Chickens in the City

Is it just me or is it becoming trendy to have a brood of chickens roosting in the backyard? Every morning I wake up to hear my neighbor’s hens clucking in anticipation of the first feed of the day. A friend adopted three chicks this summer, raising them in the laundry room until they were ready to move into their purple chicken chalet in the backyard. The hens are pets that have the added benefit of dropping an egg every now and then. Since my friend controls their diet, he knows the eggs are quality, organic and local. Seattle is a magical place - a city where barnyard fanfare is a reminder of our communal committment to sustainable living.

Resoucres

Garden hotline: Available to answer individual questions about gardening and farming in the Seattle area. (206) 633-0224

Seattle Tilth: A non-profit community resource focused on sustainable gardening.

Seattle’s Municipal Code  (via Seattle Tilth) regarding chickens in the city:

Up to three (3) domestic fowl may be kept on any lot in addition to the small animals permitted in subsection A. For each one thousand (1,000) square feet of lot area in excess of the minimum lot area required for the zone or, if there is no minimum lot area, for each one thousand (1,000) square feet of lot area in excess of five thousand (5,000) square feet, one (1) additional domestic fowl may be kept.

Growing Our Own Food: Old practice new again

Seattle area residents are finding all sorts of ways to put food on the table these days. From rural hobby farms to urban community gardens – a local revival of subsistence practices sees the community through trying economic times.

 

Three years ago the national economy was high on a booming housing market, fueled by sub-prime mortgages, which had not yet caused a crisis. The Northwest was at the top of its game. In 2005 Forbes Magazine rated Seattle the #1 Most Overpriced City in the Country. Whereas those making good money could keep pace with the soaring cost of living, basic necessities moved further out of reach for poorer families in the region.

 

Bev, a 28 year old married mother of two and her family make their home in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, 40 miles outside Seattle. Bev’s husband works for his family’s company drilling water wells in rural areas throughout the region. This summer I paid Bev a visit to learn about life on a family farm.

 

I arrive to find Bev working in the yard, shoveling chicken manure into a wheel barrow. We begin our talk there, as I pick up a shovel and dig in to help. She tells me well work has dried up the last few months. No one is developing land right now. They get by, dipping into savings to pay the mortgage and bills.

 

Day after day Bev tends the vegetable garden. She milks goats. She gathers eggs. Sometimes she kills a chicken, though it turns her stomach. Bev admits that the hardworking homestead lifestyle little resembles her dream of a countryside utopia. However, the sometimes harsh realities of life in a recessive economy seem softened. “There is peace of mind, knowing I can at least feed my family,” she says. I wonder how urbanites like me might find similar alternatives to high food costs at the grocery store.

 

In April 2005, Pacific Northwest Magazine reported on a nationwide trend toward subsistence farming in urban areas. For city dwellers with far less than an acre of their own, p-patch community garden programs provide an opportunity to pool labor and resources for pleasure and prime veggies. In fact, the program began in the 1970’s with a simple vision of teaching children to grow vegetables.

 

In 2008 Seattle’s P-Patch Program reports 55 community gardens throughout Seattle neighborhoods. These gardens provide an alternative source of organic vegetables in a time when food prices reach record highs. P-Patches create a way for community to provide for community. Not only do those who tend the gardens benefit, but Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods reports that every year seven to ten tons of organic P-Patch produce are donated to local food banks.

 

Food costs continue to rise with the price of oil, causing many to look for innovative alternatives to bypass grocers. Subsistence farming is the historical root of agriculture. Going back to basics, whether by living on a rural hobby farm or participating in urban community gardening, many are rediscovering this tradition as a new way to put food on the table.

 

 

 

Space Needle

Taken from car at stoplight with camera phone.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Just a couple days of sobriety and eeh la! how the clouds part and fat lil sexless cherubs erupt in song:
Hallelujah! Deliverance!
Ah, nah, I don’t ever trust or dare hope for that final salvation – the blessed holy and promised;
With every step forward, you seem next to fall further back, and soon comes Halloween my skeleton – cold and shivering and no soul in your bones
But soul in your back, in your hope, in your head if it can get screwed on tight enough;
Oh I shiver, and Oh I die to joy
So the comforting hands of Angels, slave names on their t-shirts: Xanax & Ativan
Hold me up and carry me peaceful like through the days;
And to my rest they harp and flute tunes of God’s sweet, abundant grace.

Red Rover with Sadness & Contempt

Good ole soul
You comfort me least
When world’s troubles manifest
You run away from limbs,
Hide in some ethereal plane or what
Then thoughts run, slicing through happy hopes
Hold hands in prayer, link ‘em like fence
Soul trouble you make me play -
Red Rover with sadness + contempt

The Season of an End

Loving an addict is a serious committment. It requires accepting uncertainty, and often means living with fear. The person we love isn’t always available – physically, mentally or emotionally. They disappear into their addiction and we are left feeling alone, isolated, betrayed.

I had such a vision for us, for the we that could be. We were and could be so good for each other, but instead, we both get hurt because of this disease. I suffer through my anxiety and roll over into depression. He loses his body, his mind. I strive for hope, to open up to grace, to have faith in his ability to pull through and get better. But I also give up, throwing my hands in the air and crying for this loss.

I wrote down what I want, what I dream about. I wonder if he can understand, if he can see this vision and if it will become his.

My Love,

I know that at this time in my life my ideal relationship isn’t a traditional one at all. What I want more than marriage, family and more children, or a person who can be part of mine and my daughter’s life – is just someone for me, who just suits me entirely. I want to feel that deep soul/body/mind connection with another human being – no matter that we do not live together or that there is a substantial difference in ages. It’s almost crazy but I can’t shake feeling that you are that person for me. I guess I have felt it for a long time but not had the courage to ask you if you feel the same way. Likely because I feared you would say no and I would be left wondering what to do next.

Even though you have this terrible affliction, and it interferes with the ideal, it’s the person you are when you’re present and sober that connects with me. I don’t disqualify based on financial wealth, social standing, criminal history, or illness. I am a romantic, devoted to the Epicurean ideal. I want a rich and tranquil life with a loyal partner who will accept and love me, and who I can accept and love; and also who will grow with me in a world we create from our shared vision of happiness.

As I Lay Dying

Poor Robert,
His mother is all eyes now
Fierce flashes of not-yet
Followed by gray clouds asking when?
He thinks to hold her close, to fold himself around her
To say, It’s time mama,
Time to let go
To spindle her with morphine and rock her to sleep
On the ebb of an endless sea

Some People

Some people want to hide a shameful act
Lock it in a box, stash it under the bed
Some people hide their secrets in other people
With threats to cement silence,
Or rely on a shared sense of guilt
Wrapped up in social conformity, in a word – expectation
Some people are concerned more for the after-end result
Than the now- think before act/speak
And take moral offense when their dirty deeds are outed
By would-be-not victims, or those who receive dear confessions
Some people forget intention holds sweet soul essence
And focus on outward action – so often they then forget
The inner world is sacred, precious, truth
And though external acts would be reflection,
They make a muddy mirror at best