Cannibals!

Mmmm, mmmm, good.

I was reading about what treats to give chicks/chickens.  They like eggs - in all forms.  I knew this already - chickens (the little dinosaurs that they are) are omnivores - but seeing it in print was weird.

After reading this, I decided to make my chicks a treat.  There is something kind of wrong about this, but hey, if they like it and it gives them extra protein, who am I to withhold from them.

They Grow Up So Fast

 Crooked Neck is doing quite well.  I probably shouldn't spell that with 

Crooked Neck looking crooked - day 4.

capital letters - it makes it seem like it is its name.  Not a good thing if it turns into a boy.  Anywho, Crooked Neck's neck isn't that rooked any more.  I didn't do anything for him except massage his neck a couple times a day when it was crooked.  I've seen it eating and drinking on its own.  It is still kind of wobbly when walking around, but I don't think I'll have to cull it after all since I'm not raising the chickens for breed perfection.

 

All the others seems to also be doing well.  

Mystery, Austrolorp (not Aussie), and Jersey Giant
(not Crooked Neck). 
Mystery looks (comparatively) huge.

Aussie the Australorp (again, nicknames are just as bad as real names) - it is the one that was shrink wrapped - is also doing much better.  He's all fluffed out now - mostly-  he has a bald patch on his back, so hopefully that'll feather in soon.  I think I can now tell the difference between the Jersey Giants and the Astralorp chicks. The Jersey Giants (which Crooked Neck is one of) are all a little bigger - which makes sense.  The color pattern is slightly different, too.


Aussie (on left) and Mystery chick. 
Day 5



Rhode Island Red chick - day 4.





Crooked Neck eating (3rd one)



Fox in the Henhouse

Or rather, dachshund in the brooder.

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I hear a commotion coming from the brooder area.  I poke my head out of the bathroom and I see a dog in the brooder with the chicks.  I run out of there, toothpaste foaming, yelling at the dog.  I get over to the brooder and pull the dog out, screaming at him the entire time.  He goes running, but is still lingering in the area.

I do a quick head count and I only count seven.  I get the dog to see if he has a chick in his mouth.  Nope.  I start scouring the floor, no movement.  I turn the light on, do a better job of looking on the floor.  Still nothing.  I look back in the brooder, and there are still eight chicks.  Whew.  Not sure where it was hiding, but all eight are still around and all look just fine.

I ended up blocking off the part of the lower level where the chicks are with a baby gate so the dogs can't get over there.  After work tonight, I'm going to move the brooder over to the bar area (where I was incubating).  I'll have to rig up something for he heat lamp.  I'm not sure what the dog did/would do to the chicks, but I don't want to take the chance that he only wants to be friends with the chicks.

Damn, Kenny.

Dogs Like Chicken, Too

But not in a good way.



What's up there?  Betty and Kenny smell chicken.



Ever since the chicks hatched, the dogs have been very interested in what is going on in the corner of the basement.  Any time the chicks make noise, the dogs' ears prick up and they feel the need to go investigate (or at least bark if they are being lazy).



My original intention was to leave the brooder on the floor with a lid on it.  I knew the dogs would be curious, but they (and by "they", I mean Kenny) turned out to be a bit crazed.  I think he only sees little snacks.

Because of that, I put the brooder up on a card table.  The heat light is not really set up ideally - I hope the pop cans don't fail me and I get BBQd chicks - but is doing the trick until I can set something up more permanently.



All the dogs milling about.

I'm hoping as the chicks get older, I can start to introduce them to the dogs so they don't see them as food but as just a curiosity.  I would like to have both the chickens and the dogs free ranging in the yard in spring/summer, but time will tell if this can happen. 



Chicks Are Here

That was a long weekend.  Day 21 was on Friday.  After not having any eggs hatch on Friday, I was sure I wasn't going to get any.  I got my first two to hatch on Saturday.  The next five hatched on Sunday.  The last one hatched today (Monday).  Long story short, of the 36 eggs, nine hatched, two died while trying to get out, and one that hatched has since died.  For those that don't want to do the math, I have eight chicks hanging out in the brooder.  One of the eight has what looks like "crooked neck".  It's not as bad as the one in the link, but it gives you an idea of what I am experiencing.  I'm going to give her/him a couple of days to see if it eats/drinks on its own.



First egg with a pip.  The one to the right has one, too.


  

Which one will hatch first?

