Clandestine Chickens

Backyard Chicken Supplies

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:40:00 +0000

The world of backyard chicken keeping has officially changed for better!!! Today Jeff and I were picking up bedding for the girls, when feed in "backyard poultry" sizes caught my eye. Now the girls would go throw this way too fast to make it worth it for us, but it is still an exciting development .

Egg eating?

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:20:00 +0000

As we approach the chickens' second birthday, one thing we have learned during our many adventures with indoor chicken keeping is to always expect the unexpected. The girls haven't eaten their eggs in over a year and half...until last week. We came home twice in one week to find half eaten eggs in their nesting box. There is nothing like seeing dried egg yolk in their pin to remind you that they are here to be productive and useful not just pets. If we wanted an animal that was for companionship, we would have a cat or dog, but we have chickens. Chickens who have a job to do! The egg eating seems to have stopped for now, but I hope it doesn't start up again. At some point, we will have to face the possibility of having to eat the chickens which would be hard after living together for two years, but I hope that option doesn't have to come any sooner.

Molting Mania

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 04:20:00 +0000

Even after almost two years with the girls, they still manage to surprise. Last year we missed the bulk of their molting as we were on our honeymoon. (Sorry Mom and Dad for having to deal with that in our absence.) So a few days ago we began to notice the tell tale feather collection and realized that molting had begun. Molting is a winter once a year occurrence when chickens drop most of their feathers and make new ones- kinda of like a chicken reset. All their energy going to making feathers means there are minimal to no eggs and the girls are basically PMSing. They are moody, irritable, and LOUD!

This wouldn't be so bad if it was for the fact that we had a couple over for dinner over the weekend. Cluck walked right up to the wife and pecked her hand. I offered a few treats to the girls hoping that would smooth things over but alas she did it again. Our friend was very kind about the whole thing but still how embarrassing. I really thought Cluck had out grown that bad habit, but I think the molting stress overtook her manners. Ah, the life of an urban farmers' dinner party..... at least I will have plenty of feathers to re-stuff our couch pillows.

Video Tour of Chicken Coop

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:44:00 +0000

Happy New Year to all our readers! With the arrival of winter and the holiday season, we have been super busy getting the last of the garden vegetables and herbs harvested and dried, pickled, preserved, etc, etc. The garden beds have been turned over and mulched for the winter, and seed garlic is planted. Little green shoots are already peeking up through the snow (garlic's awesomeness never ceases to amaze!). This fall's apples have all been crushed, pressed, and bottled, and are bubbling away as the yeasts work hard fermenting the apple juice into next year's hard cider. Finally, the beehive had to be bundled up and prepped for winter. It was so tempting to take some of the sweet delicious honey, already dripping from the frames, but that is what the bees need to live off while holed up all winter in their hive until spring. Beekeeping is turning out to be all about patience. This is the first winter with a beehive so we are anxiously awaiting to see how they fare this winter. Fingers are crossed!

Luckily for our micro-flock of indoor chickens in the basement, no such preparations are needed. They are warm and dry and sheltered from the snow and cold in their basement coop to await spring.

To make up for the sparseness of blog postings this winter, we have put together a video "virtual tour" of or clandestine coop. Enjoy!

Getting Everyone Ready for Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 02:40:00 +0000

While the winter season has taken an unusually long time to settle upon the urban farm, it is finally here and with it come preparations for the cold season. It struck us how, yet again, keeping chickens indoors sure makes life easier not only for the girls but for us too. This fact is especially apparent when you contrast how we got the bees ready for winter versus the chickens.

John, our amazing bee mentor, came over to help wrap the hive in felt paper to insulate, check for proper ventilation, balance the hive in such a way that the condensation will drip forward, and helped install a mouse guard over the front in order to prevent those pesky creatures from making a home in my warm, food filled hive. After he left, I ordered a special feeder that slides in with bees which I filled with sugar water, and then I made a candy board. A candy board is made of twenty-five pounds of sugar (yes the cashier gave us a weird look at the grocery store) and three cups of water and a half a cup of vinegar (to prevent molding). The mixture is pressed into a shallow hive box with a queen extruder (plastic screen that only worker bees can fit through) on to bottom to hold everything in. The sugar dries and makes the biggest lollypop you can imagine. The hive box goes on top the rest of the hive with more newspaper above it for insulation and this creates an additional food source for the winter. At this point, all I can do to wait and hope my girls survive to spring.

