Sue, I enjoyed looking at all your pictures and the transformation of your yard. Very sorry to hear about the accident. I hope you have made a full recovery. I love the rose South Africa and the combination of roses and clematis together. The recycled satellite dish is such a wonderful idea!

I live on 1/2 acre on a city lot and wish I could do what you are doing, but I am afraid my husband would not go for it! He needs some grass to mow

What a cool playhouse! I love every bit of it.

Thanks @blue23rose, I am pretty much recovered, ankle still bothers me though.
And we do have some lawn for hubby at his insistence, it's next to the patio. But on 1/2 acre I have plenty left my my gardens.

Your feathered friends are going to really have a secure luxurious coop,..when are they moving in,..of course you will be checking and checking for fresh eggs waiting for that sound hens make after laying an egg,..sorry i can not spell it lol.

We are getting three chicks next week and then another two in early July. I have 5 different breeds picked out, all pretty to match the garden. They will go out to the coop at between 6-8 weeks old.

oh how exciting!
do you have a little brooder box for them that matches too? sorry--just being a snot--Your coop is gorgeous and I am just sooooooooo very jealous!
Seriously--can't wait to see the beautiful chickens!
I used to have a variety of pretty ones, and incidentally, the Rhode Island Red, named 'Rosey', ended up being my favorite one of all. She was smart and friendly, did tricks, liked to cuddle, weeded the weeds not the flowers, and laid the most and best eggs! I swear, she was the greatest hen ever

Sue, try to get an 'Araucana' hen. Their eggs have a pale blue or pale green shell. The inside is the same as any other egg. They were bred by our Mapuche folks in southern Chile. I was amazed when I learned DG member Kaleem from Pakistan knew them!

Araucana are rare here, only available through breeders and not hatcheries. We are getting an Ameraucana (edited to add that it turned out to be an Easter Egger) which also lays blue eggs.

Also getting a Blue Laced Wyandotte (photos from My Pet Chicken.com and Backyard chickens.com)

A Speckled Sussex


a Blue Orpington


and we were thinking a Barred Plymouth Rock, pictured below, but the other option was a Rhode Island Red as Dirt mentioned. They seem to have great reviews so we'll probably get one of those.

Beautiful chicks!

Sorry, but it's not possible to 'mail' you an Araucana from here

Great colors in your selection of feathered ladies,..i know you are going to be demented watching and listening to them making their own sounds and their own personalities but its part of the enjoyment,..when the first egg appears yikes i can almost see you smiling

I'll be grinning from ear to ear I'm sure!!

I envy you your garden, and now your future chickens, Sue!

DH caught me looking at some web page or other about raising backyard chickens (I've never raised them, but I do have somewhat of an interest), and he stomped his foot down and said "NO!!!"

So instead, I get my chicken fix vicariously from others. (My arborist and his wife started raising backyard chickens last year. When he recently came to consult with me on some work we need done, I asked him how the chickens are doing, and how his wife likes being a "chicken mom". (She loves it!))

NO!!!,..you could HATCH a plot by reminding him he could have nice fresh free range eggs,..Omelet/boiled egg/in a pancake/ get his taste buds going

I have been reading so many blogs and chicken sites (My Pet Chicken is one) and everyone feels the same, they end up loving them! Hubby and I have both been doing a lot of research so he's into it as much as I am, the coop is his design.

In the recent news they are reporting how the avian flu had forced many commercial egg vendors having to cull thousands of chickens and the price of eggs are going up. Those small operations that allow free-ranging encourages a natural immunity in the chickens. I've always bought local and organic but even those aren't the same flavor as homegrown eggs.
I get them from my daughters chickens and you just can't believe how golden the yolks are. I have a large Pinterest board for all things chickens and coops with lots of organic tips for feed and care. A fun new adventure!

That Avian Flu did away with so many hens it was sad to see,..free range hens were not bothered as much so there is a lot to be said for free range,..especially the eggs,..as you described they have a better taste and a good healthy golden colored yoke.

One problem i had was turning up to feed the tribe of hens and ducks in the evenings so had to get someone to stand in for me,..then a friend said Pheasant Feeders!,..solved my problem right away,..its just a large container with a hole in the middle at the bottom,..then a closely woven foot long spring hangs from that hole,..when the food drops down the spring the hens get used to pecking at it very quickly,..the food drops out with the pecking,..plus when the lid is on top the rain does not get at the food,..i had a few of them hanging here and there along a wall.

Sue, I just found your thread and have read through from the very first post. What an amazing transformation and beautiful, beautiful gardens you've created! I had to show my husband the photos of your satellite dish pergola. Many years ago we had a humongous dish in our backyard which he disassembled @ the mid 1980's after cable finally became available in our area. I wanted to turn that big dish into a pergola but he didn't have the vision and he sold it.

Your story had me laughing at the part regarding your move ... this past March we purchased a home 105 miles south of where we currently live and plan to move down next summer. Our current property is very, very small and the new house sits on 3/4 acre with lots of trees. My husband has a large motorcycle trailer and I told him that it's going to take two loads to get all of my plants down; he thought the motorcycle and the plants could make it together in one trip. I don't have anywhere near the number of plants to move that you did so he did a double take when I told him about the number of containers you moved! I guess now he doesn't think my plant move will be so bad. He reminded me that unfortunately we can't have chickens ... due to HOA rules.

I've really enjoyed viewing your lovely garden ... you and your husband are true designers and you really have an eye for color and form in landscaping. Great job!

Thanks Lin! And how wonderful it will be for you on a bigger lot! I bet your hubby thought I was one crazy plant lady moving that many, I know my family did, and still do. But they sure do appreciate the end result.
It felt overwhelming for me at first but I just plugged away at it a little at a time.

I recently saw this and would love to add something like that, maybe as an extra run.
http://cdn.backyardchickens.co...

We also live in a HOA, 27 homes belong to it, all on 1/2 acre lots. The original old bylaws didn't allow for chickens until last year when a couple of neighbors asked about allowing them. A survey was sent to all the neighbors and an agreement was made to allow 3 hens, no roosters and you had to get verbal agreements from your neighbors.
Backyard chicken keeping is becoming so popular now that many cities are also allowing them.

The huge gated community where we currently live is extremely strict and I know they'd never, ever allow chicken keeping but I'm thinking maybe when we move south it could become a possibility. The new community has nowhere near as many homes and the HOA is not very well organized. We were supposed to get approval before leasing out our house down there for the year but there is no HOA office like we have here so we left four or more voice messages as well as a couple of e-mail messages to the guy who is supposedly in charge and we never got a single response ... so we found tenants who moved in last month. I've already thought of the perfect location where we could have a hen house and because of our wooded lot, it wouldn't be visible from the street or visible to any neighbors! I like that chicken house in your link and it looks like a satellite dish was used for that roof; but I really love the wooden one that your husband built.

Hope something can be worked out Lin, you certainly have enough space for a garden and chickens.