The first one to hatch was the one on the right.  It had cleanly "zipped" itself.  It was one of my mystery eggs, so I don't even know what kind of chick I got.  In the last pic, its the all yellow one.  Based on some pics in the chicken hatchery catalogs, it is probably a production layer chicken like a Golden Comet.



That was a long day.  Time for a bit of a nap

The one on the left is one of the Australorps.  He ended up "shrink wrapped" in the shell.  This means the membrane around the chicken dried out (low humidity - my fault) and it got stuck.  It eventually made its way out, but ended up all matted and gross looking.  In the days since then, he has fluffed out and is looking much better, but is still kind of small.   Here he is fresh from the egg.

Here's a series of pics that shows the final steps of the hatching process.  This is the Rhode Island Red.

It's all crowded up in here.

One more push



Free at last.



Here's the last one that hatched.  This is one of the Jersey Giants.

December 27, 2010 - 1-2 day old chicks

And here they all are a few hours later in the brooder.  The little yellow one in the foreground is the one that died.



Update - Where are my peeps?

As of now, the eggs are on day 20 and nothing yet.  I did notice a few of the eggs twitching a few hours ago, but nada since then.  No pips or peeps.  I'm not staying up and fretting.  Day  21 starts around 4pm tomorrow, so I'm hopeful there will be some action througout the day.  I'm sure I'll be obsessing instead of cleaning for hoiday guests.

Update - It's 3am Christmas morning and I have 2 pips.  One Australorp and one mystery egg.  The mystery egg pipped around 8pm last night.  When I just checked, the crack had grown, so there's hope there. The Australorp actually chipped a piece off so I can see into the shell.  S/he is still breathing so there's hope I'll get at least one. 

Incubation Update (Part 2)

Egg gone bad.

Candling complete.  I was very pleased with the results.  I only lost three since the first candling nine days ago - one Rhode Island Red, one Jersey Giant and one of the mystery eggs.  Two of them were complete misses - I should have identified them before.  One was a great example of how the hen just stopped growing.  There was a blood ring and everything.  The other two just looked liked a scrambled egg on the inside when I opened them.  I have 36 eggs still going strong.   Hatch rates are expected at around 65-70% for home growers.  At that rate, I'll have 25 successful chicks.  Of that, about half will be roosters.  So 12-13 hens when all is said and done.  Hopefully I'm dead on with the statistical averages.

It was really neat candling the eggs at this point.  I could see the hearts beating on quite a few of them.  So I hope I don't kill (m)any between now and the weekend. 

Candling

Here's a link to what a good egg looks like on day 18.  I tried to take pictures, but my camera wasn't good enough. I should have had my brother's girlfriend come over - she does great shots with low light.

Lock down officially started after candling.  Lock down means no more opening the incubator until the hatch has completed. I took the eggs off the automatic turner, added fresh water, and threw in a couple of wet paper towels under the grate.  The humidity level is on the rise.  I should be at 75-80% for the next few days.  At this point, the chicks will start to position themselves into their hatching position, finish sucking in the yolk through their umbilical cords and get ready to meet the world by the week's end. 

Incubation Update (Part 1)

Quick update:  In case you missed it, here's some background on what goes into hatching chicken eggs.  The big thing to note is that eggs hatch in 21 days (give or take) a day.  That means, I'll have eggs hatching as soon as Thursday. 

I'll be doing a final candling tomorrow after work.  I'll then remove the eggs from the turner and get the humidity up for the last few days.  I'm excited, but nervous.

This past weekend, I went out and got the rest of the supplies I need - food, waterer, food dish, heat lamp, brooder box.  I still need to figure out where to get immunizations done.  I'll be calling local vets tomorrow to see who can do them for me or who can sell me the vaccine and I'll do it myself.

Still researching if I really need vitamins/supplements for the chicks.  Some books/people say absolutely, other say why waste the money.  Not sure which camp I'm in yet.

Anyone looking to buy me a last minute Christmas gift can get me this.  I've got a copy from the library - and I'll renew it at least once - but I'll need something long term for reference.

Coop Update

Jumping in mid-story...

As I'm finding out how to get my permit finalized to have the chickens, I find out that I may not be able to have a coop on my property wihtout jumping through a bunch of hoops and paying a butt load in consultant fees.

