Pinterest = not sympathetic

Rest in peace, Fluff Up

Last night while making dinner, my little offspring came bursting into the house with a crumpled little face and tear in his eye, crying out, "Mom!  A chicken is dead!"  I threw down my spoon and ran outside barefoot to the coop (over many small and pointed rocks, that's how much I love chickens), threw open the door, looked down...and there it was.

A strangely positioned Plymouth Rock hen laid at my feet, foot up in the food dish, head to the side, beak slightly opened.  A traumatic sight for a kid to encounter, I suppose.

I called out for a bag and the hubby and I took care to wrap this stiff bird up into two grocery bags before we had a moment of silence for the chicken formerly known as Fluff Up.  We then placed her delicately into a very large garbage bin.

She must have hit her head because she was well up until that point.  She even laid an egg yesterday, even though she was an old bird.  Poor old girl.

I sought solace in Pinterest later that night and wondered what would happen if I searched the words, "my chicken died".

Do you know what happens when you do that?

Let me tell you.

Pages and pages and pages and pages and pages of delicious chicken recipes.  What?  Is that enchiladas?

Thanks, Pinterest.  You're so understanding.

Peace, love, and baked or grilled?
Ms. Daisy

The chicken came first, then the egg.

The most amazing, organical itty bitty egg ever made to date.

I don't usually post anything on Saturdays, but this day is special.  Do you even know what just happened?  (Besides the fact that I think I literally just spent an hour watching Miranda Sings and Joey Graceffa on youtube.)


I just walked into the chicken coop to feed my fourteen favorite chickens some brown bananas (because I certainly am not going to eat them and if you think I'm going to make banana bread you are dead wrong.  Have you ever even fed a chicken a banana?  It's so awesome it's kind of ridiculous.) and other kitchen scraps, when... 

What. is. that. right. there!?

Is that a tiny itty bitty baby egg?

When they were young and their lives were an open book.

Did one of my little baby chickens (not really babies anymore, but whatevs, you know) just lay me an egg?

OH MY GOSH.

I have only been waiting for this day since like, let's just say, May 6.  But who's counting?  Yeah.  Me.  I was.

Meet Sweetie, my favorite chicken. She's independent and talkative.

Now they are big and stuff their faces.  Aww.

Yeah, I know that this is exactly what is supposed to happen and everything with chickens, but finally the day is here and it makes me happy.

Anyway, it's going to be delitchus.  

Peace, love, and buttery toast,
Ms. Daisy

You should get some chickens. F'rizzo.

As you likely know by now, I am the proud owner of a dozen chickens (4 big girls, 8 spring chicks) on my mini urban farm (it's not really a farm, but I pretend it is.  Sounds way better than "backyard".).  I am here today to tell you why I think you, yes, you, should get some chickens, too.  I am no chicken pro - I'm only about 2 months into my chicken "farming" (should I call it egg farming?  I'm not eating these chickens - they're egg girls.), but I have gathered some interesting reasons nonetheless.  

Let us begin at the beginning.  

Reason 1: Chickens are WAAAY easier to take care of than dogs/cats.  

Chickens live outside.  You fill up a giant food dispenser and let them have at it.  You fill their giant water thingy (technical word for it) and they're good to go for a few days.  If you want to let them roam wild for a bit, they're good to go with that.  (I do.  Gotta love that free-ranging.)  If you won't be home for a while, they are good with hanging in their coop and their run.  It's kind of brainless.  No sweeping up fur, no potty training, no sniffing crotches.

Moment of silence - one of the girls in this picture is no longer with us.

Reason 2:  You never have to waste an iota of food again.  

If you have some baby spinach that got all soggy wilty, chickens will gobble it up like a pit bull on a steak.  Strawberries with just a hint of ick?  The hens are on it.  Leftover spaghetti that you can't bear to eat 3 days in a row?  They're like mad Italians!  Carrot peels, your toddler's leftovers, the whole 9 - they'll pretty much eat it all.  I know some of you don't have a compost bin/pile, and you're just being total wasters - THIS is your easy way out.  It's easy being green with chickens.  (*I don't feed my chickens citrus or weird stuff that I wouldn't eat - i.e., Jet Puffed Marshmallows, Zebra Cakes, Miracle Whip, Doritos, etc. - and I don't feed them chicken.  Let's not promote cannibalism.  Other than that, I think it's fairly open season on whatever.)  And speaking of compost...chicken poop is one of the best fertilizers out there, just saying.  Comes free with each chicken.

Reason 3:  Chickens are entertaining.  

They just are.  Have you ever seen a chicken run?  Seriously.  You won't see how this could be until you get them, but they are better than TV.  They're also weirdly relaxing to watch.  You go out there thinking you're going to check for eggs, and you're caught up watching "Days of Our Lives: Chicken Edition" for like 30 minutes straight.  It's like you got sucked into a youtube black hole of videos and you can't stop clicking the next weird recommendation (I'm not the only one who has done that, right?  Wait, what?  A bear fighting a lion?  What does this even have to do with the guy who can multiply 7 digit numbers in his head?  I am not sure, but I just have to watch one more...Hold on, is that an adorable Chinese boy playing Beethoven on the piano? That one first.)  Not all of my chickens have names (4 are named "Betty"), but some do, and it is not necessary for them to be named in order for them to entertain the masses.  

Reason 4:  You get AWESOME EGGS!  

