Thanks for all the warm welcomes! We are in Durham, which recently became chicken-legal in 2009. As for a newbie's chicken revelations, I've been amazed at how distinct their personalities are, and even my husband has been surprised at how much fun the girls are to watch. We played an all-day game called "will the chooks eat this?" with various plants from the garden or scraps from our lunch. It also doesn't hurt that we've got 3 fresh eggs in the fridge in only 2 days. Yum!