The city planner (again, she seems like a nice enough person) tells me about the rules for accessory buildings and what the restictions are.  As we're talking, we're both going through the zoning ordinance.  What it sounds like is if the accessory building is one that is more than six feet from the primary dwelling and at least 25 ft from the property line. 

Whew.  Sounds like everything is going to be okay.  The coop is going to be near the house, outside the sub-garage (yes, I have a two story garage).  It will be less than 120 sq ft (I'm not sure if I'll do an 8x12 or a 10x10) so I don't have to get a  building permit. 

Hold on, Big Shooter.  There's a catch.

In order to do any "site improvements", a site survey is required. Even for a shed.  That's next to the house.    The consultant fee starts at $400 for the site survey.  And will most likely be much more expensive once the surveyor is hired.  Oh, this got the blood boiling.  I just closed on this house in September.  I have a property survey from then.  Why do I need another one?  Nothing has changed.  Augh.

My options at this point:

1. Build the new coop, but attach it to the house.
2. Convert the existing shed into the coop.
3. Keep the chickens in the sub-garage. 

For now, I'm leaing towards option 3.  There is space in there for a 6x10 coop (big enough for 15 chickens).  I'd just need to cut a pop out door in the wall and then build a run in the spring.  And, it'll keep me legal. 

Whatever I decide, I need to shit or get off the pot, soon.  I have chickens hatching this weekend.

Permit Update

I've been getting harassed at work for not posting an update.  So much, yet nothing, has happened over the past few days.  There will be a few posts coming - each with a different topic.  Unless I start to ramble, then who knows what you'll get.

I finally got the permit application from the city.  To me, this should have been a no-brainer.  Fill out some paperwork, send in a check, and I'd have my permit.  But no.  Not so easy in a small town. 

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I live in a very small town in the middle of the Twin Cities metro area.  There are no city services - everything is contracted out.  For the permit, I'm actually dealing with two consultants that the city hired.  The city planner and the city Forrester.  Both are nice people, but there is a level of bureaucracy I have to deal with that I hadn't anticipated.  The Forrester is the person who will be approving the permit; however the city planner is the one who handles all the paperwork.   As there are no city employees, the citizens with permit requests are the ones who end up paying for the administrative work instead of all the taxpayers.  Fair, I guess, but not something I was expecting.  An unintended expense.

The Forrester stopped by last week (Wednesday) with the permit application along with some instructions on how to fill out the form, who to write the check to and to add some additional details to the application around what I will and won't do, etc.  The following day, I started to fill out the form and had a question.  Since I was sending the information to the city planner, I called her.  She gave me the answers I was looking.  As we were talking, I confirmed a piece of information that I got from the Forrester the previous day.  Each property can only have one primary and one accessory building on it, unless I applied for a conditional use permit.

My property has a house and a shed, so where am I going to put a coop?  See coop update for details.

Back to the chicken permit.

I wrote up my proposal - I would have up to 20 hens (something the city said I could have); no roosters into adulthood (I wanted to protect myself for hatching eggs), the chickens would be housed in an appropriate coop (again, see coop update for details) and run; and they would not free range unless under direct supervision.

Well, this wasn't thorough enough.  I had to revise my statement to add what materials the run would be made from, how I was going to keep feed, etc so as not to encourage pests, and how I was going to handle manure.

The permit is in the mail along with my check.  Now I'm just waiting to be legal.  Hope it comes before the chickens hatch.

Candling/Fertility Update

I finally got around to checking the fertility rates on my eggs.  Based on what I've read, you should wait until day 9 or 10 before checking for egg fertility and whether there is any development happening.  I went a day early - day 8 of incubation - and checked tonight.

The process for checking fertility is called Candling.  Basically, you shine a bright light under the egg in a darkened room to see if it is developing.  Here's another link on what the process looks like.

Here's the breakdown of how the eggs are doing:

Black Austrlorps:  12 eggs/12 fertile
Rhode Island Reds: 12 eggs/11 fertile, however, one of them stopped developing along the way, so I pulled it out of the incubator
Jersey Giants:  11 eggs/11 fertile.  Again, one of them stopped developing so it got pulled.  There should have been 12, but this is the man down
Mixed group:  10 eggs/8 fertile.  This was a bad group.  Of the 8 fertile ones, 4 had stopped developing already.  Oh well.  I have plenty of others.

So grand total of eggs still incubating away:  37

I'll check them again on day 18 (December 21) before removing the eggs from the turner, increasing the humidity and locking down the incubator for hatching.

