Today is our chickens’ 1st birthday! You will soon be meeting the girls, but to celebrate the ladies’ birthday I’d like to share the first in a series of stories from our little corner of chicken heaven that we affectionately call “The Cracked Egg Breakfast Joint”.

It all started a few years ago when our good friends and backyard neighbors got four laying hens. Before long, this was the view I had out my kitchen window into their yard on many a morning…

They were quite an entertaining little group. We had the best seats from our window and deck, watching them run around and explore our neighbor’s beautiful yard. Periodically they would ask us to do some “chicken tending” when they went out of town, and we would keep any eggs the chickens laid during our pullet-sitting-job (Pullet is chicken-expert talk for a young domestic hen). To our surprise, these eggs tasted better than the eggs we were buying at the grocery store! Look at the picture below and you can see the difference! Hint, it’s the rich, delicious looking, dark orange yolk (the store bought egg was in the pan longer so its white is starting to cook).

Chicken-sitting from time to time became a real treat for us and within no time I was convinced we needed a few chickens of our own. It took some time to convince my husband, but after enjoying morning meals with home-grown eggs from the neighbors, it got harder for him to eat eggs from the store.

Once we decided to get chickens, it was time to start planning and building the chicken coop so it would be ready for chickens in the springtime. Seems pretty simple, right?….

Stay tuned for the planning and building adventure in the next installment.You will meet my creative oldest son and my talented 70 year-old mother who is the daughter of a master-craftsman. Together, they built a coop, while I fixed lunches and took pictures… building the coop took a lot of arguing discussion , loving power-struggles and ultimately, family-bonding.

Below are my mom, Kathie and my oldest son, Christopher.