Just call me Barbara!

I've always been interested in the Nature vs Nurture debate - what do you think? What I'm doing at the moment seems so innate and yet I'm wondering what effect those episodes of Little House on the Prairie and The Good Life have had on me?!

While I was away visiting family in England, Sadik spent some time building a chicken coop and learning how to fish! Over these last few days this has completely changed our way of life. Along with the veggies and fruit that are just starting to grow in the garden, I am starting to feel like Barbara from the 70's sitcom The Good Life. For those of you that have not seen this comedy from England, Tom (Barbara's husband) reaches the ripe old age of 40 and decides to leave the rat race and become self-sufficient. We've been wanting to start exploring this way of life for some time now and it looks like the journey is just beginning!

I'd like to introduce you to the newest members of our family - Zinga, Baba, Doodle & Dingy! On Friday we picked up four Rhode Island Red laying hens. They are just 10 weeks old and will start laying eggs at 22 weeks. Neither of us know much about keeping hens, but we are learning fast. The coop has four nesting areas, although at the moment they all sleep on top of each other! We built some fences to try and protect them from predators (we get bears and cougars out here!) and we'll build some more over the next couple of months, so that they have more room to roam as they grow. At the moment they like to hang out under the coop, coming out occasionally (when it stops raining!) to peck around. They actually took themselves off to bed the first night - all we had to do was close the door! However, one of them did escape through the ventilation hole in the roof and so we've had to block that a wee bit.

As I said earlier, Sadik has also started fishing and we've actually had two meals of fresh trout from Spider Lake! Delicious - talk about local food! I can't wait for the veggies to start growing, but for that we need some sun and it hasn't wanted to shine for the last few days!

Ah well..................................... Life IS good!