Relief

The city council meeting was a non-event...other than the city gossip I got filled in on.  But that's a different story.

The issue of chickens was a specific agenda item.  I'm still amazed at that.  Anyway, the city planner presented her findings then opened discussion for the council members.  There was some back and forth for about 10 minutes about what the issues really were, how much needed to be done from a city code standpoint, etc.  At one point, one of the council members made a comment about how this discussion would never had happened if "some poor sucker" hadn't brought it up in the first place.  (I hope that makes it into the official meeting minutes.)  They directed a couple of questions to the planner about how many chickens the resident was planning on keeping.  I finally spoke up and made myself known as the sucker.

The final outcome was there won't be any changes made to the existing city code unless/until there are complaints from the neighbors.  There take was the 'farmer' would know to take care against predators (there is a pack of coyotes nearby along with normal urban pests) and vermin so there shouldn't be a need to legislate that.  And if there are issues, permits don't need to be renewed.

The person I was sitting next to at the meeting asked to buy the first dozen - turns out he is one of the incoming city council members.  There was no need to worry after all. 

Except that I still don't have a coop....and there are coyotes in the neighborhood.

Oh...and they left the ordinance as is, so pretty much and non-domesticated farm animal is on the table...a pygmy goat is in my future?

Which Comes First? The chicken, the egg, or permission from the city?

I live in a small town within the Twin Cities metropolitan area.  I just moved here a couple of months ago (Sept 2010).  In my old neighborhood (3.5 miles up the road), there were only a handful of neighbors that I knew well enough to talk to and that was fine.  Where I live now, there are only 500 residents.  And I get the feeling that most of them know who I am.

Back on election day, I had to register to vote.  I had no idea who I was voting for in the local elections, but I did my best to choose correctly (is alphabetically an appropriate voting technique?)  Anyway, the election judges were very nice, helpful and chatty.  The city clerk was there and I wanted to ask her about permits for the chickens.  She told me I had to contact the city planner, but since I was leaving on vacation the next day, I put it off until I got back.

I get home from vacation the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I called the city planner on Wednesday, 11/24 to ask her about permits, etc.  She was waiting for my phone call.  She had already researched the information and told me what I needed to do.  I had to contact the city forester to get the permit.  There were no other restrictions.

During the course of our call together, she mentioned that she was asked to come up with a proposal to present to the city council at the December meeting to better define the ordinances for farm animals.  Apparently my seemingly innocent inquiry on election day turned into a bigger deal than I thought it would.  The city wants to change the rules. 

The city forester has never had to do this before, so he is looking for guidance as well.  He and his wife actually stopped by the house yesterday.  He told me he was going to wait until after the city council meeting.   No big deal, but I would like my permit now so I can be grandfathered into the current rules, in case the new ones become too restrictive.

So it looks like I will be attending the city council meeting to hear the proposal.  I plan on asking questions and making sure I can get my permit now.  I have eggs hatching on Christmas so I'd like to be legal by then.

Man Down

As I was checking the temp/humidity rate yesterday (12/5), I noticed that the humidity level had dropped to 35%.  I figured I'd better add some water. 

The water trays are under the eggs.  Makes sense.  So I filled a pitcher with warm water, open the incubator, and took an egg out so I could pour the water in.  All's well.  Until I drop the egg on one of his siblings. D'oh!   The egg I dropped was okay...his sibling, not so much.  Big crunchy dent in the shell. 

I cracked the eggshell into the sink and saw that the yolk had some growth around it.  Damn...lost a fertile egg.  Hope it was a boy.  Oh well...the worms got to feast on some egg shell this morning.

What have I gotten myself into?

In the few months since I first started thinking about worms and rearing chickens, I have done some research on what to do.  I got a housewarming present from my brother's girlfriend about raising chickens.  I spent down time during my vacation in November reading and researching.  The http://www.backyardchickens.com/ site has been both a blessing and a curse.  I've gleaned lots of information on what I need to do to get started.  But it's also given me pause on whether I really want to do this or not.  It's not a cheap hobby.  I'm not going to get rich selling eggs.  And it's going to be a lot of hard work just to get up and running, not to mention keeping it going.  But I'm committed to this (and probably should be, too).

One of my co-workers - he's asked to be identified as the Office Skeptic - has lots to offer in the way of encouragement and skepticism.  Mostly the latter...but that's okay.

