Cooped up.

Last year I tried my hand at gardening.  I was pretty lazy, and it was a hot summer.  I didn't water it like I should have.  I let myself get overwhelmed when the cantaloupe and cucumbers started taking over everything.  It was a definite domestic fail for me.  I kept telling D (and plenty of others) that I dropped the ball with the garden and I'd understand if he didn't want to give the next "thing" a try.  What's the next thing you ask?

 [via]

CHICKENS!  That's right.  I've been wanting chickens ever since we moved into our house.  We eat plenty of eggs and would love to have homegrown eggs.  D is on board with the plan.  We have friends that have chickens and experience building coops.  

There's a nearby farm having a sale on chicks in April.  This means the race is on to build a coop.  I'm not sure if we can make it happen in time since D is traveling a bit this month and next.  I've already started searching for inspiration for kick ass coops though!

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Diann on Pinterest

[There's a tractor coop that is moveable depending on the weather, sun, etc.]

[via backyard chickens]

I like this a lot.  It seems pretty in depth for us though.  I doubt we will make ours as "pretty."  It even has a tin roof!  We have a privacy fence as well, so the roof couldn't face in that direction.

 [via stephmodo]

I think this one is perfect.  You don't have to get complicated by building a roof.  There's a large shaded/covered cooped area as well as the elevated coop for eggs.  I don't know that I necessarily need the window, but the hinged door would be a necessity for egg collecting.  

I'm really excited about embarking on our chicken adventure!  It should be easier to raise chickens than a garden, right?

I'm a downer.

So...I'm going to miss a day of blogging from the vacay.  I hope you guys were inspired by my 101 in 1001 list yesterday.  I got really overexcited and spent so much time working on it.  Before I left for camping, I watched my most recent (now not your most recent since I'm on vacay and another aired [am I even making sense??]) episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List.  I don't want to spoil the episode (SO DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU WATCH AND HAVEN'T SEEN THIS EPISODE), but one of Kathy's dogs passes away.  It got me thinking a lot about my family and pets.  I told you before about my family.

Our oldest pet is Bailey.  He is my adored baby.  I raised him pretty much alone as a kitten.

So Bailey was the first baby.  Then D and I moved in together and we got Stella girl :)

Isn't she adorable?  She looks like a baby seal.  We raised her from a puppy.  Her and Bailey got along well.  I was shocked since Bailey was a single child for so long.  After Stella was about a year old, we went back to the shelter looking specifically for a smaller dog who was already house broken (I had seen him online).  Bad. idea.  That guy wasn't there, but we were won over by the pitiful crying (bad sign?) from sweet little Marlee.

We signed up as the second in line to get him.  We figured there was no shot (since what person wouldn't want to adopt a cute little puppy??).  We obv there was a shot and we got him.  Fast forward through a terrible puppy raising experience with Marlee to a year later adopting Harper/Little Girl/Leedo...

And now they are all the best of friends.

Anyway...my whole downer point of this post is that I have no clue what we/the other pets will do when one of them passes away.  Marlee is pretty dependent on Stella.  Bailey is pretty dependent on us/I'm super dependent on him.  Little Girl isn't too dependent on Bailey.  Stella would be pretty lonely without Marlee.  I like to just imagine that they will all be here forever :)

**Sorry for the downer post...I have a training for school on the 4th, so hopefully I'll be black blogging on Friday the 5th!


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