Britton and I celebrated the new year with just a few friends. I went over to my friend Kelly’s house for dinner while Britton met up with some of his friends who were visiting from Washington on Wednesday evening.
Dinner with the girls
Thursday I didn’t have to work, but he did, so I had a nice day to clean and get things in order. We have even started cleaning out, packing things up and are trying to sort through the rest of the things. Some of them are going to Goodwill, some to friends and family, some we are tossing, some we are selling on Craigslist, and hopefully just a few things will be going with us to Puerto Rico. It is a big step to finally start getting organized to move.
We haven’t moved in nearly seven years so this is starting to make it feel real. We really don’t buy much, but somehow have amassed a pretty good chunk of junk. I have been sneezing a lot because of all the dust! How did we just leave some of these things in closets for so long! It feels good to clean and organize anyhow, but knowing that this is the start of the adventure makes it even more meaningful.
Anyway, in addition to cleaning and organizing, we also went over to a friends house in Lafayette (near Boulder) to go to a New Year’s party and play Rockband. It was really fun because they have unlocked all of the songs and even bought extra ones. I like singing to No Doubt, Steve Miller Band and Weezer overall. I also like the drums, but am not a big fan of (read: I am no good at) guitar or bass.
Overall, it was a great way to end 2009 and we are looking forward to a new, exciting 2010 and new decade to boot! I hope everyone else has a Happy New Year as well.
Britton stumbled upon this great article about Fort Collins’ Backyard Hen policy. So I had to email the author, Mike Taylor, and see if he had any interest in helping us with our cause. He said he is definitely interested in watching what comes out of Greeley and may even write something in his magazine. He sounds like a very interesting person, and in fact lived without going to the grocery store for a month with the help of his garden and backyard hens!
Here’s a news video of his experiment. I tried to embed it, but it won’t work, so here is the URL…
We have had a very low-key quiet and SNOWY Christmas in Greeley this year. We got about 8-10 inches of snow in the last couple of days. The white Christmas is pretty in its own way, but so cold! We finally put the heat lamp in the chicken coop last night because as I mentioned earlier, two of the girls are molting and must be pretty cold. Unfortunately, when Britton put it in at about 10pm last night (with negative 10 degree weather), he put it directly into the coop and this woke them up. They could not sleep with the light glaring in their faces and ended up sleeping on the shelves of the greenhouse. Today we moved it out of the coop itself and just into the greenhouse. Hopefully that will keep it warm enough without keeping them awake.
Omelette with the heat lamp
Yesterday we also went over to Britton’s parent’s house for Christmas. We opened a few gifts and decorated some sugar cookies. It was pretty fun.
Our cookie creations
Decorating some cookies with our niece and nephew and Britton’s sis
Then today we went over to my parent’s house and opened gifts and had a nice meal. We spent time with my Grandma, brother, his girlfriend and my parents. The best gift of all was hearing that my dad’s PET scan came back with very good results! We also got some goofy presents including some fake crowns that made for a good picture.
My crazy family
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Britton and Cassie 🙂
UPDATE: 2013: For the current chicken rules of Greeley, see this post.
Molting and debating chickens in Greeley. This title is a shout out to Wheel of Fortune’s “before and after” category. 🙂 We have two of our chickens currently molting which means fewer eggs. For some reason, as we are learning, chickens molt in the dead of winter…when it got below freezing again, just like last year. Luckily, two of them are still laying though. We have also been busy debating the chickens’ very existence in our backyard with the Greeley City Council. Last night we had a work session that covered the ‘chicken committee’s’ recommendations. As you may know, from previous posts, I thought they were micromanaging the issue, but we felt like it was something of a compromise.
Henrietta Molting
Last night, the Community Development section of Greeley government put together a powerpoint that highlighted our recommendations. The problem I had with it is that it put the cart before the horse. In my work, I have learned that if you are to ever make a policy change, you must show the WHY before the HOW. I felt like last night the city staff didn’t address the “why” fully. And of course, the why to me is: food safety, food security, responsible pet ownership, property rights, environmental and economic sustainability and healthy food, few of which were addressed in the presentation. Instead the presentation talked about all the nitty-gritty of set-backs, coops, number of chickens, etc -the “how”. Now we will need to back track in order to educate the community about chickens.
It’s interesting to me to see how many people are ignorant about chickens. Britton said it best last night at the council meeting when he said that he had the same hesitations as most of the council members because he’s been a city boy (albeit not a huge city) and lived in Greeley his whole life without much exposure to chickens. All of these worries washed away within the first month of having our first chickens. However, when you put the “how in front of the why” people look at it differently.
For instance now with the idea of a permit planted firmly in their heads, they (one council woman in particular) see $$ dollar signs and want to charge for people to raise chickens. To me, this just defeats the whole purpose! We should be encouraging people to become more self-sufficient, to decentralize our food. Has anyone seen Food, Inc? Come on. There were also some comments about the set-back and some discussion of on-site slaughtering/processing. I don’t think I could kill our particular chickens (when they have names they say it’s nearly impossible) anyway, so that is not of such a concern to us.
I had a friend on Facebook (become a fan of Greeley Backyard Hens on FB and get updates about this issue) ask me why we would care about this issue if we are moving the Puerto Rico anyway? Well, I did not ask for this fight to come to me, but I will fight it for others (with your help!). This is something we believe strongly in. It is not only our right to have chickens, pets, or raise our own food, but our civil responsibility to be actively engaged in the process. Those who don’t stand up and speak up must be content with the decisions made by others… When the new mayor, Tom Norton, asked why people who want chickens don’t just move, it felt like a slap in the face. In the end Britton and I said, you know, maybe our ideas are just too different for Greeley. Maybe that is part of the reason we DO want to move. Greeley may have wide streets, but very narrow minds.
We just seem to have an uphill battle in this and that concerns me. When people are unfamiliar with something, their first instinct is to be afraid of it. Change is scary to people. What we should really be scared about it leaving it as it is: leaving our food, our very existence, to some outside entity be it the government or the huge multi-national corporations that currently run the food system. Raising chickens is our small way of saying we care, and I think that we as individuals should have the right to do that.
How can you help? Write letters to the City of Greeley (1000 10th Street, Greeley, CO 80631) showing your support, become a fan of Backyard Hens on Facebook, come in person and give testimony. Contact us! There is a lot you can personally do to help. Also, you can get educated about our food system. Here’s the trailer for Food, Inc. I strongly recommend it.
