We’ve been making steady updates to our backyard since we moved into our house in NE Portland, Oregon in the spring of 2001. We put in a stone patio, removed a decorative pond that our dogs used as a wallow, built an arbor for our ancient wisteria to grow over, took out a dying 35 year old apple tree, added herbs and flower, and the list goes on.
But it wasn’t until the fall of 2007, when I was on my 2 month sabbatical from my marketing job at Intel, that we really started getting serious about making our yard more edible.
We prepped a 22 x22 ft garden that winter, got it all planted in the spring, and had a great summer of fresh veggies.
Tracey was the one who suggested we get chickens, and I wasn’t so sure initially. But we brought some chicks home from the feed store in March of 2008 and they were laying eggs by August. Turns out they’re pretty darn easy and fun to have around.
Like many of the urban gardening and chicken keeping blogs, we want to share our experience as we try and get our family closer to the earth and improve the quality of food that we eat.
Hopefully you’ll find some stuff in here that is amusing, informative, or even inspirational, so please share your comments.
–Travis
tpjohnso@gmail.com