I do have food snobbery issues (black tea, butter, flour, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chocolate, bread...I could keep going but I'll stop), and this could be a pro or a con.  Owning chickens has increased my food snobbery exponentially in the realm of eggs.  Let me put it to you like this - if I can't see the chickens running around and the yolk is not nearly orange and vibrant, I am not going to eat that egg.  It's like it's not even an egg.  The difference is so outrageous that it is like eating McDonald's all your life and then someone serving you a delicious, grass-fed, Big Green-Egged burger cooked over lump charcoal with a box of hickory.  It's like two entirely different categories of food.  It's iceberg salad with orange cheddar cheese on it, drowned in Hidden Valley Ranch (please tell me you do not eat that) compared to that amazing house salad at Zingerman's with fresh sprouts, arugula, homemade croutons, and homemade dressing (I'm drooling thinking about their salad.  Is that weird?  If you have had it, you know it's not.)  

Reason 5:  It gives you a reason to connect with being outside and the cycle of life.  

Yeah, you do have to go out there and shovel up the coop floor from time to time, but the shrinking back of doing such things speaks to the increasing wimpiness of our pansy society.  I think it would be good for everyone if they had to take a break from their wired world to put on their poop boots, tromp on out to the coop, get the shovel, and go to town on making a lovely compost pile.  If you raise those babies from the time they are little fuzzballs who fit inside your one hand, you watch a miracle of (relatively) fast growth in front of your very eyes.  You watch the curiosity of little creatures, and it is endearing.  I can call my girls and they answer me with funny clucks and coos.  Yes, I will still eat them when the time comes, don't get me wrong, but they are wonderful and connect you to appreciating where your food comes from.  They're not a plastic-wrapped foreign object from the grocery store refrigerated section.  They mean something and you are thankful for what they give.  (So stop being a pansy, city boy.)  

Reason 6: You can get a fake chicken tattoo to celebrate them.  

Yeah, pretty much self-explanatory.  

So what are you waiting for?  Don't even tell me your town/city won't let you have them.  In that case, I say, start a revolt.  It's really the most reasonable thing to do considering...  

Peace, love, and chicken power!  
Ms. Daisy

A new house! And chickens!

Hello, dearies.  It has been a while and I sincerely do apologize, but I have a good enough reason (whether you want to call it an excuse or not is up to you) - and that is that I have moved from being a city chicken to a country in the city chick.  Yay and hooray!  

This move is great in that we get a bit of a bigger house (and you'll remember that we were just lolling about free ranging in our 950 square feet previously) and have acquired something like an extra 200 or 300 square feet more.  This, unfortunately, did not come in the way of having my own bathroom, but the dining room is a freaking paradise that I can do cartwheels in.  I'll take it.  And mad props to all of you who over the last twelve years sat with us smashed to the walls in our previous dining room.  It was cozy and we loved it, but now you just won't have to sit in my lap while eating your mashed potatoes.  (You still can if you want to, I'm just saying you don't have to.)  

This move has also granted us something I've been wishing and hoping and dreaming for - more property and some chickens.  Yes, that's right, I'm officially an urban (? perhaps suburban?) farmer.  We have 5 adult hens that came with the house who lay delicious eggs at a rate of about 3 daily (unfortunately for us, we eat 6 eggs a day around here...) - and might I add, if you thought I had food snobbery issues previously, it is at an all time high for eggs now with the advent of walking to my backyard to a coop and pulling out a freshly laid egg under the sassy, happy chickens. 

These layers are old (in terms of chicken life) - they're 4 or 5 years old.  We knew that they will not be able to lay eggs forever, so we went down to the country feed store and ordered 8 baby chicks (if you'd like to know deets: I have 4 Isa Browns, 3 Rhode Island Reds, and 1 Aracauna - the Aracauna and one of the Reds are my favorites.). 

Right now these little girls are living in a box in my kitchen under a heat lamp.  They provide hours of entertainment for us and the German Shepherd dog.  It sounds like I have tweety birds in my house nearly 24 hours a day.  The also provide lots of poop.  That's not so fun, but I guess it comes with the territory.  (Their poop pales in comparison with what the hens out in the coop can do, though.  And those girls ain't got nothing on my EPI diseased dog.  If you need manure...)  

One thing I did not really know (or experience, I guess I should say) was how terrified chickens really are.  You know how back in the day kids would cluck at other kids and call them a chicken when they wouldn't take a dare or do something...well, they got that from real chickens, yes, it's true.  Chickens are the most fraidy-cat things I've ever seen.  When I reach over the edge of their box to give them a fresh batch of water or feed, they run and peep like I was weilding the Almighty Hand of Certain Death at them.  Have I ever, ever, ever done anything to you?  Have I not always held you gently with two hands and treated you like you were made of porcelain?  Do I not relentlessly care for you and your poopy ways?  Yeah, that piece of grass in the middle of the box that I put in for you is probably an atomic bomb, you're right.

The house is on an acre which means hubby can go out there and shoot his bow and arrow much farther than he was able to do which makes him crazy happy.  It also has a riding tractor lawn mower, which makes kid #1 think he died and went to heaven.  I have a view out of my bedroom to a pond with a fountain and as we're up on a hill, I can see 2 miles away to a water tower ball (I know that for all of you who live on property and can see far away that you are wondering what on earth I would care about this for, but my farthest view before this was to a row of houses across the street.  It's crazy how cool it is.).  There's a giganto fire pit that I can make blazing infernos in and I can see the stars when I go out at night.  It all sounds like I am bragging, but my aim is to tell you that I'm thankful and I am keenly aware of how blessed I am to be here in this place.  

I will be putting in the garden soon and getting the veggies going for the season, and then I'll really feel like a farmer (I'll wear my cowboy hat and boots to make it work even better...probably should get some overalls, though, too.).  It's a great feeling.  If you want to tour Daisy Farm and you're local, just let me know.  We sell refreshing kombucha and water kefir and make our own mayo (with eggs from the backyard hens).  It's your one stop entertainment center, as you can see.  As for now, I need to go tear up some ground.  

Peace, love, and chicken poo,
Ms. Daisy