Michigan

[Living the Simple Life]

Um, nevermind. The internet just ate my whole long post about helping out. Grrrrr....
Now it keeps telling me to enter something before I post. I should have made it a 5 day weekend....sigh.

 

[EeyoreD]

By these standards I'm either missing a penis or a lot of fur. Or both.

Who said it had to be either or?

 

[RaZ]

Home from another day of docent duty. First graders have to be the worst of all the grades.

Anyway, a guy down the street brought by his buddy who also lives on our street but across the main road. Both brought their daughters to see my chickens. The new guy had chickens last year but said the ordinance guy made him get rid of them so he is trying to get city council to address the issue.

The chicken issue is on council agenda for June 11 at 7:00pm. We are trying to flood the meeting with pro-chicken people. It seems that we have a couple of council members who are in favour of allowing chickens here in Garden City. I hope we can get a ton of people to speak in favour of permitting chickens here. It's a public meeting so if any of you are close, please come and support us chicken people.

 

[SillyChicken]

Good luck Raz!! Hey even Snooty Ann Arbor allows 6 hens!

 

[Mom 2em All]

YES YOU ARE ONE OF "US" AS WELL....You shall have an Uggo...you are part of the master plan...

Mom- You could put down 2x2 paving blocks or flag stone, with a 3 or 4" space between them, and fill with something like scented thyme and pea gravel. Smells great to step on, and with the cheap blocks or stone for filler, wouldn't cost as much to make look nice and it's easy to maintain. I have the thyme, woolly thyme and a few others, and they smell great!


OOOOOOOOOOOHhhh I just now bought red thyme creeping thyme..and some other kind of thyme. Will it come back next year? I bought greek oregano too because it smelled wonderful...

Mom, Yes, but can you suggest a ground cover to use? That is where I am stuck. I have ivy around the tree. But I need something softer looking. And I found everything I wanted to buy at Steppables.com but the mouse ear stuff was 97 dollars a flat- pssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh thats not happening

How about creeping sedum it comes in all colors and it flowers.

Kimmie

Kimmie, I got some of the yellow creeping sedum, as well...we will see what happens when I put it all together..

Good luck Raz!! Hey even Snooty Ann Arbor allows 6 hens!

I wish Taylor-tucky would let us have chickens. Id love to have some. lol...some LEGAL Uggos!!

 

[gladahmae]

. The new guy had chickens last year but said the ordinance guy made him get rid of them so he is trying to get city council to address the issue.

The chicken issue is on council agenda for June 11 at 7:00pm. We are trying to flood the meeting with pro-chicken people. It seems that we have a couple of council members who are in favour of allowing chickens here in Garden City. I hope we can get a ton of people to speak in favour of permitting chickens here. It's a public meeting so if any of you are close, please come and support us chicken people.

A girl I work with got harrassed by the township about her chickens last year, BUT there was a loophole in their ordinance, and they ended up not being able to force her to get rid of them. Plus, I LOT of people started attending meetings about having backyard chickens, especially when her story hit the newspaper.

Regarding combining chicks.....I just put my month-old wyandottes in with my week old bunch and have had no issues.


Aaaand, after a long weekend, the coop is a LOT closer to being done! The run is framed in, and now I just need to get the fence attached. DH can finish trimming the interior and I'll paint it after. Need to figure out how to complete the exterior though. We ran out of siding, and it's special-order. Hmmmm.

And oh, wise chicken owners. Looking at my picture, give me some ideas about shade and wind protection. I'm planning on getting a mesh tarp or something similar to put over the top of the run (over the fencing that still needs attached) to provide shade, but we get a LOT of wind. We nearish to the Lk MI shoreline, and on top of a hill, on the west edge of a field....you get the idea. I'm planning on putting some zinnias, hollyhocks, and sunflowers around the run as well, and add in some smaller shrubs as they get clearanced out, but what should I do until those get big enough to actually provide wind-protection? Or do I just need to not worry about it?

 

[RaZ]

I wish Taylor-tucky would let us have chickens. Id love to have some. lol...some LEGAL Uggos!!

