Chicken Run

I miss our hens. I miss hearing them squawk, shuffle, coo, cluck, argue, and preen. A collection of noises that I find soothing, therapeutic, and charming. It's too quiet here. It's time to shake up the neighborhood and introduce them to their new existence living next door to the McMinnville hillbillies.

Oh, totally random (before I forget again): I keep meaning to say that the owner of the Burnside B&B (Liz) was fabulous and I adore her and she cemented her charm when she asked me who Martha Stewart was. How cool is that? Yes, some people don't even know who she is.

Back to the hens...we can't just bring the hen house over and let them roam the yard because the dog will kill them. So a run has to be built first. Although I have yet to see evidence of skunks or raccoons in our own yard, we know they are plentiful in the McMinnville neighborhoods and aside from dogs they are the most serious predator of chickens. Fortifications must be built that cannot be breached by digging or unlatching or climbing in via tree branches. For this reason, building a chicken run is a little bit like building a tiny Fort Knox. Burying chicken wire down in the dirt several inches is a good tactic. Covering the roof of the run is also smart, the other threat is chicken hawks. Yep, hawks that steal and eat chickens.

Because we live in a suburban area, there are set back rules for keeping chickens that we must adhere to. This is predominantly why we are building our chicken run right up against our lovely porch. Normally we would probably find a different spot for them.

All of our animals were intrigued by Philip's mysterious undertaking. They camped out around him, got in his way, perched themselves importantly on the tools, and generally tried to be as unhelpful as possible which is cake to cats and dogs.

Even our neighbor's puppy got in on the act. Chick dug a hole for her under the fence and I didn't discover it until I saw Chick run by twice in one direction...after my double take I noticed that the extra Chick was actually a Rottweiler puppy. This forced caused me to finally meet our neighbors over the back fence. We've agreed to let our dogs be friends since none of us can honestly figure out how to stop a determined black lab from digging her way to China if that's what she wants. Riley is very sweet, super soft, and more spazzy than Angelina on a farm.

Life is good here. We've discovered that we are much too poor to have our house up on the market but much too poor to pay for two mortgages so our friends Anna and Mitch are going to rent it because they really like the house and are supremely tired of living in a rental house with raw sewage leaking into their basement. Yeah, I don't blame them. We are all super happy with this outcome, though it's been a slightly bumpy ride working this all out. (Sorry for all the ups and downs Anna!!) (They've been very kind and patient with me.)

We are also too poor for me to lounge around here all day eating bon bons (locally made, obviously) so I'm looking for a job. I was really depressed about the prospect until I saw that our local library is hiring. Don't get your undies in a bunch over it, I'm sure there's a lot of competition for the position, but I got a glimpse of how working again might actually be exciting. I was beginning to imagine the drudgery it must be to pump ever more expensive gasoline into giant trucks all day when I saw this little light. It may be a long shot, but this is a job that I am ideally suited for, that I have secretly dreamed of even doing even after graduating from FIDM with my associates degree in fashion design.

Libraries are magical places. There were times in my childhood when I spent more hours talking with the librarians than I did my own parents. There are few places that hold as much promise of attainable knowledge and no other place in which you can broaden your experience of the world without leaving town. They smell of books; they represent the ultimate in organization of information; the human imagination is represented in thousands of ways and celebrated nowhere else so thoroughly than in public libraries...all for free.

Reality is a funny thing and who can say what it will look like tomorrow, but today is Sunday and we are all going to go for a bicycle ride together and I am going to dream yet another impossible dream.