As for what we did for getting the chickens ready for winter- nothing at all.

We chuckle to one another as we read about the latest ideas for keeping chickens' water thawed over winter or how to prevent frostbite on combs. We have noticed that over the past few days the girls seem a little agitated; we wonder if this might have something to do with the furnace turning on more in the basement. Perhaps Jeff and I should take the girls for a drive in the country to introduce them to barn chickens!

Food Safety

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:35:00 +0000

Arsenic in apple juice? Another egg safety/cruelty scandal? It makes me shudder to think how our fragile food system is being slowly eroded away.

Check out this article on arsenic in juices (NPR Link). I find it interesting that the arsenic based pesticides that were in use until 1970 are believed to play a part in this food safety issue forty years later. I wonder what we are using right now in agriculture that our children will pay the price for...

Then there was the story about eggs being produced in cruel/unsanitary conditions.

What really amazes me is the relatively little concern we show about these incidents. Sure I saw the egg story a few times on the news, but it was quickly over after a couple of major corporations dropped the producer. Are we all so addicted to cheap, fast food that we are willing to turn a blind eye to the safety concerns of this mass produced slop?

Break Down in Aisle 5

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:22:00 +0000

It is commonly accepted advice to not go to the grocery store when you are hungry. Well a few days ago, I realized that one should also not go to the grocery store when you are tired either. What products found their way into my cart in my sleepy induced hazed?

Laundry detergent
Laundry detergent booster (I didn't even know that this type of product existed, but somehow I ended up buying it.)
Dryer sheets
Dish washer detergent (I even went so crazy as to buy the ones in those little packs so you don't have to measure the solution.)
Kitchen cleaner

Jeff didn't seem to know what to think when he saw what was in our cart, but I think he had enough sense to realize if I was buying this stuff it was probably not in his best interests to question it.

I was shocked when I got to check out and my bill was about $30 more than usual! Yikes, all this convenience is expensive!

So was it worth it? I will admit my clothes did smell nicer, and I do think they are cleaner. Using dryer sheets instead of dryer balls, I didn't see much of a difference. The dish washer detergent is nice to not have to spend the time measuring the solution but no quality difference. And the kitchen cleaner is no different that my vinegar lemon mixture. In conclusion, I think I may stick with the laundry detergent but the rest of the stuff is just overpriced versions of what I can make at home. It really only takes me a few minutes to make my homemade versions so I don't think the cost of the convenience is worth it.

Compost Mishaps

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:26:00 +0000

So I may have gotten ahead of myself on the composting front. The worm bins are going so well that I thought I should take it to the next level; bokashi. This is a Japanese anaerobic method of composting that basically pickles the food and then you put the pickled scraps through a regular composting process. Why go throw the extra hassle? With bokashi you can put in dairy, meat, and bones which you can't do in a worm or regular compost pile! So after a few weeks of research, I took what I like best from several sites and came up with this...

1. Buy a plastic, sealable bin making sure that it will fit in a trash bag just in case this experiment goes horrible wrong. Some web sites sell bokashi buckets that have a spigot on the bottom to catch the "tea" to use as fertilizer. I skipped this to save money, and since I have worm "tea" I don't think I need anymore fertilizer.
2. Most folks purchase pre-made bokashi bran. This bran is inoculated in effective microorganisms (EM) (good bacteria). They then layer the bran on the bottom of the sealable container put food scraps over that and then another layer of bran with a weight of some sort over that so as to keep air out. You continue layering until the bin is filled. You can then let the entire bucket ferment for a few weeks and take the pickled food and put it in you your worm bin, regular compost, or dig it into the ground. Being a DIYer, I found some web sites that talked about people who used newspaper which is much cheaper than bran. I also decided against buying EM solution. I went to the home brew store and bought lactobacillus.
3. To get the bacteria started, I put it with molasses and warm water kept it in a warm spot over night and then put it in my bin with shredded newspaper. As a test, I took a few handfuls and put that in the small plastic baggie. The plan was to allow everything to ferment for two or three weeks, dry out the newspaper and begin a bokashi bin.
4. I had mixed success. The newspaper molded instead of fermenting, and I now have a giant bin of funk! However the newspaper in the baggie is perfect. The only mold color is white which is okay and the mixtures smells sweet and sour just like it should. I have come to the conclusion that the problem with the bin was it had too much exposure to air.

