last year, my partner and I decided to lean into our urban farmer avatars: we can these the our inner “Bucolic Babe.” our first step as a Bucolic Babe was experimenting with getting backyard chickens. 🐓
as someone who’s grown up as a horse girl (iykyk), I was fkn JAZZED about getting chickens. my partner…not so much, and took much convincing until we were able to frame this as a time-bound experiment. we’ll get a few chickens that we will raise and if it doesn’t work out, then we will let them live out their lives with us or find someone who is excited to care for them, and we’ll have learned a lot in the process about whether being a Bucolic Babe is for us. it’s not forever. it’s not permeant. it doesn’t have to be a make or break decision.
we made the decision to get two Silkie chicks (because we are goofballs and silkies are so goofy looking) and one Australorp chick (so that we would at least get some eggs): they were named Velveeta Maroon, Harriett, and Darlene. now, we call them The Girls.
⏩ fast forward one year later and wow we really are leaning into being Bucolic Babes and the chickens have allowed us to connect with our community and our neighbors in ways I didn’t imagine when we first got them.
after a momentary bit of being on strike 🪧 from egg production (more on that another time), we very quickly began getting more eggs than we needed. then we grappled with the decision of what do we do with all this surplus?
the most immediate thought was…we could sell them. 😐
that did not feel good to me, especially since we didn’t need the additional income and the eggs are gifts from The Girls, not a commodity to be sold. instead, what made my body light up inside was the thought of giving the eggs away for free, to those in our neighborhood, and using that as a way to connect & build relationships with our neighbors.
we started with just those who we already had some type of relationship with — people who had done small acts of kindness for us before like getting our mail, picking something up for us, checking in on our pets while we were gone (all of these were folks who had also helped care for the chickens while we were out of town, too). we let them know how appreciative we were for their support and that the eggs were a small token of our gratitude.
then we started to reach out to those who were on our street that we didn’t know: the couple that moved in with their dog and cat from the Northeast, the man with the deep Texas drawl that had been here since the 60s, our fence neighbors who were teachers and artists.
over time, the eggs from The Girls became a catalyst for reciprocity and small acts of community connection & care. one of our neighbors even made us a beautiful tart (from the eggs that we originally gave to them) as a thank you. we got to know the people near us and build relationships that allow us to care for each other, support each other, and momentarily step outside of capitalism. Instead of Rover, we now have a list of people we can ask to help care for our pets when we’re gone. Instead of house-sitting, we have neighbors who can help check in on things.
now, we’ve started expanding even farther out and sharing eggs throughout our zip code through our local Buy Nothing group which has opened the doors even more around community care and eliminating excess waste.
don’t get me wrong, this certainly isn’t an end all, be all solution to caring for each other but what might happen if each neighbor shared the surplus of something they had with their community?
what might that prevent us from having to buy?
how might that lower of cost of living? how might that support us in building connection?
what might be possible, if we all just started sharing one thing that bring us joy?
my hopes, are that we are able to deliver a small carton of eggs to every house where we don’t know someone (we might need a few more chickens for that dream to become a reality so more on that another time) and that this helps us weave together a community of care.
what is one small experiment that you want to try, that might open doors to connection and sharing?
a lil fyi - some privileges that we had access to that made this possible were:
my partner bought this home in 2017, and I live in this home and pay subsidized rent which means we are able to stay here permanently as long as we want and our housing costs are much lower than those we know who are renting and/or recently purchased a home
the neighborhood we live in does not have an HOA
the City code allows chickens where we live
white privilege
at the time* we were both working in tech and come from upper-middle class backgrounds, which allowed us to save for and be able to afford the investment of getting a chicken coop without having to take on additional debt
we live in a city so our neighborhood is walkable
*I no longer work in tech, and become 100% self-employed in Jan 2024, now I make ~$25/hr when all of my work is accounted for. this change allows me to use some of my energy towards this substack. 🖤