Chicken fever!

Hey, y'all! 

     I’ve been bitten by the chicken bug.  I’ve got it bad.  I’ve wanted to have chickens for close to 20 years now, but the town I lived in wouldn’t allow anything considered to be a barnyard animal.  The regulations on post were the same, no barnyard animals allowed, with the exception of horses that were boarded at the post stables.  One of the first things I asked for when we moved to our little farm here were chickens.  Goats and rabbits are tied for second, but chickens... they’re like the gateway animal for all little start-up farms, aren’t they? 

     Well, here we are, a year later, and no dang chickens.  The barn had a lovely little coop built into the side of it that was easily big enough for a small flock of 8 or so hens and a roo.  It just needed to be cleaned out.  But, if you read an earlier post about the floods, it’s actually a good thing we didn’t immediately get those chickens.  They would’ve been soaked.  The roof leaks, the barn itself if partially below the floodplain for the little creek that runs next to our property line and over half the wood is rotten.  I would’ve felt guilty housing much of anything in there. 

     Rewind a few weeks ago and Little Bell had a tick.  I hate ticks.  They completely skeeve me out the way they just burrow their nasty little heads into you and hang on, and you never feel a thing!  Gah!  So gross.  Pa Bell was pretty displeased by it, too.  He made me pull it out, after we tried a few different methods of suffocation with no success.  He’s this big furry man’s man, and he made *me* pull the tick off our little guy. 

     Two days later, he’s asking me just exactly where I want my new coop and to decide how many chickens I want to order from the local farm supply.  Ha!  I’m gonna get my chickens!  Probably this summer!  Pa Bell decided the coop needed to be pretty close to where Little Bell’s play area is, and he wants to encourage the chickens to come hang out under the pecan tree where the swing is.  I guess that tick lit a fire under his butt that all my eyelash batting, sweet entreaties, and flat out bribery couldn’t manage. 

So here we go!  It’s a small start, but we’re finally getting started.