In my next attempt, I want to make this even more of a DIY project. I plan on making my own EM solution from a old Thai farmer recipe. (Check out this site for the info.) Yes I recognize the fact that I probably shouldn't be trying to do more of this myself considering it didn't go so well the first time but it is just ingrained in my personality to always strive for more self sufficiency. Now the question is how to get a get the bin of mold out in the trash without Jeff noticing...

The starter yeast with molasses and oats.

Newspaper shreddings- pre crazy mold!

Cider Mania!

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:55:00 +0000

And I thought tomato mania was bad...

Today Jeff and I set out to grind and press apples into cider to eventually make hard cider. For his birthday, I bought Jeff what I was told was an antique apple grinder from the local flea market. Last year we had a bucket and two by four that we beat the apples with. This year we thought we had it all set with our new grinder and ever so confident in ourselves, we out and bought 7 bushels of apples. Can you see what happened here? Yes, the new fancy pants grinder didn't grind a thing. Sure, it beat up the apples but barely any of them actually went into the grinder; they just bounced around on top of the scary looking metal teeth. Sadly Jeff had to go back to beating the apples with lumber again. Regardless we wound up with 4 gallons of cider and a bushel and a half of apples still to go.

Chickens Are Your Patriotic Duty

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:11:00 +0000

So ironic that at one point in time the government viewed keeping backyard chickens as a war time patriotic duty...

http://www.treehugger.com/green-home/raising-chickens-patriotic-duty-uncle-sam-says-so.html?campaign=daily_nl

The government might have changed their stance on the subject, but I think they had it right the first time.

The Chicken's First Coop Guests!

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:20:00 +0000

One of the best things about urban farming (other than the amazing food!) is the cool, passionate people you get to meet. Today one of our blog readers, who happened to live on the other side of town, came by to visit the girls. Their baby chicks are coming Tuesday, and we hope that we were able to help them out with some of the lessons we had to learn the hard way!

I have also been very fortunate to find a "bee mentor" who has been invaluable help for the first year of the hive. We meet John at a local gallery's showing of a bee documentary. He has come over to the hive several times to show us how to work the bees and has introduced us to the local bee club. I don't know how we would have gotten the bees through the summer without him.

As so many of us are trying to get back to craft of yesterday within the constraints of our modern, urban setting, it is really awesome when we can all help each other learn something new.

Master Composter

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:29:00 +0000

While I have heard of master gardeners, I was surprised to see a program for Master Composters being offered by our local cooperative extension. This sparked my interest, and I quickly signed up before really contemplating how much work this might be! It felt like high school biology and chemistry class rolled into one; it surprised me how much science knowledge was involved. Of course, I should've realized that nine hours of training would go beyond just throw stuff in a pile and let it rot! It was a wonderful course, and I feel so much more prepared to handle issues that have occurred with our compost piles. The class also taught us how to set up a new worm bin so now our basement hosts two worm bins! When I came home from the class, I announced to Jeff who was in the bedroom,"honey come out to the living room to meet the new members of the farm!" After a brief pause, "Dear, what did you bring home now.....?"

Check out this great web site for a ton of resources to help set up your composting game!
http://www.cce.cornell.edu/Environment/Pages/WasteManagement.aspx

Key Lime Tree!

