Posted on by Crystal Sands

On the Top Chicken Stories of 2019

Every year since I started my blog, I’ve been sharing a post on New Year’s Eve of the top chicken stories of the year. It’s usually one of my biggest posts of the year. In 2019, we had some great stories, and as the popularity of chickens and chicken keeping continues to grow, I love the stories that make the news.

This year, we have some fun stories, some educational stories, and the annual return of an old favorite—CDC warnings about chickens.

I hope you enjoy my list, and I hope you have a happy New Year and a wonderful 2020 with plenty of chickens, eggs, and joy in your life.

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Photo credit: Julian Dutton, Unsplash

Man Accidentally Buys 1000 Chickens

While this story started out as one of concern, it gave us a pretty happy ending, and we had to smile at the headlines. A man in New Zealand accidentally bought 1,000 chickens for $1.50. He thought he was buying just one chicken but soon realized he had purchased 1,000! As you can imagine, he didn’t have room for 1,000 chickens, but thanks to social media sharing the story, as of November, he had found homes for over 700 of the chickens. Sometimes, social media can do really good things!

Chickens Help Fight Internet Addiction

But since social media and the internet are not always good, especially when we’re addicted to them, chickens can save us! I have been telling people for years that chicken tv is real and is the best. I mean, I would so rather hang out and watch my chickens do their thing that watch most things online or on television, but a whole city in Indonesia figured out how awesome chicken tv is.

The city began a program in 2019 to give baby chicks to children to raise in order to encourage them to spend more time raising a chicken and less time on their smart phones. I have used such a program with my own little boy. This spring, I got him involved in raising a batch of baby chicks, and it was wonderful to see him so involved in caring for baby chicks.

And for this story to make national news here in the United States, it’s kind of a big deal, I think!

Chicken People Got a Television Program

When you’re taking a break from real chicken tv, you can now really watch chickens on tv! Thanks to Lisa Steele, a chicken keeper and media personality from right here in Maine, we can watch chickens on television and online. Of course, her program is not JUST about chickens, but chickens are the feature. And how cool is it that we get a chicken lifestyle television program? I think it’s a great sign that chicken keeping is really making it mainstream, and people like Lisa Steele are leading the way and helping to make this possible.

And I am so thankful to her for helping educate people across the country about how awesome chickens truly are! You can learn more about her new program here, as it’s going to be back for 2020!

CDC Warns Us About Backyard Chickens and Salmonella—Again

This story makes my list every single year; unfortunately, the numbers of salmonella infections were up again in 2019, and the CDC points to the rise in backyard chicken keeping. I know this story is always controversial, but I do think we have to use good common sense when it comes to chicken keeping.

I read one woman’s story about her battle with salmonella, and it was a haunting story. I definitely do not want salmonella. In fact, one evening this year, during all the rain and mud we had here in Maine, I was closing the chicken coop door. When I slammed the door, chicken poop flew right into my mouth. I held my mouth open, went straight to the house and washed, but I was more than a little worried.

Please do check out my post with advice on handling our wonderful chickens safely. I have some advice that should be especially helpful to new chicken owners.

Chickens Are “Pet of the Decade”

Finally, we have always known chickens rule, but it’s great when the international press agrees. The Guardian ran this piece listing chickens are the “pet of the decade.” I think you will enjoy this piece, especially since it focuses on efforts to improve living conditions for chickens.

To me, that’s the most important story of any year!

 

Posted on by Crystal Sands · 2 Comments

On a Deeper Appreciation for Winter Solstice

I was never that much of a nature girl when I was growing up, I guess. I always loved animals, but I don’t think anyone in my family would have guessed that I would grow up, quit a hard-earned administrative job, and become a homesteader.

My husband and I have a small-but-growing-more-efficient-by-the-day homestead, and we’ve been working very hard at it for about seven years. During that time, we’ve gone from first having just a small organic garden to raising a very large organic garden, a blueberry patch, strawberry beds, chickens we hatched ourselves, and ducks. And this year we finally added our long-awaited asparagus.

