night - when you look back on what you accomplished for the weekend and your readiness for the one to come.  Denise & I are exhausted and not as ready for our meals this week as usual but - the chickens are coming & their coop is underway.

One of the big lessons I've learned as my family continues to try to re-prioritize what's important and live in a way that's consistent with our values is that you have to give yourself a break.  Change doesn't come all at once, you have to chip away at it until you've created the world you want.  I have to remind both Denise and I sometimes that just 14 months ago we were living, just the two of us, feeling like we had a handle of things.  Then just over a year ago, two little boys came in to our life and we've never been the same.  So, we had a successful week - we chipped away at our world and are more ready for Spring than we were last week at this time, both boys are sound asleep (and actually went to bed on time) - and we can't wait for the chicks to come!!! 

I've noticed that one of the hardest things for my family to do is to live in a world that has very different values than our family.  It's a constant struggle. The more my wife and I talk about the things that are most important to us - spending time with our boys, eating quality home-made food, spending time in the garden, focusing on living a balanced life of work & play - the more we are confronted with the crazy pace of the world we live in that makes those things very hard to achieve.

This will be our sixth season of growing heirloom vegetables in raised beds in our backyard.  We grow several varieties of carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, loose leaf lettuce, spinach, squash, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, herbs, and tomatoes.  Our tomatoes are our favorite - we grow between 15-20 different varieties each year with 3-4 different sizes and about seven different colors.

About the time we started gardening I started learning more and more about GMO foods and the monopolies that the large agribusiness were creating and the harassment that they've been doing to farmers who still want to save seed and not use their genetically modified products and methods of growing. I read Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma and came to a much greater understanding of how much I hadn't been paying attention to what we're eating or where it came from.  That's when our gardening began.

We started with our tomato garden and the next year began building raised beds and started gardening by the square, with about 130 square feet of garden.  The next year we added another 66 square feet and continued adding every year since.  We currently are planting about 400 square feet of garden and I'm starting to create edible landscape in our regular flower beds out front.  We're adding some new plants to our garden including celery, rainbow chard, and cauliflower.

This year we're fulfilling my dream for the last few years - to raise chickens in our backyard for eggs.  I've been wanting to move out of town (we live in Toledo, OH) for many years.  I grew up in the country and like having space and want room to farm on a larger scale.  My other half would rather stay in the city and likes being so close to everything that the city offers.  One reason I wanted to move was so that we could start raising livestock.  The first on my list was chickens and I've been researching keeping chickens in the city for several years.

Two weeks ago the four of us went to Tractor Supply Co looking for annual clover seed (which they didn't have) to plant as a Spring cover crop in our beds.  To our surprise, TSC had baby chicks and ducks in for Spring.  Our 20 month old, Kaisyn went crazy and would do nothing else but go back and forth to each bin and look at the chickens.  Our 4 year old, Karson, was also excited and they both wanted chickens.  Though we didn't get any that day, my wife looked at me in the store and said 'we can get chickens.'  I was thrilled and the next day went online and found a hatchery in Ohio that had some breeds that I was interested in.  I picked four that are ready for pick-up on April 15.  They're all females and from three different breeds, four different colors.  They are:  Dominiques, Black Langshan, Buff Brahma Standard, & Light Brahma.  We picked breeds that would all be larger birds and were at least good egg layers.  Here's what they're supposed to look like once their grown:

Black Langshan

Dominiques

Buff Brahma Standard

Lighe Brahma

Since placing our order, I've been doing copious research online about feed and chicken coops.  I've reviewed many, many plans and finally settled on one I saw on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zB9DXsQL1M).  I wanted to make a chicken tractor so that I could easily move them around my yard so they could have the benefits of pasture raised poultry - just in our backyard.  My friend Cathie and I mocked up some plans and this weekend we started building.  By this evening, we had accomplished what you see at the top of this post.  The main structure is built and two of the walls and the floor for the hen house are in.  We're hoping to have the other two walls with the access doors, as well as the coop door and the roof completed next weekend.

Today in the van on the way to lunch after church we think we settled on their names:  Molly (in honor of our recently departed lab/chow), Ruby, Bertha, & Bob.  Karson came up with the name Bob from one of his favorite kids songs by Sandra Boynton called Fifteen Animals.  We don't know which one will have which name.  We decided we'd wait and see what their personalities were like and match them to their name once we have them.

The reason I started this post by talking about our values is that they collided this weekend.  Usually we spend the weekend meal prepping and planing for the week so that we have fresh, home-cooked meals that involve as few artificial ingredients and preservatives as possible.  Because of our chicken coop build and Denise trying to get some of our seeds started, we had much less time for food prep.  This is when our values collide with our time.

I'm sure that this problem hits many households on a Sunday night - when you look back on what you accomplished for the weekend and your readiness for the one to come.  Denise & I are exhausted and not as ready for our meals this week as usual but - the chickens are coming & their coop is underway.

One of the big lessons I've learned as my family continues to try to re-prioritize what's important and live in a way that's consistent with our values is that you have to give yourself a break.  Change doesn't come all at once, you have to chip away at it until you've created the world you want.  I have to remind both Denise and I sometimes that just 14 months ago we were living, just the two of us, feeling like we had a handle of things.  Then just over a year ago, two little boys came in to our life and we've never been the same.  So, we had a successful week - we chipped away at our world and are more ready for Spring than we were last week at this time, both boys are sound asleep (and actually went to bed on time) - and we can't wait for the chicks to come!!!