welcome and chickens

right now there are six chickens in my house.

they are tiny, only 2 weeks old, but still - chickens! in my house! crazy.  the strangest part is how ridiculously excited i am about the chickens. completely over the moon!  a year ago i would have just laughed if you told me i would move furniture to make way for a chick brooder in the nicest room in my house.  and yet, there they are.  set up in the sunroom, right on the shiny wood floor.

the chickens have been here for two weeks now.  they are doing their chick things:  eating, drinking, scratching, chasing each other around the pen, and then adorably piling up and falling asleep face first in the bedding.  we swear they grow overnight and i already wish we had taken more pictures on the day they arrived.

our neighbor kids and friends love to visit the chickens and talk about how cute they are and which is their favorite.  the chickens are fun and quirky, but to me they are thrilling.  they are like tiny promises for another kind of life.  for our family, collecting eggs from our hens one day will be a small move toward self-sufficiency.  one thing we can provide for ourselves.  i imagine it's going to feel great.

since we first began to consider keeping "backyard chickens" i've been reading every chicken book i can find.  i'm absolutely a suburban kid.  i have no practical knowledge about any farm animals or farm work or farm...anything (though i now have an unreasonable amount of book knowledge about chickens).  i grew up hearing stories about my great-great aunt Lennie who had a farm with chickens and geese who were so mean they once chased my mom into a tree as a child.  as i read and learn about caring for chickens i've felt a growing connection with my long-passed relatives and a nagging desire for a simpler life.  besides chickens, what else do Lennie and i have in common?  what skills did she use everyday that were lost through the generations?  did she knit?  quilt?  bake bread?  grow vegetables?  make clothing?  i dream of one day being able to do all of these things.  chickens are just the start of learning to Do It Myself.  and a that's one huge empowering idea wrapped up in these six little balls of fluff.

so, welcome to this new blog. not all the posts will be about chickens.