I’ll tell you the honest truth- my shame. I don’t have any chickens- no tall white chickens with bright red combs, no frilly chickens imported from China, no Reds or roosters. Nada. Nothing. I’m not as trendy as I used to be. It used to be easy for me to keep up – first we started the garden, and then installed the clothesline and started growing our own grapes and making jelly. For awhile we were on the edge of the “radical homemaker” movement as its coming to be called. But then the whole thing went to the chickens and we got left behind. My city doesn’t allow chickens on less than 20 acres lots.
Radical homemaking is something of a movement sweeping all the 30 somethings I know these days. Yes! Magazine just published a great article called “10 Easy Steps for Becoming a Radical Homemaker” by Sharon Hayes that sums up the things pretty well. Here is the link: http://www.alternet.org/story/147367/10_easy_steps_for_becoming_a_radical_homemaker
Radical homemaking is for both men and women. It is about slowing life down to do things in ways that are less focused on consumption, more environmentally friendly and more community focused. These days it’s also about chickens – lots and lots of chickens. If you’re slowing down, chickens are the new way to do it. But I’m left reading about other people’s new chickens – last week a father in Minneapolis told the paper about the coop he was building. He waxed on about the fresh eggs he could give to his neighbors. He noted that a house down the street has chickens and they’ve never heard a peep from them. I eyed the old shed in my yard and sighed heavily. I imagined clearly in my head – as some must picture cloud castles – exactly where the chicken run would go. The week before, in another city, the paper printed a story of a young girl’s tearful plea to be allowed to keep her chickens. They had names like Moseys and Woodrow. In my mind I pleaded with her, but I would name my chickens cooler names.
I’m not sure why chickens have caught on as a symbol of the movement. I suspect it’s not a desire rooted entirely in thriftiness. In my years of gardening, canning and freezing, I can’t really tell you that I’ve done anything more than break even. Seeds, peat pots, woodchips and tools – everything that goes along with being a gardener – costs money. The one year that I totaled it up, we came out about even on our grocery bill. Sure, we could probably save money if we grew larger amounts of single crops and if my kids were willing to eat beans every night. But they’re not. I suspect most other kids won’t either. I imagine the economics of chicken works out to be about the same. The eggs they lay are free- but the poults, the coop, the feed, keeping the shed heated in the winter and everything else is not.
Nor does it seem to be about access to organic or cage free chicken eggs. You can find these everywhere these days. I checked. Both of my local, small town grocers offer at least one variety. The Super Wal-Mart that my rural WI relatives drive 45 minutes to reach offers a few varieties. Same with the Super Target down on University in St. Paul, a store just minutes away from some of St. Paul’s poorer neighborhoods.
So that strikes out the practical motivations to raise chickens – leaving me to speculate on the romantic ones. Why have chickens become the face of the movement to do things better? I have noticed that most of the people in the newspaper articles seem to be about my age, with children under or around 10 years old. Chickens seem like the perfect antidote to the plastic childhoods we shared in the 70’s. They’re both homey and quirky at once. Plus there are endless varieties, allowing personal expression in the choice.
Despite my longing for chickens, it’s hard to blame my city for not allowing chickens. Raising chickens – agriculture – is not a typical “use” allowed in city/urban/suburban residential zoning districts. Zoning is the tool communities use to separate incompatible uses from one another. Zoning is the reason I can’t have chickens, but it is also -thankfully - the reason why my neighbor can’t decide suddenly to turn his house into an auto repair shop, a toothpick factory or an all night strip club. Before zoning happened in the 40’s, one did actually run the risk of suddenly waking up to find a factory next store (blowing smoke and dust through the windows). So thank goodness for zoning.
In reading Sharon Haye’s article it seems like I lucked out. So far I’ve gotten away with a lot on my path to becoming a radical homemaker. The only protests I got when I put up my clothesline were from my mother. She begged me not to put our underwear out there – that was the kind of thing her grandmother would have done. I hung an inside line on the porch just for underwear to appease her. She lives one town over and god forbid she should face the shame of driving by her daughter’s underwear on the clothesline. She’d have to sink low in the seat each time she drove by – much like my teenage years.
In addition to my mom, all I have to deal with are city regulations – and my city could care less if I have a clothesline or a garden. Some people, however, live in planned subdivision developments with private restrictions. Some neighborhood associations don’t allow simple clotheslines or even small gardens in their communities. And these people are definitely out of luck if they want chickens. Generally, the courts have upheld these types of private restrictions – even against people who weren’t aware of them when they moved in. The restrictions are generally considered a contract matter and the courts won’t re-write them unless they deal with something illegal like race. Getting these restrictions waived on a voluntary basis is often impossible as well – everyone in the subdivision (potentially 100’s of people) would have to agree to the changes and sign off in writing. In my experience, neighbors eyeing their property values are never willing to amend neighborhood association restrictions to allow for things like chickens.
