Chicken News

So we brought our chickens to our new place even though the HOA rules specifically prohibit keeping poultry.  We figured they're pretty quiet, and the coop will be located down the hill from our house, so not that many people would even see them, right?

We forgot the fact that we have children and where there are children, there are no secrets.  Especially in this neighborhood, where all the kids run around and play at each other's houses, like we're back in the 1950s or something (which is the coolest thing ever and one of my favorite things about our new place, actually).  Our very first day here, Bentley announced to his new friend that we had chickens.  This friend reported this to his mother, who said, "Chickens are illegal!" which was promptly reported back to Bentley.  And this mom is on the board of the HOA.  It turns out most of the moms in the neighborhood are on the board.

We figured we were screwed and prepared for the worst.

But then... nothing happened.  We weren't celebrating yet or anything-- I figure these things take time-- but honestly our biggest concern was a cat that was getting interested in our back yard.  Even more concerning was when I told Bentley to shoo it away, and watched as Bentley began chasing after it with a shovel!  I put a stop to that pretty quickly.  It's one thing to protect your chickens, it's a whole 'nother thing to go around killing the neighbor's cats!  We came up with the better solution of squirting water at the cat if it ventured into our backyard.  It quickly learned its' lesson.

So a week goes by, and as Craig is rounding up the kids for dinner one night, this same on-the-HOA-board Mom comes out to speak with Craig.  She begins by saying, "I'm not the one who turned you in, by the way!  I don't mind if you have chickens!  I just want this to be a fun neighborhood!"  Craig quickly reassured her that we hadn't thought any such thing about her, but he was pretty confused until she asked, "So what happened?"

"Uhhhh...  Nothing?" Craig replied, "No one's said anything about the chickens so far..."

It took a few more minutes for them to figure out that Kendra had told a different mom that we would need to get rid of our chickens because of this woman.  And the other mom had passed the story on to her.

Clearly we need to stop talking about anything in front of our children.

I saw this same mom at the pool on the 4th of July and quickly apologized for whatever gossip my children were spreading around the neighborhood and thanked her for being so gracious about everything.  I hope after all this we can all still get along.

And maybe even keep the chickens, too!

Not attacking any more cats with shovels would probably be a step in the right direction...