When I spoke on the phone with my cousin, Paddy, on the evening of December 25th, he asked me "so, dude, was Santa good to you this year, or what?" Yep, Santa was definitely good to me... he gave me more projects. My bride, Emily, gave me some of the pieces and parts required for chicken husbandry. We have not raised chickens before, but we are pumped. Clearly they are an important milestone in the evolution of a family from casual DIYers to ultra-hip modern homesteaders. We were always jealous of our graduate student friends in Missoula who were able to take the early leap into livestock ownership. I have 20-20 vision, but as I hold my new Mason-jar poultry feeder, I can already feel the weight of thick-framed eyeglasses designed to make me look smarter, more ironic, and more indie-rock than the average American.
Earlier this year, Emily and I shouldered a home mortgage for the first time in a neighborhood about 600 feet outside the city limits of Lewiston, Idaho. It is illegal to keep poultry in most neighborhoods in Lewiston, but in our little slice of heaven, sandwiched between a major highway and a commercial tire company called Commercial Tire, we have the raw materials of an urban homestead. There is garden space, a cool basement, a shed of perfect dimensions for a chicken coop, some spots for fruit trees, and lots of scrap wood and fencing lying around that is ripe for recycling. Collecting DIY-worthy presents in my stocking from Santa Claus is certainly timely. We have work to do.
How to get that work done? My wife and I have a rough knowledge of basic carpentry, at best. What can we say, we were both book nerds. A most viable solution to this problem: get a beloved copy of "Build it Better Yourself" handed down heirloom-style from your in-laws. This is a wonderful gift. It has plans for a chicken coop, and a smoke house, and lots of other things that will help me complicate my life over the next few years.
Have I mentioned I have a 13 month old son? Yep, we are going to take on chickens, gardens, micro-orchards, smokehouses, and basic house maintenance when we have barely taken on parenthood?
We haven't yet made the rounds to my boyhood home to visit my folks for the holidays. Surely when we visit there, Emily and I will collect various and sundry lures, shotgun shells, and other stuff from Santa for a HHMM. My dad is (after my bride) my primary hunting partner, and we are fairly predictable in the gifts we like to get for each other. Don't worry, Mom, that is very much how I like it. The freezer needs filling. Ice fishing, steelhead fishing, spring bear and turkey hunting...
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