I told my husband, “This is the dawning of the age of asparagus.” To me, planting asparagus means we’re here to stay.

As one might expect, farming things has brought me closer to nature than I ever thought I would be. I hug our Maple tree, talk to the beans and tomatoes, and love hanging out with chickens and ducks. Many of them have fantastic little personalities. Some can be a little rude. In fact, our little hen Butternut just pecked the heck out of me over and over while I was feeding people corn. I don’t even know what she was doing, but I am still thankful to know her.

And I am thankful for this change in myself.

In these past years, I have gone from being the woman sitting through endless meetings to the woman who gets to grade student papers at night and spend her days digging in the dirt, planting seeds, saving seeds, and making jam. I have learned to have so much respect for nature and the way nature works to give us amazing gifts. Humans just have to work some and give nature space to do her thing, but the gifts are there and ready for us.

I’m also thankful for the opportunity to live closely with animals and see how they respond to the world around them, to nature, and I have learned that what impacts our animals often has a direct impact on me.

The winter and our short days and long nights here in Maine give me a perfect example. Some of our hens are older, so they slow down or quit laying in the winter. I can’t blame them. Some days, the weather is miserable. I wouldn’t lay eggs either. Plus, it takes 14 to 16 hours of daylight for a hen to make an egg, so winter is no fun for our hens and means fewer eggs for our family.

But the winter solstice gives me hope for the light—and happier days for our hens and more time in the sun for me. Just as it seems the dark comes so quickly after summer solstice, I love that the light comes back so quickly after winter solstice.

Winter solstice brings the light, and that brings, for me, eggs, happy hens, happy ducks, gardening, fresh berries, and more.

I am so thankful for the solstice. I know the light is coming.

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I wish you the very best winter solstice. It seems to me that, this year especially, we all need the light.

Posted on by Crystal Sands

On My Favorite Things: Why the Moon Tumbled Out of the Sky

This week, I’m rounding out my favorite things for 2019. I didn’t get to share as many as I wanted, but life has a way of changing your plans sometimes. This “favorite thing” is so personal to me, and I hope you enjoy it.

My husband wrote a collection of poetry for children, and our son completed the illustrations. The collection of poetry focuses on nature and farming, and it features my favorite poem in the history of the world–“The Black Chicken Named Poe.”

Book Cover

That’s right. My hubby wrote a poem for me and my Poe, and I think you will love it. It made me cry the first 100 times I read it, in a really good way though. The picture below was taken right when the book was published, when Poe was still healthy and busy. She really didn’t care a bit about the book. I told her she was famous, but all she cared about was getting more grapes!

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But when Poe was passing this summer and lived in our house for a few weeks, she loved snuggles and was a captive audience. I read her poem to her one night, and that night, I believe she listened.

So this Christmas, I am promoting my husband and son’s book and Poe’s poem because I think you will love it. I have been told by dozens of parents that this book became a favorite book for their children, at least for a little while, and I tell my husband, who struggles with his confidence as a writer, that there is nothing better in this whole world for a writer to have their words loved by children!

You can get a copy in time for Christmas from my Etsy page here. We did our very best to keep this hardcover, full-color book as affordable as possible because I wanted it in people’s hands most of all. I am offering free automatic upgrades to priority mail for all orders placed by Saturday, December 21.

And to sweeten the deal and to get in one more giveaway before Christmas, I am going to hold a drawing from all orders placed between now and Saturday. Everyone who purchases a book will be entered to win a set (of 15) of these beautiful tiny mason jars with roosters! I love them so much and reorganized my spice racks with them recently.

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So check out this book. I think you will be glad you did. I’ll be back writing more on Solstice because, goodness knows, I am looking forward to that Solstice! In the meantime, sending love, warmth, and light your way!