I am flattered that the author of a new chicken book called Henhouse has turned my humble coop-building instructions into this amazing infographic and posted it on Visual.ly. This is a slightly simplified version of our coop, with no “chicken Guantanamo” cage underneath, or aviary around it. But after many years of use, this design [...]
Entries Tagged as 'urban farming'
Infographic: How To Build Our Backyard Chicken Coop
December 12th, 2012 · 7 Comments
Tags: art, chickens, urban farming
Deconstructing Dinner: An Interview at The Tangled Nest for a New TV Series
September 19th, 2012 · 4 Comments
Last Saturday I was delighted to welcome the good folks from Deconstructing Dinner for an afternoon at The Tangled Nest. Until a couple of years ago, Deconstructing Dinner was an internationally syndicated radio show covering food and the emerging food culture, with a focus on the relationship between our food choices and ourselves, our households, [...]
Tags: chickens, eggs, food, urban farming
A Cool Coop: Caring for Chickens in the Heat
August 16th, 2012 · 2 Comments
It’s actually hot in Seattle! Yes, I know that you folks in other parts of the country have had many 90+ days, but for us Pacific Northwesterners, it’s rare–our bodies aren’t used to it, and neither are our chickens! I’ve noticed the girls are panting a little, and seeking shade. Here’s one from the archives [...]
Tags: chickens, seasons, urban farming
How to Herd Your Chickens (or ducks)
July 17th, 2012 · 4 Comments
Y’all may have seen these photos when they were in the news last month, but they have taken on practical significance for us lately. Our chickens get to roam free all winter, but now that the garden in our little urban backyard farm is tender and tasty, they are supposed to stay in the the [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
The Tangled Nest Urban Chicken Roundup
April 30th, 2012 · 3 Comments
It’s urban chick season once again, and past Tangled Nest posts on chickens, coops, and chick-rearing are getting a lot of readers. We thought we’d make things convenient by gathering our most salient “chicken wisdom” in one place. Here is advice gleaned from our twelve years of backyard chicken-keeping, taking you from fluffy chick, to [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Chickens Versus Snowpocalypse
January 18th, 2012 · 24 Comments
Hi, Tom here… Lyanda’s away on a writing retreat so I am hijacking her blog for a few days. In Seattle it’s a snow day–we are having our annual “snowpocalypse,” when a few inches of snow completely shuts down the city and sends cars skidding into the curbs and children flocking into the unfamiliar white [...]
Tags: chickens, seasons, urban farming
Return of the Prodigal Chicken: A Holiday Story
December 8th, 2011 · 9 Comments
Most people ate turkey on Thanksgiving. Us? We came home from the holiday feast with a live chicken. Last May, our older chickens went into Urban Chicken Retirement at my Uncle Joe’s farm in Maple Valley. We’ve taken our aging flocks there in the past, where they nibble away their golden years in wide sun-dappled [...]
Tags: chickens, seasons, urban farming
Autumn Scenes from an Urban Smallholding
September 28th, 2011 · 7 Comments
I love the idea of a “smallholding.” It’s a term still used in England, one I re-discovered while leafing through a favorite book the other day, The Freedom Manifesto by Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson (also love The Idler…). A smallholding is a modest parcel of land, usually just one-family’s-worth, that supports some farming and other [...]
Tags: chickens, food, fruit trees, garden, urban farming
Urban Chicken Retirement: What to do when older chickens stop laying?
July 26th, 2011 · 60 Comments
We were a host once again this year for Seattle Tilth’s Chicken Coop and Urban Farm Tour, and one of the main questions would-be chicken keepers voiced was what to do with older chickens after they stop laying, or slow way down? The numbers vary by breed and individual, but most chickens lay really well [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Kelly and Erik From Root Simple: Bees, Bread, And Radical Home Economics
May 4th, 2011 · 2 Comments
A guest post from Tom: In a perfect storm of mismatched calendars, Lyanda was doing a reading in Portland this week while Kelly and Erik of the blog Root Simple (formerly Homegrown Evolution) were in the Seattle area, doing events in support of their great new book Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer [...]
Tags: bees, books, food, urban farming
