Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Le Palais de Poulet

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my wonderful husband has agreed to procuring some hens. I am beyond excited and can’t wait to have my little flock. We are very fortunate here in Portland; we are allowed to have 3 hens within the city without a permit. You can have more if you apply for them, but I think 3 will be just fine. Aaron and I decided we would build the coop on our own. He has a construction and woodworking background and can build anything. So, this week I set about designing le Palais de Poulet.

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The lines really are straight. The picture I took made them look wonky.

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Here is a basic sketch of the hen house. We’ll see if it actually looks this way when it is finished.

I also decided to go with baby chicks instead of full grown hens. I want to make sure that Gico, Max and Leila are accustomed to them before they are grown. Max and Leila are great with Gico and so I doubt there will be any problems with the hens. The chicks are supposedly available sometime in mid-February, which gives us time to get things ready for them. Thankfully, they will be in the house until they are 6-8 weeks old, so we have a good while to get their coop in order. I am soooo excited I can hardly stand it.

In other news, I have not sewn a single stitch this week. I have been surprisingly busy with homemaking. I am amazed at how quickly the days go by. Tomorrow a few of the girls are coming over for a “stitch and bitch”, as we call it, so, I should have something productive to show soon.

Well, my dears, I am off to cook. We had an ice storm last night, and I feel the need to bake. So, to the kitchen I go.

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Here is the bush in our front yard. I love how the ice formed on each leaf. It’s really beautiful.

God Bless!

5 Witty Sentiments:

Meg said...

I'm so happy for you! Our town finally allowed backyard chickens last year, but we have concerns about rats (big rat problem due to neighbor's pigeon feed in her yard). I'd love to get some hens eventually, but my husband can be a tough nut to crack!

Isn't it incredible how quickly the day gets away from you, and how much there is to do around the house? I worked full time until I had my baby, and now I wonder how on earth we survived on the few hours a week I used to spend cleaning and cooking. (Or maybe why it suddenly takes 50x longer now? *cough*toddler*cough*)

Can't wait to see your new little chicks!

Hungarican Chick said...

SO JEALOUS! I want araucana hens again, there are no chicken restrictions up here, but hubby suspects they'll attract predators (coyote and raccoons) so I am not able to have them yet. ::booo:: But I did love having them and their beautiful pastel-coloured eggs.

Kleidung um 1800 said...

This is soooo exciting. We used to have chickens years ago and I loved it! We've had a bunch of mixed breeds just for fun, among them Chabos and these breeds http://www.sv-silkies-polands.de/ (the one with the white cap and the silkie in the middle)...It was wonderful, but now we're living close to the woods and with the bird flu in the past years and people going hysteric I'd given up the idea of having another hen pen (sigh)...You will very much enjoy having them around!

Lauren said...

That is SO COOL! Sounds like so much fun! I wish we could have chickens here!
Love your design!

P.S.- the word verification is sheepot. Heh. like a pot to put sheep in. kind of.
I thought it was funny :p

Angela said...

I use to have chickens when I lived in a more rural-suburban area. They are fun. Many people thought I was nuts and ranted about how stupid chickens are...Well, compared to what,eh? Anyway, there is nothing like a fresh egg for cooking, baking and just plan eating. You technically do not need to refrigerate your eggs - once you pluck them from the nest you can keep them in a cool corner on the counter in your kitchen. If you feel safer, store them in the frig. They (the hens) cycle off when the days get shorter but they will get back to laying when there is 12 hours of daylight. Have fun!