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:09:00 +0000

Forever attempting to ignore the fact that we live in Upstate NY, another citrus tree has been added to the homestead-key lime (as a lovely birthday present from Mom.) We did some more research on caring for this tree and wanted share...

Rocks in the bottom for drainage

Here's the interesting part- who knew there was soil formulated for citrus?
I am sure we could've amended a general potting mix but sometimes the lazy way rocks!

There Really is an App for Everything!

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 01:06:00 +0000

This really made us laugh- there is an app to help you select the best chicken breed for your situation. The ultimate in urban farming!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pickin-chicken-breed-selector/id360977737?mt=8

Everyone's Day At Work

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 01:20:00 +0000

This is the sight that greets us when we get home from work and check on our micro-flock. While we were busy at work, so were the girls! (The golf balls are in there to prevent the girls from pecking at and eating their own eggs. Yes, it looks weird, but it works)

So we work for this...

and they work for seeds!

"Hey, we should ask for a raise!"

Tomato-mania begins!

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:50:00 +0000

That time of year is here already. Tomatoes out the you-know-where. So begins the tomato-mania, ie: the mad scramble to harvest all the rapidly ripening tomatoes and dry them, pickle them, can them, and make tomato sauce and salsa while they are perfectly red and fresh.

In a weird way, tomato-mania is kind of like the Olympics.

There is the thrill of victory!

Fresh tomato sauce with garlic and basil

Mmmmm......almost done

And there is the agony of defeat

The dishes...never a fun chore, especially at 12:01 AM after making sauce all night

Maybe this mess can wait until tomorrow

Putting the Chickens to Work!

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 02:41:00 +0000

It is that time of year again when we find ourselves in a wash of beautiful produce ranging from succulent tomatoes, so delicious we eat them like apples, to more beans than you can shake a stick at. As we begin canning, drying and just eating all the produce, I find myself contemplate the amazing team effort this garden takes from all the members of the "farm".

The chickens clear bugs out of the garden and help break up the ground before planting.

The bees help pollinate everything, improving the garden returns dramatically.

The worms, who live off the kitchen scrapes, produce incredible compost which helps the garden grow even more.

Even the poor fish, who didn't make it, were burried into the ground and are now acting as fertilizer.

And the cycle continues.

As we add each element to the farm, we have had to return more and more to traditional ways of gardening. For example, when we added the bees, we had to complete get rid of pesticides (which we barely used any of anyways). As we return to more traditional gardening, we find our lives getting simpler and easier (contrary to what garden supply companies would like you to think) and the rewards bigger. I love how the chickens eat the bugs out of the garden, eliminating the need for chemicals, saving me money, making the girls happy, and creating better produce. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best.

Summer cuke madness and more broodiness

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:22:00 +0000

As August passes by, we have more and more amazing produce from the garden. We've been cooking, canning, drying, freezing, and just plain eating raw, bell peppers, hot peppers, jalapeno peppers, raspberries, green beans, black beans, okra, tomatoes of all sizes and shapes, sweet and tangy tomatillos, zucchinis and cucumbers. Lots and lots of cucumbers. Its amazing how fast and how much these things grow. Now that we've canned at least a decade's worth of every kind of pickle, we still have a surplus. As we cant stand to see any of the product of so much sweat and dirt over the past few months go to waste, we decided we would toss some excess cukes in the chickens pen and see if they liked it. Let me tell you, .. they did. It was really unbeliveable how quickly they could devour a fat 8 inch long whole cucumber, leaving nothing behind but a nearly perfectly intact rind, picked absolutely clean. We started giving them bigger and bigger cukes each day, and each day the same result when we got home from work: a perfectly cleaned green rind. Its become a sort of entertainment by this point. I threw them an apple the other day, and when I got home from work the whole thing had vanished. Not even a core or a stem was to be found. I think this fall, Im going to leave them with a big pumpkin and see what they do with that!

