Sunday, May 15, 2011

Too long since an update!

It's been a long time since an update. Things have been busy of course. We expanded out the garden in the back and created one in the front. We started to permiscape the front as well. The less grass I have to mow, the better! I'll post more on the garden later. Not much later I promise.

On the chicken front, we purchased several breeds of meat and dual purpose birds in February. The intent was to breed the biggest ones into a strain of birds suitable for eating and making eggs, you know, what chickens were meant for. Every week we've weighed them, sold some, purchased more, and looked forward to the goal of processing at the end of this month.

Well, the town animal control officer/code enforcement officer/sewer assessment officer (I suppose three titles makes him think he's three times important) decided to crack down on our neighborhood. It seems there's an ordinance tucked away in the county by-laws that limits the number of animals outside your house to four. And no livestock.... apparently it matters not if there is a complaint by neighbors, or if your animals are even publicly visible, you have contraband if you have chickens. He also cracked down on un-manicured lawns in the neighborhood, overabundances of lawn furniture (no, you can't have people hanging out at your house!), and other such pesky things.

Now, the nasty certified letter might not have been so bad, but it came on a day I left to fight fires in the Okefenokee Swamp. I don't have time to worry about some Poindexter's crackdown on our neighborhood. So Nicole handled getting all the birds out while she herself prepared for a trip north for two weeks. Once we both return from our adventures away from home I plan to go down the town hall with a letter from my neighbors stating they don't mind the "livestock" and see what kind of deal I can work out with the town spoilsport.

It's a setback, but it may be a push in a good direction. We'll be looking at land elsewhere because of this. Hopefully the housing market won't be too much of a bust on our ability to move.

Forgive the sloppy writing. We've been on nightshifts on this fire. Last night was a 5 PM to 6 AM shift... I'm feeling a little sleepy :>P