The great chicken escape

My chickens found their way through the neighborhood today. It would seem I didn’t manage to remove all escape routes from the coop I had built. They were all over. You can imagine 27, 3 week old chicks running amuck. I did, however, manage to save 25 of them. We lost two because an unknown animal had killed one and another broke its leg and we had to put it down. I know it may seem a little girly but I hated doing it.

We thought we had lost another one that had escaped but it was found on our front steps like it was waiting for the bus to move out of town.


Even though I thought I had made sure there were no escape points for them they managed to find one I missed. So when you build a chicken coop you need to check and recheck all possible or it may become disastrous for you, I was very lucky this time.


Building the chicken coop was easy I got my idea from different places in advertisements and had extra cedar fencing boards lift over so I decided it was time to get some chickens. All I needed was time to build the coop.


I built my coop in about 3-4 months simply because I work a lot of hours and sometimes it is very hard to get time to GET-R-DONE. If I had the time I probably could have had it done in a weekend. Tractor supply had all the wiring I needed in addition of a few screws and some other supplies. I thank you Lowes for all my roofing supplies.


Now my chicken coop was not meant for 25 chickens, it was meant for a maximum of 10. I had to order the minimum to get a good price for the chickens which was about $2.33 each. They gave me two free chickens also one I think was by accident.


All is well however almost all my chickens are safe and secure and they are very friendly. They are very eager to jump into your hand and eat whatever you may have for them. They go through the food fast I am on the third bag and they will be 4 weeks old 7-11-2011.


I ordered the day old chicks from Meyer in Polk, Ohio. They hatched on Monday and arrived on Tuesday. Pretty quick delivery even though the chicken farm told me I would have to pick them up from the post office. The post office delivered them in due course on my porch step and we immediately put them under a heat lamp and put food and water in their box. After about 2 weeks we put them in the coop. they have been happy ever since.

Urban Farming

Urban Farming, growing your own grub

by; John Williams

Why is Urban Farming important at all? The answer is not a simple one because thousand of reasons exist.One reason may be in general to produce a healthier food than the pesticide infested food bought it the market. Another could be to create a group in the community to help feed some of the hungry, and increase the relationship between the neighbors. Some people try to ease the burden of the economy for themselves by raising chickens, rabbits and vegetables instead of buying them at the market. Whatever the reasons may be you can be sure Urban Farming is gaining popularity across the United States.

Urban Farming has been around for a very long time and is not a new thing only how our methods change. Urban Farming was started in the United Stated under other names like war gardens and victory gardens during WWI and WWII. The ideal was if people grew their produce on the land inside the city it would lesson some of the pressure on public supplies that could be used to send to the troops and support the war effort. This in turn gave the public the feeling that they were helping with the war effort even though they were unable to enlist in the military.

During WWII Eleanor Roosevelt planted a White House garden which encouraged victory gardens across the United States to eventually produce forty percent of the nation’s fresh produce (Brown 2009). Urban Farming was given a more positive outlook when in 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama encouraged children from a local school to start a vegetable garden on the White House grounds (Brown 2009).

We are currently using names like micro farming, city farming, urban gardening, urban agriculture, and the list goes on and on. Whatever one may call it, if a person ever placed a plant in a pot, bucket or in the ground on any scale inside of city limits, that person is involved in the Urban Farming. A person may only be putting a plant in a pot to help spice up some culinary concoction or to add décor to a home but it is still Urban Farming, be it on an extremely small scale. With that being said there is plenty of information out there on the subject if one simply considered the word usage. Gardening, agriculture, city farm and many other names will help with the search for information.

In the United States with the mounting concerns with the climate effects the economy and the health that our food provides, Urban Farming has become a focal point of interest for communities (Brown 2009). It has become important for us to consider taking care of ourselves without relying totally upon the local stores to supply everything we need.

Urban farming is essentially farming in a micro scale. Growing plants in a container or a small plot in the back yard, and raising small animals we can use to help feed us and make products to sell from.

Plants and animals in fact can be raised and grown almost anywhere and anytime. In most cases they do not take up massive amount of space like traditional farming does. One does not need to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a green house when a frame of PVC and some clear plastic will do the trick. “Lufa Farms, founded by Mohamed Hage and Kurt Lynn, turned an unassuming office rooftop into a 31,000-square-foot greenhouse that grows tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other produce year-round and is a working example of a developing trend known as urban rooftop farming” (Rifkin 2011).  As you can see you can operate an Urban Farm almost anywhere.