In the end though, that might be okay. Chickens are nice, but they shouldn’t be a distraction to one of the other main tenants of radical homemaking – developing community connections. If one person having chickens in the neighborhood makes everyone else reach for their pitchforks, we might be missing the point. There are still lots of other ways to be a radical homemaker – at least 10 simple ways listed in Sharon Haye’s article. For example, bringing your own cloth grocery bags to the store to use instead of plastic ones. Or maybe goats and homemade cheese . . . just joking. I know that really, really isn’t allowed.
Radical homemaking is something of a movement sweeping all the 30 somethings I know these days. Yes! Magazine just published a great article called “10 Easy Steps for Becoming a Radical Homemaker” by Sharon Hayes that sums up the things pretty well. Here is the link: http://www.alternet.org/story/147367/10_easy_steps_for_becoming_a_radical_homemaker
Radical homemaking is for both men and women. It is about slowing life down to do things in ways that are less focused on consumption, more environmentally friendly and more community focused. These days it’s also about chickens – lots and lots of chickens. If you’re slowing down, chickens are the new way to do it. But I’m left reading about other people’s new chickens – last week a father in Minneapolis told the paper about the coop he was building. He waxed on about the fresh eggs he could give to his neighbors. He noted that a house down the street has chickens and they’ve never heard a peep from them. I eyed the old shed in my yard and sighed heavily. I imagined clearly in my head – as some must picture cloud castles – exactly where the chicken run would go. The week before, in another city, the paper printed a story of a young girl’s tearful plea to be allowed to keep her chickens. They had names like Moseys and Woodrow. In my mind I pleaded with her, but I would name my chickens cooler names.
I’m not sure why chickens have caught on as a symbol of the movement. I suspect it’s not a desire rooted entirely in thriftiness. In my years of gardening, canning and freezing, I can’t really tell you that I’ve done anything more than break even. Seeds, peat pots, woodchips and tools – everything that goes along with being a gardener – costs money. The one year that I totaled it up, we came out about even on our grocery bill. Sure, we could probably save money if we grew larger amounts of single crops and if my kids were willing to eat beans every night. But they’re not. I suspect most other kids won’t either. I imagine the economics of chicken works out to be about the same. The eggs they lay are free- but the poults, the coop, the feed, keeping the shed heated in the winter and everything else is not.
Nor does it seem to be about access to organic or cage free chicken eggs. You can find these everywhere these days. I checked. Both of my local, small town grocers offer at least one variety. The Super Wal-Mart that my rural WI relatives drive 45 minutes to reach offers a few varieties. Same with the Super Target down on University in St. Paul, a store just minutes away from some of St. Paul’s poorer neighborhoods.
So that strikes out the practical motivations to raise chickens – leaving me to speculate on the romantic ones. Why have chickens become the face of the movement to do things better? I have noticed that most of the people in the newspaper articles seem to be about my age, with children under or around 10 years old. Chickens seem like the perfect antidote to the plastic childhoods we shared in the 70’s. They’re both homey and quirky at once. Plus there are endless varieties, allowing personal expression in the choice.
Despite my longing for chickens, it’s hard to blame my city for not allowing chickens. Raising chickens – agriculture – is not a typical “use” allowed in city/urban/suburban residential zoning districts. Zoning is the tool communities use to separate incompatible uses from one another. Zoning is the reason I can’t have chickens, but it is also -thankfully - the reason why my neighbor can’t decide suddenly to turn his house into an auto repair shop, a toothpick factory or an all night strip club. Before zoning happened in the 40’s, one did actually run the risk of suddenly waking up to find a factory next store (blowing smoke and dust through the windows). So thank goodness for zoning.
In reading Sharon Haye’s article it seems like I lucked out. So far I’ve gotten away with a lot on my path to becoming a radical homemaker. The only protests I got when I put up my clothesline were from my mother. She begged me not to put our underwear out there – that was the kind of thing her grandmother would have done. I hung an inside line on the porch just for underwear to appease her. She lives one town over and god forbid she should face the shame of driving by her daughter’s underwear on the clothesline. She’d have to sink low in the seat each time she drove by – much like my teenage years.
In addition to my mom, all I have to deal with are city regulations – and my city could care less if I have a clothesline or a garden. Some people, however, live in planned subdivision developments with private restrictions. Some neighborhood associations don’t allow simple clotheslines or even small gardens in their communities. And these people are definitely out of luck if they want chickens. Generally, the courts have upheld these types of private restrictions – even against people who weren’t aware of them when they moved in. The restrictions are generally considered a contract matter and the courts won’t re-write them unless they deal with something illegal like race. Getting these restrictions waived on a voluntary basis is often impossible as well – everyone in the subdivision (potentially 100’s of people) would have to agree to the changes and sign off in writing. In my experience, neighbors eyeing their property values are never willing to amend neighborhood association restrictions to allow for things like chickens.
In the end though, that might be okay. Chickens are nice, but they shouldn’t be a distraction to one of the other main tenants of radical homemaking – developing community connections. If one person having chickens in the neighborhood makes everyone else reach for their pitchforks, we might be missing the point. There are still lots of other ways to be a radical homemaker – at least 10 simple ways listed in Sharon Haye’s article. For example, bringing your own cloth grocery bags to the store to use instead of plastic ones. Or maybe goats and homemade cheese . . . just joking. I know that really, really isn’t allowed.
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