So like with the worms, I found myself with plenty of free time over Thanksgiving.  Particularly on the Saturday after when I was sitting on the couch while on call for work.  While waiting for a call that never came, I spent a lot of time on e-bay looking at auctions for different kinds of eggs.

I don't know why, but I thought it would be better/easier/more fun? to hatch eggs than to wait until spring and buy day old hatchlings. 

With that free time, I researched different kinds of chickens and decided to buy some eggs...in December...from different folks from around the country.  That would have to ship the eggs to me.  In Minnesota.  In December.  Did I mention that it's December and it's cold here?  No?  Well, it is.  What was I thinking?

For the types of chickens, I narrowed my search to cold hardy breeds, that were calm and readily took to confinement, and are brown egg layers.  I finally settled on three breeds:



Black Australorp

 Black Australorp:   

Black Australorp are a popular producer of large brown eggs and are known for their hardiness and persistence in laying - even in hot weather. When mature, these birds have glossy, all- black feathers that show a gorgeous green sheen. From the time these chicks hatch until they are fully grown, their feathers have white tips. Average mature weight: Rooster 51/2 lbs., Hens 5 lbs.

 

 

 

 

Black Jersey Giant



Jersey Giants:   

The term "giant" is right for these tall, stately birds with shiny black feathers. In fact, they are the largest chicken breed. The breed was developed in the 1880s in New Jersey by breeders who wanted a large roasting bird. While Jersey Giants grow to a large size, they do it slowly. Average mature weight: Roosters 13 lbs., Hens 10 lbs. (Good eating if I get any Roosters in my batch of eggs).

Rhode Island Red: 

Rhode Island Red

A popular dual-purpose breed that is a familiar standby in many chicken coops. These deep red colored hens are calm birds that lay large brown eggs. Roosters are a shiny dark red with greenish- black tail feathers. Average mature weight: roosters 7 to 71/2 lbs., hens 6 lbs. 

I've decided on the types of chickens I want (really, there are others, but I am not sure I could take them on right now.)  I found sellers on ebay and proceded to bid on eggs.  I won the RIR and BA auctions, but lost out on the JG auction.  Bummer.  I consoled myself by bidding on a "mystery" lot of eggs.  Basically, the seller was just going to send me a dozen of whatever she had picked that morning.  I won that one, too.  So now I have three dozen eggs on the way.  Two dozen that I know they types of eggs, and one dozen I have no clue. 

Now that I have eggs on the way, I have to figure out what I'm going to do with them.  So I ran out to the local feed store and bought an incubator and automatic turner.  Being the urban farmer that I am, I have to work during they day, so any automatic help I can get is appreciated. 

But before moving on, later that evening after winning my bids, I received an e-mail from the Jersey Giant seller.  The auction winner retracted their bid and she was willing to sell to me for my original bid.  I figured, what the hell, and got a fourth dozen eggs.  In my mind, I'm going to kill most of them off during the incubation period, or they will all end up roosters, so I need to hedge my bets and get as many eggs as I can.

I get the incubtor home, set it up and proceed to calibrate it.  Based on my research and anecdotes in the chicken forums, it takes a good day or two to get the incubator set correctly.  And it did.  I didn't get a consistent reading until Tuesday (11/30).  And I had eggs coming on Thursday.  I'm glad I got it set early, because I would have been a wreck trying to get it calibrated while eggs were in there doing their thing.

Now it is Thursday, 12/2.  I get home from work and I have eggs and worms.  My Australorps and RIRs showed up.  They were packaged well, but still a little chilly.  I thought it best to get them to room temperature before setting them in the incubator.  And I still had to wait for my other eggs to show up on Friday.

On Friday, 12/3, I have my mystery eggs and my worm box.  It's like Christmas.  But where are my Jersey Giants?  I get my tracking number, and look up the shipment on line.  They were delivered, but no one was home so they put them by the side door.  I don't have a side door.  Where are my eggs?  GAH!  It's cold.  They'll end up freezing.  So I search and search and search all around the house.  Nothing.  I call FedEx and talk to someone off shore who clearly isn't moved by my predicament.  They open a case and someone will get back to me in 24 hours (aside - I didn't hear from anyone until today - Monday 12/6 - not impressed with FedEx customer service).

I email the seller to let her know what's going on. 