To get involved in Urban Farming, check with the local city ordinance where the farm is located. There is in fact nothing said referring to the raising of legal plants in the Dayton city ordinance however there is reference to animals that are not allowable, how the animal are restrained, and what types are allowable. Chapter 91 of the Dayton, Ohio city ordinance describes the manner in which the animals are kept. The ordinance maintains no one shall keep animals in any condition that would be a disturbance or causes a health concern. (Dayton City Ordinance)

Chickens are allowed in Dayton but roosters are not because they create a noise disturbance and are declared a public nuisance, unless of course the rooster in question dose not crow (which is not likely). Prohibited animals are basically animals that are generally viewed as normally wild, any endangered species, any animal that is considered dangerous, and certain fish and other reptiles. To obtain a complete list consult with the local city ordinances. (Dayton City Ordinance)

Keeping animals is also subject to the state health department. The health department determines whether the animals are presenting a health risk for the animals or the owners or even the neighborhood. They check the cleanliness of the restraints and insure no diseases from the animals may be passed to local pets or humans. (Dayton City Ordinance)

If there is any intention of possessing animals it is would be prudent to check with the local ordinances of whatever city that one may live because they may have unusual laws about them. In the city of Dayton, Ohio it is only legal to sell baby chicks in lots of six, and in Texas it is illegal to put graffiti on someone else’s cow. In Pennsylvania no one is allowed to shoot bullfrogs on Sunday and in Berea Kentucky it is illegal to ride a horse at night unless it is equipped with a bright red tail light (dumblaws.com). Check with the local ordinances in the city of residence and there won’t be a fine for fishing for whales within the city limits of Oklahoma City (dumblaws.com).

As consumers we no longer notice the change of seasons in the supermarkets because our food is grown at long distances and then shipped to our local market. With the price of oil always on the rise the cost of food being transported follows the same trend (Lester 2009). So it is becoming a bigger concern for many families to look for alternative means to support the need for products from the markets, by growing their own food and storing it themselves.

Many of the new farms support the local markets, whether they are the farmer markets or the local food stand on the side of the road. Most urban farmers tend to be specialized in certain products like mushrooms, goat milk, and other things that may grow in a small area. The number of organic farms in the United States has jumped from 12,000 in 2002 to 18,200 in 2007 increasing by fifty percent in only five years. As this movement continues so will the value we place on locally grown food will increase in its favor.


Urban farming can only be a positive thing when working within the law and community. Urban farming can bring the community and the local government together to achieve a common goal of helping residents and clean up wasted land not being used. Urban farming can help beautify the city which in turn can help to bring in new businesses to the area. The only negative back draft to urban farming would be irresponsible people not taking care of their area. Living through this slight depression urban has only positive benefits and can help save our economic situation.

How to evict a groundhog

If you have ever seen a ground hog you know it is a vegetarian that digs a hole in the ground, usually in the middle of a field and tries to live a quiet life. Usually the hole is somewhere you don’t want it to be and a lot of time it is where other animals can get hurt by stepping in them. Most farmers don’t enjoy them very much and will go to great lengths to eradicate them.

When I grew up in the country we had another name for them, “whistle pigs”. If you whistle at the proper tone to them they would whistle back to you. It was an amusing past time to get the groundhogs to communicate with us.

I had left work early one evening and my wife was supposed to pick me up later that day so I sent her a text and told her to pick me up early. I planned on starting out on foot so I wouldn’t be caught by a supervisor and asked to work longer than what was my exit plan.

I started to walk up a hill on the way home to a bridge that crossed the railroad tracks and I saw some thistle flowers that my wife had mentioned a few days before that she liked. They are like purple fuzz balls with a really nice fragrance. I decided that I was going to surprise her with one of these little beauties. I pulled out my pocket knife, leaned over the guard rail, and cut off a flower for her.

Suddenly something started growling at me, growling is the best description I can think of at this time, and the little varmint came running out of its hole full speed at me like a Japanese bullet train. I jumped back, and was able to outpace this little hell bent bastard on wheels.

