Growth is a double edged sword. Unchecked, growth can be cancerous and destructive. It is this type of ceaseless expansion that has put our society into the precarious environmental and financial positions in which we currently find ourselves. On the other hand, growth can be regenerative and life-giving. Following a forest fire or a bitter winter, the first green shoots to emerge from the earth bear witness to the earth's ability to restore life in the wake of disaster.

My goal for this blog is pretty simple and open-ended: I want to document and share with family and friends my efforts to incorporate an ever increasing degree of self sufficiency, voluntary simplicity, and environmentally-conscious design into my life as a would be urban homesteader.


Sunday, April 24, 2011

Counting our Chickens (now that they've hatched)


Back in January, I noted that of all my goals for the coming year, acquiring more chickens was probably the least likely to happen. Life, however, has a quirky sense of humor. It started when the kindergarten teacher at the boys' school asked if my parents could get her some fertilized eggs for her class to hatch. When she also asked (knowing that we already have some chickens) if we would be willing to take the chicks when they were done with the project, Renee surprisingly said that would be ok.

Wow, that was easy.

This all was a little over a month ago. On Friday, we became the proud owners of 10 little chicks. I'll have to check with my parents to see what breed(s) of chickens they might be. I also have no idea about the sex of any of them. We employed the "Ok, who just tried crowing?" method of rooster identification last time around. Because we live in the city, all of the boys get shipped off to my parents' house once they get noisy. Statistically, we should wind up somewhere between 4-6 pullets.

Now for the important part, all of the chicks have been named. Identification for some of them is a little sketchy at this point. The roster is as follows:
Fireball - bright yellow with a sorta orange-ish head
Sunshine - bright yellow
Pikachu - also bright yellow
Mr.Peepers - bright yellow, but louder
Dot - bright yellow with a tiny grey dot on its head
Spot - dark grey with a large yellow spot on its head
Tuxedo - black with white/yellow marks on its chin and belly
Darth Vader - black with an orange face
Ashes - mottled grey
Bones - also mottled grey

I'll give a fabulous prize the the first person who can use those descriptions to correctly identify all of the chicks in picture below. Good luck.


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