Oh dear lord, please don't let council see those Uggos. Chickens will be out-lawed everywhere!

I think I should take Gravy (bantam lavender ameracuna) with me to the meeting. Who could resist such a cute little bird with those ear tufts and dove grey colour?

Glad,
That coop and run look fantastic.

 

[Nigellas]

Good luck Raz!! Hey even Snooty Ann Arbor allows 6 hens!

I'm not snooty!

(and it's technically 4 hens. Though I've currently got... um... more than that. lol)

 

[NovaAman]

You could put up some lattice work at intervals and grow climbers up it on the windward side... Took lovely.


I got home from work today to discover more posts in the last few hours than we had in the last day! What is it about nice weather that brings us in, and yet on hot rear days like yesterday, a lot of us were out of doors doing things that would have been better saved for today? HUH... I was conversing with a lady who works at the Atrium and she was telling me about taking care of her bosses mini donkey farm over the weekend for him. Its called "Hidden ASSets" HAHA. Nice play on words. LOL. Well anyway, this guy had a silkie roo who was rather aggressive at protecting his girls, and not very hand friendly. I cracked up laughing. A not friendly silkie roo? Sheesh, who would have guessed. Roger is a not very friendly guy either to strangers. AND he is very aggressive when it comes to protecting his little slice of family heaven. Well in a few more weeks, he'll kick those little suckers to the curb and pretend they in his way. Any way, apparently her and her family did not know there was such a thing as a silkie. Good to know that I was not the only clueless person when it came to chickens the first time around.

Mom, I'd go with the stepping stones and thyme, rosemary, oregano... just for its dual purposes. Yes, they all come back every year. AND, when you need some fresh herbs, just go out with a pair of snips, and get a handful.

When it comes to hunting... I had a real crap experience when I was a kid. My bio mom's husband took me hunting when I was about 7. He did not hunt for food. He hunted to kill stuff. We didn't come back with anything to eat, he just blew chit away. Other things were also involved and made for an all around horrendous experience. BUT, I have butchered and dressed out a deer that I hit with my car, (Not really hunting, but hey, it got me dinner and a new front end,) and I cried for a moment for the unnecessary death that occurred while I was busy playing with my XM radio, (it was a new toy!) and then I thanked the deer for the meals it would provide me for a while. I have a strong belief that if you hunt just to blow chit up, then you are a real back side hole. If you hunt to put a head on the wall. stuff a duck. trophy hunting, and don't bother with the meat, just the prize, you are an even bigger back side hole, on that is encased in poop. If you hunt, and respect that you are killing an animal to eat, and you respect that life, even if you mount the head, or stuff the duck, I am OK with that. Just as long as you give proper respect to the life you took to feed your own. Understand what I am saying? Maybe its the bit of Native heritage I have going on in here... I don't know. But I do know, that when I killed that deer with my car, that night I had a dream where I was standing in a field, a great big mother moose came charging me, and I was totally terrified in my dream that it was going to kill me, and instead of running for my life, I laid down and curled into fetal position. The moose got to me, stopped, lay down next to me and put its head on my legs and I woke up crying and relieved that I was forgiven... So, in my odd ball round about way, I feel she was my spirit totem, and she was telling me it was OK. Now you all really get an inside look at my "weirdness".

When it comes to hunting a pest that is threatening my family's food supply... Well, same thing. I respect that it was looking for a meal... BUT it has got to go.

 

[NovaAman]

OH, forgot to add that last night I was able to stop at a pond near my house and show my boys what real live swans looked like. They had three offspring, and I was worried for a moment that the father swan was going to take us for a threat the way he was eyeing us. They were absolutely beautiful. Jace wanted to get closer, but I told him that swans were like beauty and the beast all rolled in to one. That as pretty as they were to look at, so beautiful and graceful, they were also very vicious beasts when they feel threatened. Then we saw a heron (?) I am pretty sure thats what it was, take off, and that was even cooler for him to see. At least he didn't ask to try and catch it and keep if for a pet.