Okay, that’s not me. That’s Maggie. Holding a little black silkie chicken! But I got to hold one too! Just no one took a picture… but that’s okay, because I’ll remember it forever as long as I live!!! OH MY GOSH….

Well, let me tell you the story!

I was browsing Craigslist, as I am oft to do. I love Craigs List… I want to shake Craig’s hand. No, I want to give Craig a big old bearhug for way too long, long enough to make him uncomfortable. Yeah, that’s about right. I love what he did and what he started. It’s such a wonderful use of the internet.

Anyway. I digress.

I was browsing the internet and I was looking for someone to get eggs from. We’ve been buying from a nice farming pair of brothers at the local farmer’s market, but alas, that is getting harder to attend and I believe this week or next is the last one! Waaaa!

And since I have made a personal vow to never again buy commercial white eggs after learning about the TERRIBLY BARBARIC practice of grinding live baby rooster chicks as they are unwanted…. I never want to again give them my money. I’d rather do without.

Okay. So I was browsing. And I found this lovely lady Jen and her awesome husband, Josh and they had eggs available and didn’t live too far. Since Jessy needs the driving practice and well, we needed eggs… we made an appointment to come out and see the chickies!!!

Jen and Josh are starting their own homestead. Complete with 2 acres and a lovely nice house and chickens and a super cool greenhouse and land! I’m so jealous! It’s wonderful. And they are just super cool folks and we are all birds of a feather, for sure. They are totally into the whole homestead ideas…. simple life, deliberate living and not into the whole consumer lie that we are lead to believe is our life.

They have a little flock of 13 girls and one super cute little Bantam rooster! He even attacked my shoe! Awwwwwww…. (yes, we’re so sold on chickens we even like to be fluffed and pecked at!!!)

They have the coolest little coop, it’s a shed that someone didn’t want and they found on Craig’s List… (imagine that) and they fixed it up and added a tall run on the side and let me tell you, these girls have it good. Apples and goodies, a sweet inside coop with clean straw and a warm heat lamp to keep away the chills and just a super pair of chicken parents to keep them happy and laying those eggs! They even have a bunny friend!!!

Mr. Bunny has full run of the coop and he hangs with the chicks and just generally gets along just fine with everyone. Even the roo was pretty much behaved as the bigger girls kept him in line. He is so pretty! And he crowed for us at least a half dozen times, quite perplexed I think at these city slickers messing with his harem.

What a handsome fella. He has a little chick that adores him… what a cute little chicken couple they make.

Maggie was right in there with me, of course, she is my nature kid and we’re gonna have a farm when we grow up. Maggie will be the farm foreman and I’ll just help and visit a lot and take pictures and such. Maggie needs to be around animals, it’s her calling. No doubt.

She had them eating out of her hand. Really, she did.

Jessy on the other hand…. she has my mother’s weird fear of birds. Don’t know how, but she is just not comfortable around birds of any kind. She stayed at a respectable distance and watched. The fact that she was only a few feet away and not sitting in the drive in her car was pretty cool! (hahaha) Perhaps sometime she’ll even take pretty pictures of them, of course, through the fence most likely.

I actually got to hold the little black silky and then I actually caught and picked one of the Reds up and she let me!!! She was SO cute… making these little sweet cooing noises and checking me out… she tested my shirt buttons a few times but was polite about it. You just never know, that might have been something good to nibble on.

OH MY GOSH I so want some chickens. This is just so cool. Jen says I can come and visit them anytime I want. I wonder if tomorrow morning is too soon? Ahem. Okay, since we left with like 5 dozen eggs, I think we’ll be set for a little while… at least a week or three… haha… I think I know a few friends that I’ll be helping to deliver farm fresh eggs to and share with this new found source!!

Oh my, but it’s not just the chickens! They build a greenhouse on their land and it’s SO COOL…. It’s made out of two air cargo containers!!!

I’ve never heard of such and thing and it’s just so cool. These are the transport containers that fit into jets and planes, and they are reasonable! And ready to go… Josh said he had to attach the two pieces together and they got an old wood burning stove on Craigslist… (Oh Craig!!!! You resourceful devil you!!!) And they put in a bunch of dirt and made beds!!!!

A super cool greenhouse for like $200!!! OH MY GOSH… I love it. And Jen sniped some beautiful green Italian parsley for us to take home… treats!!! I am going to learn to make pasta this weekend with my new little pasta machine I got off….. EBAY! (Haha… you thought I was going to say Craig’s List… yeah.. I looked, but could not find one, so I turned to Ebay, the grandfather of all used sources for cool things!!!) I want to see if I can actually do it… and with the parsely and a little alfredo and some homemade pasta with our new eggs… wooooo…. it’s going to be some good good eating this weekend at the Moby…

Oh my gosh, it was so nice and cozy warm in there already, just with the enclosure and Jen’s got a rouge zukkine in there with some zukes on it and a couple tomatoes and some herbs and such… I just have got to add this to my list of big homestead things I want. I could so see myself with my lawnchair and out in the green house reading when it’s snowing and cold and yucky out there… it would feel like the tropics I think with a little wood stove keeping it all comfy and all the green growing things just digging it. And then starting your own seedlings and such!!! WOW! How cool… I never would have thought about a greenhouse and now I’m hooked!!!

Super nice folks and it’s just so cool to find others that believe in the same stuff we’re taking in. Even the girls found it cool to realize that their mom is not a total flake and that other people are thinking the same way. We talked all the way home about life and the economy and the need to be prepared. Not scared… just to live more comfortably and without a ton of needs and all. One of the things that we decided on the way home is that we are doing great at keeping a simple and full pantry and our consumerism is really in check and all, but you know… we don’t have any real water storage. Nothing. Now, I’m not thinking that we need to run out and start filling up 45,000 milk jugs, but we don’t have ANY stored at all. And to be honest, we’ve had at least 4 different occasions in the last two months that they had to turn the water off for all day while they did some water main work… and once it was two days!

I think that our next step is going to be to stash a couple gallon jugs of sealed drinking water in the pantry. To be honest, I never thought about it till we were talking and they mentioned a friend that they know that actually keeps a huge pool of safe water for their family, just in case. Water is very important. We take the delivery system and availablity of it for granted and to be honest, you can go a WHOLE lot longer on limited food, then you can limited water.

40 days for food… 4 days for water and 4 minutes for air. So I seem to recall. I like my pantry being stocked and ready for close to a 30 day stretch… but we wouldn’t have water for us and the pets and all for more than a day at that. Something to think about.

Well, what a FUN FUN day and I’m just SOOO excited…. I held a chicken!!!! Oh, I so passed the “do I really want chickens test”!!!!

Someday! Someday!!!

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