It ain't easy being cheep

While we are probably the first household in Seahurst in a generation or two to raise chickens, we are by no means pioneers.  Urban poultry is experiencing quite a upsurge these days, up there with Schwinn 3-speed bicycles and wool clothing.  I never knew what a "Victory Garden" was 6 months ago.  Now I hear the term weekly as folks explore ways to become 
more connected with their sources of food.

You can get on Craigslist and see any number of chicken coops for sale around Seattle.  They tend to start around $350 for simple ones and go up pretty quickly from there.  $800 appears not to be an outlandish price tag for a backyard coop.

We went down to Second Use, our closest salvage yard, and bought a bunch of oddball, yet 

solid, lumber.  About $56 would get enough for everything except two pieces of plywood we would need (we had some sitting around from several years back that we got free from my mom).  The main thing I learned (again) when doing a project using salvage lumber is that you probably will need at least a table saw to get your wood into workable dimensions.  My skill saw was a work horse on this job but I will not use it again to cut twisted 12-foot long 2x8's into 2x4's.

We checked several books out from the library on chicken coops, which gave us the outline for what needed in terms of security (from animals), size, ventilation, and access.  We then looked around online for free plans.  You will find a plethora of plans online - such as this one at Backyardchickens.com - but they all cost money; usually starting around $30.  Marya finally pulled a halfway decent one out of a library book.  But we pretty much just winged it.

We were also able to get recycled paint at Second Use for $16/gallon.  We were not able to buy some things used.  We dropped about $75 on new metal cloth (a better defense from raccoons than traditional chicken wire), $20 on screws and another ~$40 on hinges and other miscellaneous hardware.  We spent another $60 on a carbonate roofing material.  All told, we probably spent $300 on materials (not including feeders and waterers) but got pretty much what we wanted.

It did take about 4 full days of work when you add in the painting, time that could have perhaps been better spent on electrical or insulation.  But in our defense we have put off building the earth oven for at least 3 months.  

Tomatoz for sal

About a day after our offer was accepted on the house, we put in an order with the Territorial Seed Company for 7 or 8 seed packets for garden crops.  One rainy saturday in March, Carmen and I planted a whole tray of tomatoes: cherries, early girls, Heinz slicers.  The germination rate was staggeringly high and we ran out of 1 qt. yogurt containers to transplant them in.  Solution?  Let's sell them!

After a couple months of pampering our little starts inside our kitchen (Seattle's frigid spring would have claimed an arctic rose this year) we set out to offload a couple dozen extra toms.

The timing couldn't have been any more perfect as Carmen had just set her sights on a Tinkerbell journal, which cost $8.  Selling her extra plants would present the best shot she'd have at raising the needed funds.  So on the day before Mother's Day, we set out for the Seahurst Post Office to see if we could chip away at that $8 goal of Carmen's.

We barely made it one block in our wagon when a neighbor bought 4 plants at 50 cents a piece.  At the post office we sold ~16 more plants in a span of 15 minutes.  The kids wanted to hit Lake Burien Park.  We sold 4 more in along the three block stroll to the park, four more at the park, and two more on the way home.  One hour after we left the house we arrived back home with about $15 (nearly enough for two Tinkerbell Journals) and one remaining tomato plant.

A few key observations... our neighbors are gardeners.  They asked good questions (are they hardened off?).  They also appreciated the idea of kids selling 50 cent tomato plants (cute doesn't hurt). And when we got down to the half dozen or so containers that had lost their labels, people didn't care.  They were content to buy the tomato and find out what it was later.  I think we found the right neighborhood.