You are now entering the Chick Talk Chronicles, the story of an Iowa girl, her Colorado husband, and the story of chickens, gardening, dogs, a full home-remodel of our 1970's tract home, and a bit of suburban homesteading. This website could really use a blogging feature! So, I'll use this instead...
Here we are:
Isabel, the sweet Snizzy-Whiz
Jack, the agile defender from all vermin, who also shoots lasers out of his eyes...
Baxter, the noisy Snoogy-Woog
5/17/2014 - I am just an Iowa farm girl, living in a suburban Colorado world, and I miss raising animals. I used to raise chickens, ducks, rabbits, horses, sheep, hogs, and cattle, and I miss it bad. So we have decided to "get into" chickens. My husband was actually the one to bring it up, which is surprising. We live in a suburban area of Colorado Springs, and lucky for us, the chicken laws haven't really changed since this ramshackle mining town sprang up out of the alpine desert country. We can have 10 hens, no roosters, and we are starting with 8 hens. I figured this was a good number to start. We are getting 2 Black Australorps, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 2 Light Brahmas, and 2 Easter Eggers. They will be here July 1st!!!!
We have a fairly large yard by Colorado Springs standards, one half of which is converted to garden beds (the soil here is an awful mix of clay and sand, nothing like my beautiful, fragrant, loamy, black Iowa gold!). It is fenced with a 6ft privacy fence all around, so wing clipping will be in my future. One neighbor is beside themselves with excitement, as we promised them eggs when the chickies start to lay. The other neighbor, well, I care nothing for their opinion. They are nosy, to the point of letting themselves in our yard to see what's going on. (I think so they can keep up with the Bohnens....) We are friendly, but a private sort, so this really irks me. I am thinking about putting padlocks on the gates, just to spite them.
When the older gentleman sees you in the yard, he just lets himself in and talks to you for an hour. We call it "getting Ambrose-d"
I kind of feel bad for him; maybe he's lonely and bored. I know he doesn't mean any harm, but it's so doggone annoying, and we both are too kind to say anything (or too chicken; I'll let you decide)
We have a spot picked out for our coop, which will be named "The Chick Talk". When I was a little girl, my mom would take my little brother and I into Emmetsburg, IA to go to a restaurant called "The Chick Talk." We always got an ice cream cone, and there was a gigantic cement rooster out front on a trailer. I always remembered that.
I have learned so much from folks on this site, and have planned accordingly. The coop will be 7ft tall, 6x6 ft wide and deep, with the run 6x16 ft. Now to start digging! Don't mind the mess, we bought this house as a foreclosure, and it is a wreck. The previous owner was growing hydroponically in the basement (and you can bet it wasn't tomatoes). The system had obviously flooded a time or two, so the carpet and 2 ft of drywall had to be removed. The yard was a disaster, but you could tell the original owners, a retired couple, had once grown a beautiful garden. I can still see remnants of things that stubbornly survived, even in desert conditions with no care for 4 years. We are slowly remodeling, but we both work full time jobs, and Bebe (the hubsters) goes to school full time for engineering, so it's been painfully slow.
Here's the idea. I'm sure it will end up morphing into something different the further we get into the project...
I know it's hard to see, but I have a string line set up for the dimensions of the coop. Those stumps have to come out too. On the other side is an asphalt RV parking spot. We have a lot of snowbird retirees that RV and bounce about in the South for the winter, so it's actually a selling point. Bebe wants to get a boat, as he is an avid (aka rabid) fisherman. I guess here is as good as any place to park the thing... We've been ripping out dead trees, replacing sections of fallen and rotten fence, pulling and replacing retaining walls, and just generally cleaning up years of junk. It's been a real rodeo.
5/28/2014 The foundation is taking shape! I am using concrete cinder blocks, because they were in the yard when we moved in. But according to my calculations, I'm going to end up buying some from the ReStore anyway...
Here we are:
Isabel, the sweet Snizzy-Whiz
Jack, the agile defender from all vermin, who also shoots lasers out of his eyes...
Baxter, the noisy Snoogy-Woog
5/17/2014 - I am just an Iowa farm girl, living in a suburban Colorado world, and I miss raising animals. I used to raise chickens, ducks, rabbits, horses, sheep, hogs, and cattle, and I miss it bad. So we have decided to "get into" chickens. My husband was actually the one to bring it up, which is surprising. We live in a suburban area of Colorado Springs, and lucky for us, the chicken laws haven't really changed since this ramshackle mining town sprang up out of the alpine desert country. We can have 10 hens, no roosters, and we are starting with 8 hens. I figured this was a good number to start. We are getting 2 Black Australorps, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 2 Light Brahmas, and 2 Easter Eggers. They will be here July 1st!!!!
We have a fairly large yard by Colorado Springs standards, one half of which is converted to garden beds (the soil here is an awful mix of clay and sand, nothing like my beautiful, fragrant, loamy, black Iowa gold!). It is fenced with a 6ft privacy fence all around, so wing clipping will be in my future. One neighbor is beside themselves with excitement, as we promised them eggs when the chickies start to lay. The other neighbor, well, I care nothing for their opinion. They are nosy, to the point of letting themselves in our yard to see what's going on. (I think so they can keep up with the Bohnens....) We are friendly, but a private sort, so this really irks me. I am thinking about putting padlocks on the gates, just to spite them.
We have a spot picked out for our coop, which will be named "The Chick Talk". When I was a little girl, my mom would take my little brother and I into Emmetsburg, IA to go to a restaurant called "The Chick Talk." We always got an ice cream cone, and there was a gigantic cement rooster out front on a trailer. I always remembered that.
I have learned so much from folks on this site, and have planned accordingly. The coop will be 7ft tall, 6x6 ft wide and deep, with the run 6x16 ft. Now to start digging! Don't mind the mess, we bought this house as a foreclosure, and it is a wreck. The previous owner was growing hydroponically in the basement (and you can bet it wasn't tomatoes). The system had obviously flooded a time or two, so the carpet and 2 ft of drywall had to be removed. The yard was a disaster, but you could tell the original owners, a retired couple, had once grown a beautiful garden. I can still see remnants of things that stubbornly survived, even in desert conditions with no care for 4 years. We are slowly remodeling, but we both work full time jobs, and Bebe (the hubsters) goes to school full time for engineering, so it's been painfully slow.
Here's the idea. I'm sure it will end up morphing into something different the further we get into the project...
I know it's hard to see, but I have a string line set up for the dimensions of the coop. Those stumps have to come out too. On the other side is an asphalt RV parking spot. We have a lot of snowbird retirees that RV and bounce about in the South for the winter, so it's actually a selling point. Bebe wants to get a boat, as he is an avid (aka rabid) fisherman. I guess here is as good as any place to park the thing... We've been ripping out dead trees, replacing sections of fallen and rotten fence, pulling and replacing retaining walls, and just generally cleaning up years of junk. It's been a real rodeo.
5/28/2014 The foundation is taking shape! I am using concrete cinder blocks, because they were in the yard when we moved in. But according to my calculations, I'm going to end up buying some from the ReStore anyway...