When my wife finally caught up to me I relayed my story to her, she laughed so hard she didn’t realize until later that I had given her the flower. She said she wished she could have seen my chubby butt haul ass from that harmless little animal. It was the highlight of her day.

I know that this is a pointless story but my point is that ground hogs are nuisance and most farmers (country and urban) have trouble with them so here is a solution to detour these little imps from entertaining the use of your property as its home.

Step one; find you a big strong Neanderthal of a man, one whom doesn’t mind exposing himself to the elements. Step two; ask him to pee in the ground hogs hole without explaining why, because he would be laughing too hard to take proper aim(then disaster would strike). Yes, I said man-pee in ground hog hole. You can get plenty of it and it is free.  

There are some chemicals in a man’s pee that those little beastly critters don’t like. If you try it with a woman’s pee it will have no effect. Man-pee works for squirrels also, you just have to figure how to get it up into the tree.

Usually if you have a sprayer you can use it to spray it in the tree I do recommend diluting it with water a bit so a little can go a long way.

Having a dog can helps as a deterrent they consistently patrol your yard and garden for invaders and they love to chase other animals. Remember you still have to feed the dog and do the pooper scooper thing.

These are a few ways to evict critters that are not beneficial to your home and garden. My dad swears by them and in most cases they do work. Remember animals can overcome most obstacles when they want something bad enough.

Those damn geese: those tasty geese

           When growing up approximately a long time ago about twenty miles from what is now considered civilization, my family lived in the Appalachian foothills in southeast Ohio. We lived on a small farm and possessed many animals including some very overbearing geese.

My dad thought it was important to have a guard dog so someone donated two geese to him. These water fowl were beautiful and grey and vocal and I thought for a moment that it might be a good thing to have these critters added to our family.

            I made the first effort to befriend these wonderful animals and was bitten for it. New animals are always nervous when they first meet you so I let it slide. I left them alone for some time until they started nesting under the barn. Wouldn’t you know it the female put an egg in a nest she had built and my mother wanted it.

            My mother, in all of her wisdom and love for me, decided it was a good idea for me to go get the egg under the ruse that she was going to make a cake with it. I went to go get the egg like a loyal dog going after a news paper for her, not knowing what was in store for me. The action my mother encouraged me to take caused the evil beasts to unleashed their terror upon me...and unleash they did.  At first they spread their wings and started hissing at me, warning me not to take the course of action I had embarked upon. That did not persuade me to change my course, and I knew my mother was going to protect me from any danger.

I walked right up to the goose and attempted to move her off the nest like I would have a chicken to get the egg and the gander attacked. He started flogging me and biting me and as I turned to defend myself the hen attacked me. While I was being attacked by these vicious demonic animals my mother walked up laughing and took the egg from the nest herself. Lesson learned; never trust a woman and I also did not see the cake either.

            I had to continue to watch out for myself because these were truly evil beasts they would attack anything. When people would come to our home to visit we would have to escort them from their car like a presidential security team so they would not be attacked. When they would leave the geese would chase the cars like rabid dogs biting at their tires.

Every morning the geese would wait outside my front door and bite me on the butt all the way to the school bus. I was gaining a respectful fear of them because they thought it was fun to harass me. One day, I saw the gander sneak up behind my dad and bite him. My dad, being the person that he was, never took any crap from animals. He grabbed the goose by the head and drug it down the driveway about ten feet and let it go. The goose not liking this much took off honking. They didn’t bother my dad much after that.

One morning those hateful animals were laying in wait for me as usual and I knew what was coming. After seeing what my dad the day before I felt I could mimic him. So gathering every ounce of courage I could muster I ran out the door as fast as I could. I snatched one of them by the head and drug it all the way to the school bus.

 I felt like I had defeated my arch enemy from a comic book and the world was saved by my actions. Well maybe my world but it was saved none the less. I felt like I could defeat anything with the power of the drag, which was given to me by my father.

I got on the school bus and rode it to school. I was in the first grade and was learning some very important stuff.  It was really a good day for me.

After school I got on the bus and went home. The goose was still lying were I left it, right in the middle of the driveway. I had inadvertently broken the goose’s neck. It was delicious tasted, a little greasy, but it was only a goose.