In less happy news, Cluck is broody......AGAIN. I dont know what the hell is wrong with this bird. One week she refuses to leave the nesting box. The next week she is happily clucking and scratching for treats with the rest of the flock, and now she's back to camping out in the nesting box again. One day I actually found scabby in the nesting box with her. How the two of them managed to both get iin the box simultaneously, I have no idea. It actually looked quite ridiculous, and I sort of laughed. But its starting to get annoying. Its hard to get in to get the eggs when Cluck puffs up and does her high pitched angry chicken "growl", and we have both been pecked by her enough to know she doesn play around when she wants to be left alone. This weekend, while I was sweeping out and scrubbing the pen down, I had Big Crown and Scabby in their pet carrier waiting patiently as "room service", ie: me, was sweeping and scrubbing. I was fed up with Cluck, so I just picked up the whole nesting box, with her still in it, and set it down outside the pen while I worked. Of course, NOW Cluck wants to come out and squawk, and flap, and poop in the human side of the basement. Great. Just great. I was finally able to cram her into the pet carrier, but by now the whole job had taken twice as long as it should have.

Return to "normal"?

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:27:00 +0000

Tonight all three chickens are back to sleeping nestled tightly, 3 in a row, on their roost. Apparently, what ever was disturbing the "zen of the pen" has been dispelled, and things are back to normal (note - we use the word "normal" in the relative sense, since there really is not very much that is normal about 3 chickens living down in the basement). Egg production is still down, though. We had been getting 3 eggs per day consistently until the girls started acting batty. Then we went a day or two with no eggs, and for the past two or three days we have been getting one, still perfectly respectable, egg each day when we get home from work and go down to check on the micro flock.

Summertime update

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:34:00 +0000

As this summer stretches into August already, we have been way behind in keeping up the blog. Our garden is at the point where its nearly bursting with produce, which unfortunately means lots of time devoted to picking, harvesting, chopping, drying, canning, pickling, making jams and jellies. All of which is great for enjoying home grown food well into winter, and not so great for keeping current with the blog.

The flock has been enjoying the cool comfort of their home in the basement, totally unaware of the scorching heat outside this summer. I like to think they appreciate how good they have it in their basement abode, cool in the summer and warm in the winter, but this is as delusional as our hope that they see us as anything more important in their lives than mere treat dispensers....

Despite having it made in the shade, the girls' behavior is back to being bizarre. It all started when 2 of the 3 of them stopped sleeping in their usual places on the roost, where they would perch all right next to each other in a little row each and every night. For no apparent reason, one began roosting on the top of the chicken wire enclosure, while another began sleeping in a little nest she made for herself down in the shavings. This we attributed to her going broody and wanting to sit on her eggs all night long. Things continued to get weirder as the peace that has prevailed in the basement coop all summer has given way to recent bouts of loud squawking and flapping coming from down in the basement. One of these bouts even happened while the home appraiser was here (how embarrassing!) He took it in stride, remembering the last time he was here. "Oh, right.... The chickens" was his response. So by this point of course, the chickens are starting to show the signs of all this ruckus when we go down to feed them in the mornings, sporting fresh new scabs on their combs. Poor Cluck, never known for her sunny personality, seems to be getting the worst of it by the amount of cuts and scabs on her comb. Ironically, Scabby --so named because she used to have a rather large scab on her comb-- is the only one of the flock without any scabs or cuts on her comb. So we have no idea what the hell is going on with the flock. Maybe a re-alignment of the pecking order?

Basement Life Perks

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 01:49:00 +0000

Despite the blazing heat that is blanketing the Northeast, our girls have been sitting pretty in their cool basement. Us humans occupying the upstairs of the house have not been so lucky. So while the girls slept indoors, Jeff and I took our tent and slept in the backyard. The ultimate in irony did not escape us, however we had a wonderful time grilling and acting like it was a regular camping adventure.

