Serious Squawking

The ladies are starting to get annoying.  We just moved to a new neighborhood -- before I really only had one neighbor, as I was on a corner, and had a wide alley behind us.  Now we're packed in with people on either side, and someone behind us, with a narrower alley.

The ladies wake up at about 6am or so, and start to get rowdy shortly after wanting to get let out.  I get really stressed in the morning when they start squawking and I think it bothers the neighbors.  However our bedroom is right near their cage, and I suppose if the neighbors bedrooms aren't at the back of the house, it might be ok???  We go to dinner with a bunch of the neighbors in a couple weeks, so I suppose I'll ask then.  But in the meantime, it stresses me out.

Our latest experiment is that we've closed off the henhouse (inside their cage), after they go in it at night.  So now they can't come out of the henhouse and down the ladder, to the fenced in area, until we let them.  1)  This blocks off alot of light, and may make them sleep more, and 2)  hopefully they'll just stay quiet till we let them down?

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd listen.....

San Diego Unified Farm to School Program

I saw a truck driving around town today promoting SD Unified's Farm To School program.  Didn't know anything about it so looked it up:  http://www.sandi.net/page/993

The program's goals:  We do not expect to meet them over night but we will use these goals as our guiding principles for implementing our Farm to School program.

• 15% of the fresh fruits and vegetables purchased will be sourced locally.
• Serve one “all local” lunch per month.
• Use sustainably raised hormone and antibiotic free meat and/or protein sources in school meals, use locally raised proteins when possible.
• Develop supplemental Farm to School activities and experiential learning opportunities for students.
• Create community partnerships.

Panera Commercial

While I don't think Panera's food is the best, I did however like this commercial:

Chicken Bath

We're going to be moving to a new house soon and turning our house into a rental.  So I've slowly been getting rid of the veggie planter boxes.  When I remove those boxes it leaves behind nice dirt baths for the chickies!  And the other day I caught them bathing:

My Next Chicken Coop

I'm up in Napa Valley doing the wine country thing...  We stopped past the Castello di Amorosa (http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/) for a bit of wine tasting and a tour of the castle -- and of course to see all their farm animals.

Anyway, while there I saw this neat looking chicken coop and I swear I'm going to have to do this sometime if I can find the right tree!!!!

What a nice long curvy ladder up to their coop!

Show Chickens on CNN

Ohmigoodness, will you look at these chickens!

http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/06/chicken-portraits/?hpt=hp_c3

http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/06/chicken-portraits/?hpt=hp_c3

Seriously, goto the link and look at all the pictures -- this is amazing!

Chickens strutting their stuff!

Chicken Toys!

Ohmigoodness, I bought the girls this toy:



They love it!  I fill it with dried worms, and then they kick it around the yard till they get all the treats out.  Only problem -- they work full time at it and it only lasts about 20 minutes!!  I need a BIGGER one!