In the meantime, I decide I can't wait any longer and set the eggs I have in the incubator.  I open the boxes/packaging, unwrap the eggs and place them in the incubator.  Based on all the stuff I've read, I think I'm doing this right.  The BAs are all fine and good to go.  The RIRs are all fine and good to go.  The mystery shipment had two broken eggs.  Hope they weren't fertile.  But I only paid for 10 - she ships 10 + 2 in case there is breakage.  So I have 34 set eggs at this point.  I'm still bummed about the Jersey Giants.

The 'bator.  (Not that kind...dirty.)

On Friday night, we hear from the tenants.  They want someone to come pick up the rent.  They pay in cash which is why they don't mail it.  Long story.  Maybe for another time.  We arrange to go pick up the mone Saturday morning.  I'm sure you can guess where this is going.   We get a call from them again on Saturday morning telling us there is some mail and a package was delivered the day before.  My eggs went to the old house.  Why FedEx didn't tell me that the day before, I don't know.  Why the seller didn't confirm where she shipped them, I don't know.  Why I didn't think of it, I don't know (well, I do know - I confirmed with the seller at auction close which address to ship to, so I assumed she would have gotten it right...assuming does bad things).  Why the tenants didn't call right away, I don't know.



Anyway, so the daughter was home when the eggs showed up, so they sat inside all night.  I'm thankful for that, because they could have left them outside. 



Now I have all my eggs.  I got them home and set in the incubator with their fellow eggs.  Now they are all in there, cooking away at 102 degrees and 45% humidity until 12/20.  I will be candling them on Thursday to find out fertility rates and how the incubation is going.  More to come.  Post won't be as long then.  I hope.



Under the heat



All my babies cooking away.

Worms

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was entertaining myself on ebay and decided to finally get my worms and worm box.  The worms arrived the following Thursday (12/2).  It's winter, and it was snowing and cold.  But they all seemed okay once they got inside where it was warm.  I let them "thaw" in a shoe box with their peat, some compost and damp shredded newspaper.  They seemed fine.  Then on Friday (12/3), the worm box came.  When I got home from work, I set it up and moved the worms in.  They were still a little cold and moving slowly from the previous day, but were surviving. 

Where exactly does one keep a worm box during the winter in Minnesota?  Why the kitchen of course.  The purpose of the worms is to create compost.  So where does their food come from?  Kitchen scraps.  Makes sense to keep them in the kitchen, right?  I think so.  Others don't and are not exactly pleased with the situation. 

I had initially put them on the counter under a window.  But today, the counters were being sealed, so the worms had to move.  They are still in the kitchen, in the pantry, but now they are back in a corner on a TV tray.  They'll move back to the window tomorrow or Wednesday.

So here are the worms, five days into their new home.  They are only living in the bottom box for now.  Once they finish breaking down enough food/newspaper, I will add the second tier and they will begin to migrate upwards.  That should take a few months. 

Genesis of an Idea

So I've decided to try my hand at raising chickens.  Crazy.  I have lived in a city my entire life and don't even go to the state fair.  I have had little to no exposure to livestock, let alone know anything about trying to raise or keep them.  So how did I get here?

I moved to a a new house.  In September, I closed on a new house that has just over one acre of land - in the city - on a lake.  The previous owners had done a lot of work on creating large raised gardens.  One of the gardens alone is bigger than all my previous vegetable gardens.  The other three are bigger than all the flower beds I had previously.  Even with moving most of my perennials, I still have more room than I currently know what to do with.  Next spring I will plant a number of fruit tree in the yard, and possibly even dig out an even larger vegetable garden that is not in the raised beds.  I would use the raised beds exclusively for flowers.  But that may have to wait a year.

My mother passed away back in September, also.  All her kids were able to come see her before she passed.  While we were sitting vigil in the hospital, my sister (who I don't see often) and I were talking about gardening, among other things.  She mentioned how she had a worm box for her compost.  I had been composting already, but had never thought to do it using worms.  I thought that was a great idea.  She gave me some background on how the process works, and it sounded simple enough.  I did a little more research on what it takes to have a successful, home vermiculture operation.  Sure enough, it's a pretty straightforward thing to do. 

Along with gardening talk, somehow the conversation turned to raising goats and chickens in an urban environment.  I'm not sure if I'm ready for goats, but chickens sure did sound intriguing.  I'm not quite sure what it is about the notion of raising chickens spoke to me, but the idea took hold and got me moving forward.