A few night before we had decided the heat was just unbearable, and we turned on our AC (which we try to avoid doing for eco reasons.) Come two o'clock that morning, and we were woken by the carbon monoxide detector alarm. While contemplating calling my parents to ask if we could crash there for the night, it occurred to me that I literally have a canary in the coal mine or in my case chickens in the basement. I went down there to see if they were affected by the carbon monoxide. Once I flipped on the light to see, I could tell they were all just fine and only annoyed that I had woken them. However, Cluck had decided to sleep instead of on the roast but on the edge of the wire. When I turned on the light it startled her and she fell forward hitting her face on the side of the bathroom wall. Brilliant! In the end we just opened the windows and the alarm stopped, but I am glad to have my girls to alert me to any problems with carbon monoxide... just yet another random benefit of the clandestine chickens!

What do they call this egg?

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:02:00 +0000

The eggs continue to get weirder...

Jeff was downstairs taking care of the chickens when I heard, "Lisa, did you give the girls an old carrot?" I replied no and then heard nothing from him. It was such an out of place question, it made me curious. Eventually he came back up stairs holding a small egg that did, in fact, look exactly like an old moldy carrot stick.

If the small eggs were called fart eggs, I don't even want to know what to call this one.

See, it is a carrot egg!

Rabbit Repellant

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:47:00 +0000

There is unwelcome livestock on the urban farm..... rabbits are eating our plants. (Esp. the corn.) Jeff and I have declared war! The chickens have helped us create our weapon... we are using rotten eggs in water and spraying it around the plants to deter the rabbits. Here is the recipe:

Three eggs
1/2 cup veg oil
2 minced garlic cloves
Three table spoons hot sauce
Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup milk

Put everything in a jar and set it outside in the sun to rot for a week. Strain it once through a colander and a second time through a coffee filter or paper towel. Dilute the mixture with one gallon of water and spray in garden.

The chickens come through the save the day again!

Update: While spraying this toxic mixture gagged me, it has kept the darn rabbits away!

Seriously..It's Called a Fart Egg?

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Are you looking at a one giant egg or one micro egg?

The upside of this latest adventure on the urban farm is that Jeff and I are now at the chicken parenthood stage where odd changes don't panic us...

Two days ago we came home to find the tinniest egg you can imagine a chicken laying. We laughed it off and figured it had something to do with Cluck being broody (when chickens decide to sit on their eggs to hatch them despite the fact that they aren't fertilized and will never produce chicks). The next day I came home to find another "micro egg." Cluck was still broody, and I had to fight her to get her off the micro egg. Well okay, it seems that I should look into this. (Thank goodness we aren't human parents yet and don't have to pay to take our kids to the pediatricians.) About a half an hour of internet research, and I had my answer. As is usually the case with all odd chicken behavior, it was perfectly normal. Turns out, that sometimes chickens just lay the egg too soon. They tiny eggs are called fart eggs since some people believe that they happen when the chicken farts and the egg just falls out! So I guess Cluck should lay off all the beans in her diet!

Clandestine Chickens and Neighbors

noreply@blogger.com (Clandestine Chickens) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 04:11:00 +0000

Yesterday, while toiling away in the garden, our neighbor came over to check out what were planting and growing. Our corner of suburbia is pretty densely built up, so this is normal. In fact, looking from our back yard, we can see down across three adjacent backyard gardens. We have great fun trying to check out what the neighbors are planting and doing in their gardens without seeming nosy. Anyways, so our neighbor comes over, and after talking about our successes and failures growing different things in our gardens, he offers to cut us some of his amazing rhubarb stalks. We gladly took him up on his offer and gave him a dozen of our eggs (which we have an abundance of, now that the girls are in full production) in return. Our neighbor is an older, retired guy, who used to have chickens when he was a boy, and is convinced in his opinion that Rhode Island reds are the best, and that we should get some. Unfortunately we are presently limited to what we can keep in our basement, but we still appreciate the recommendation. He also mentioned that he had his son over recently, who was very surprised to see our micro-flock through the basement window. Luckily we have a neighbor who is pro-basement chickens, so its not a big deal.

Thinking about it, in this day and age, it really is a great and wonderful thing to know and talk to your neighbors, and to be able to exchange good, homegrown food, like fresh rhubarb and eggs. It would be so great if this happened all the time. Our neighborhoods and communities would be much friendlier, healthier, safer, and well-connected places to live if there were more of this type of activity.