In defense of our Norwood Chickens!

                                   

I made 20 of these chicken pins last night for us to wear & to pass out to any friends who came with us to the Council meeting.  Frank (luckily) helped out by cutting out the feet & combs (and designed the comb) or else I would have been up until 3 a.m..  We originally were going to have a friend show up in a chicken suit, but he chickend out.  I put together a party for about 20 people before the meeting and  served several menu items featuring our chicken's eggs, one of which was deviled eggs.

Lia drew circles around the chicken that I drew on her easel.

This year our "Halloween theme" was, well, chickens.

This is Frank's carving which I love!

A little nervous, but fueled by my thoughts & feelings about how GOOD it is to have backyard chickens and how they help reduce our carbon footprint on this earth as well as provide us with delicious healthy eggs, I read my letter to council outlining exactly why I hoped to keep our backyard hens. 

Lia did pretty well during the meeting, we were proud of her.  I was also glad to have her at the meeting to show them one of the reasons we want to keep our hens - to feed our family.

We had the support of family and so many friends, this is just a small group of the folks who came out to support us at the Council meeting - thank you for your support!

We left the meeting feeling excited & positive.  I know it helped so much that I invited and had 2 of the council members out to our home this past Saturday.  Both of these people already gave us positive feedback but I also presented to council almost 100 signatures from neighbors and other Norwood residents, as well as letters written from 3 (next door) neighbors and another resident in support of our choice for keeping hens in our backyard.  At the meeting, council passed a motion to send a letter to the Health Department asking them not to enforce the law requiring us to get rid of our chickens until the matter had been handled, and they all seemed very open to at least giving us a variance, with the understanding that other Norwood families can apply for a similar variance.

At the end of the meeting, two council members publicly thanked me for my approach to the process. One thanked me for my sense of humor and willingness to prepare and present research in a positive manner. Another called it "a textbook case for how to approach government to make positive change."

So?  We are feeling pretty fabulous about changing this law in Norwood for our hens!!!