Awesome Meeting! Tons of support for Bexley chickens!

The city council zoning commission meeting tonight was a great success. Over and over again I'm impressed with how open to creating fair legislation our City Council has been. The process has, thus far, been shockingly amicable. For 45 minutes council heard from citizens who came to show their support (no one spoke against allowing chickens). I bet there were over 50 people there. Not everyone got to speak, but everyone listened respectfully.

Cathy (a new friend that we met at the meeting) gave Andrew & me the most awesome, most hilarious, porcelain music box with a woman & a man holding a chicken. She found it at a thrift shop and brought it in case we were there tonight! I think the man looks just like Andrew ;)

(First blog contest: A special gift of eggs--once we have them--to the person who can correctly guess what tune this music box plays. Place your entries in the comments section.)

I am not exaggerating when I say this Chicken Issue has made me feel, for the first time, like a real, grown up member of this community.

Councilman Lampke asked that speakers comment on 4 probable ordinance points:

• Sex of the chickens (Hens only, everyone agrees)
• Number of chickens (Council seems to be leaning toward limiting the number of hens to somewhere between 3-5 per family to stay in accordance with rules for dogs/cats)
• Coop (Getting a permit will probably require having a coop -- otherwise the chickens can get out and would probably get eaten by predators, anyway)
• Setback from the property line (This, to my mind, is the only tricky issue. A resident can have a dog anywhere on their property, of course, and cats can roam. But in Columbus and many other chicken-allowing places there are strict rules about how far from the property line the chickens must be housed. If we have even modest property-line setbacks in the new Bexley ordinance that will probably mean that Andrew & I can't keep the chickens. We've picked the most secure spot on our property which happens to be the dog run directly abutting the property line on the side. City Council seemed inclined to search for a reasonable compromise on this issue -- possibly required setbacks from the front of the property, effectively disallowing coops in front yards.

After dinner with Dana & Brent (fellow chicken owners), Andrew & I were positively misty-eyed about the sensible workings of small town government. Not until the woman got up to talk about the goat did even one council person up there crack an ironic smile. God love 'em.

Tomato plants worth jumping for...

Compostapalooza

These are our make-shift compost 'bins'. It's like chicken Disney World.

An indelicate moment with Betty

You can't really see what's going on here because the video cuts off at just the right moment. But Andrew & I recognize the telltale squat and the shadowy blob that results.

That's right, folks. I've gone there.

South Bexley Open Coop is a success!

Thanks to our friends and neighbors who came out for the open coop tonight. We had 35ish people stop by to meet the hens, including 4 city council members. It's awesome that City Council-folk took the time to come. Not surprisingly everyone that came was positive about our chickens (we didn't really expect a mob of angry nay-sayers) -- but for many it was their first time seeing backyard chickens up close. That made it fun.

The highlight for me was the couple, out for a walk, who wandered in after seeing our "open coop" sign. At first they were shocked to hear that the "infamous Bexley chickens" were right there under their noses, but after they'd met our chicken ambassadors and asked a few questions, they were ready to talk to council on our behalf!

Another highlight came on reflection: There are a lot of people in Columbus doing a lot of cool stuff. This is a great place to be living these days. There's the Franklin Park Demonstration Gardens. There's that beautiful new magazine Edible Columbus. There's Local Matters. There's that new local food restaurant in the Short North: Knead! And there's a whole quiet scene of people who care about eating well (in every sense of the word). It's exciting! Exciting enough to get me through the winter? Maybe. A fresh egg or two every now and again might just tip me in the right direction. They're like sunshine in a shell (I think I heard that somewhere - or did I just make that up? They do have more Vitamin D then most anything you can find on land).

As the sun went down and the chickens tucked themselves in for the night we had a nice little gathering of family & friends in the backyard. The kids, especially, had fun daring each other to pet the hens -- I didn't have the heart to tell them that after the sun goes down chickens are pretty much zonked out. I think that would've ruined the game.

If you missed tonight, there's another chance to meet the chickens over on Parkview on Monday night. Or drop us a line & we'll invite you over for a private tour!

The past few weeks have been non-stop busy, but I hope to get some new pictures up soon. The girls are growing up so fast (sniff, sniff).

Peggy and Betty

Enjoying some Tomato Plants

The girls have, as Jessica posted yesterday, discovered the roof of the coop. They like it particularly because they have access to some of the neighbor's tomato plants that are coming through the fence. They are uninterested in the tomatoes themselves, but rather in the greens, which are apparently the tastiest things these young ladies have had in their entire lives.

Being up on the roof of the coop gave me some opportunity to get some good pics of them as well. Enjoy!