Shareable.net published my article about the Eastside Egg Cooperative in Portland, Oregon.
It begins:
Foster Road in Southeast Portland, Oregon is lined with wrecking yards, auto body shops, gas stations, cheap appliance stores, and vacant lots.
It’s not the place you’d expect to find a six-acre working farm or a ten-acre wetland preserve. But that’s where Zenger Farm [...]
Archive for the ‘Backyard Chickens’ Category
How to Share a Chicken (or Two)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Chickens, Eastside Egg Cooperative, Urban Farming on November 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Hen Diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl keeper (Weeks 20-29)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on November 13, 2009 | 6 Comments »
It’s the first week of October and something is up with Emily. The hens usually wander around the yard together, pecking and scratching, but Emily is hanging out by herself. And she spends a lot of time sitting on the back step, staring into the sliding-glass patio door, crooning. When we’re outside, she follows us [...]
Our First Egg!
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on October 8, 2009 | 2 Comments »
If you’ve been following the Hen Diaries, you’ve watched our four sweet little chicks turn into garden-devouring hens. Well, today was a big day for our little flock. Emily laid our first egg!
I’ll tell you all the details in the next installment of the Hen Diaries, but for now, look how much these girls have [...]
Backyard Chickens are It Birds
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on September 30, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, is a backyard chicken enthusiast. Her article about her poultry-keeping passion, “The It Bird”, appears in this week’s New Yorker. “Chickens seem to be a perfect convergence of the economic, environmental, gastronomic, and emotional matters of the moment,” Orlean writes, “plus, in the past few years, they have [...]
Hen Diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl keeper (Weeks 11-19)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on September 3, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Sometime in late July, I become smug about chicken keeping. It’s just like everyone said – easy, peasy. Much easier than taking care of our three spoiled cats, and, an absolute breeze compared to chasing after our toddler. Gertrude, Virginia, Charlotte, and Emily get along, they entertain themselves with all their pecking and scratching, and [...]
Hen Diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl keeper (Weeks 8,9 & 10)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on July 9, 2009 | 3 Comments »
My husband’s mom is visiting, and she graciously agrees to watch our one-year-old son while my husband and I get some work done.
“You only have three chickens today,” she says when I get home at 6:30. “I haven’t seen the other one since lunch.” The brown hen who’s missing strays from the flock more often [...]
Hen Diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl keeper (Weeks 6 & 7)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on June 17, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I bolt upright. My eyes fly to the clock. It’s five a.m. A scream pierces the silence … then growling. Someone or something is getting hurt. Is it the cats? No. The sound’s coming from outside, from the backyard … from the hen house. I shake my husband. “The chicks…” I sputter. He’s already out [...]
Hen Diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl-keeper (Week 5)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on June 5, 2009 | 7 Comments »
I’m not sure I can really call them chicks anymore. They’re not full-sized, but they have all of their feathers, and they hardly resemble the sweet little balls of fluff they were a short five weeks ago. This week, the plumes around their legs flare out, making them look much more grown up.
The chickens explore [...]
Hen diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl-keeper (Week 4)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on May 28, 2009 | 7 Comments »
The chicks wander further from their coop this week. They stay together, pecking grass, eating weeds, and scratching dirt. They discover the shed, and spend hours in there eating spiders. One evening, we come outside, and they’re lined up on the pole to my husband’s old wash-tub bass. They’re sleeping. I rush in to get [...]
Hen Diaries: Tales from a fledgling fowl keeper (Week 3)
Posted in Backyard Chickens, tagged Backyard Chickens, Brooding chicks, Chickens on May 20, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The chicks seem crowded in their cardboard box, so we move them out to their coop. They’ll still need a heat source until they get all of their feathers in three or four weeks, so we hang the brooder light from the eaves. It casts a red glow over the plywood floor. I check on [...]
