Mr. Cranky Pants Rides Again... But Come and See Our Broody Hen!

If you haven't read Part 1 of our on going saga, you can see it here: Fox In the Hen House Blog

Our Very Own Mr. Cranky Pants 

Yes, we are those neighbors...  those crazy, God fearing, Jesus freaking, back to nature, going "green", organic loving, animal caring, dirt obsessing neighbors....
Maybe it's because we don't like being sad! Researchers have found that dirt makes you happy! For Real!  Researchers from Bristol University and University College London found that naturally occurring "friendly" bacteria found in soil may affect the brain in a similar way as antidepressant drugs
Check Out the Science Behind Dirt's Anti- Depressant Qualities

View from Mr. Cranky Pants' Yard Into Ours

Or maybe it's because we secretly hold an evil vendetta against a poor ol' cranky man who has always been quick to get angry but right now is hurting because his wife died.  We are so sad for his great loss and love him to death which is why we are trying to take his outburts with a grain of salt and deep understanding..  and harbor NO ILL will or feelings towards anyone! 

God's Lil' Acre... aka according to MCP "The Jungle"

After getting notice that one of our neighbors had complained to the township about our property, we got right out there and worked well past dark to get everything cleaned up. You can read the first blog, Fox in the Hen House, but the 3 things we were cited for were:

1. Chickens
2. "Carport" needing a permit
3. a small pile of cut up wood that looked messy... (yes, I am serious, a 4 by 4 pile of wood was cause for complaint) 

GOOD NEWS! We had 3 beautiful days to really make headway round' God's Lil' Acre Spring is here and everything is BLOOMING! 

Spiffing things up with some mulch 

working hard, hope they like it! 

Spring is here and the Sour Cherry is blooming

The wood is cleaned, and we are spiffing things up for our suburban neighbors who moved into what used to be farm land and now expect everyone else to enter the modern age of grocery stores, Chinese made products, and pollution...Well, forgive me for putting my family's health and happiness first. 
( see Playing With Dirt is the New PROZAC! 

The results so far suggest that simply inhaling M. vaccae—you get a dose just by taking a walk in the wild or rooting around in the garden—could help elicit a jolly state of mind. “You can also ingest mycobacteria either through water sources or through eating plants—lettuce that you pick from the garden, or carrots) JUST EATING FOOD FROM THE GARDEN MAKES US  H A P P Y! 

Dear Ol' Mr. Cranky Pants...Yet the saga continues... On Friday, he came over to apologize for blowing his top the day before.  (Or so he said  that's why he came over.) We were eager to make things right as well and apologized for any misunderstanding on our part. We truly love living in peace and harmony with nature and that means the humans God has put here as well! We were in the middle of "Operation Spring Cleanup," when he came over with his apology.  During his "apology" he again told us how he thought the world of us "girls..."

what you lookin at willis? 

 ( A little background- My sister Michelle and I moved into our grandmother's house in 2004' to help take care of her and our disabled uncle. We

The Apple blossoms smell A MAZING!! 

immediately set about to clean things up, including the yard. As long as we kept the garden in the back and turned the yard into a variable suburban oasis with typical landscaping and manicured grass, everything was great. Our grandmother died in 2008' and Michelle and I bought the house and property and  have been doing more and more changes towards self sufficiency) . 

We were getting along great and he was about to leave and we were ready to get back to putting down our 4th load of mulch (*sigh of relief at this point) when he asked "so I hear you girls are going to get a cow."
Me " Who told you?" ( he is not on fb)
Neighbor "I heard it in the neighborhood."
Me "You didn't just hear it randomly walking around the neighborhood," (only our fb neighbors know we've talked about getting a cow)

It really doesn't matter who told him but when pressed for an answer, we told him "yes," we really want to get a cow.

You might as well have said we wanted to park a full on nudist colony with Vegas strip lights and flashes 24/7. I chuckle to think he might enjoy that better than being punished by having to look at a cow...Yes, he said we were punishing him with our agricultural pursuits and a cow would basically drive him to an early grave. I mean full on, blood boiling, mad... yeah... MR. CRANKY PANTS HAS MAD COW DISEASE! It's a disease that attacks every fiber of those who get mad when seeing  cows... ha!

newly mulched flower beds all over! 

Well, during our conversation, I tried to explain we were within our rights to get a cow, or a pig, and keep our chickens, and I could show him the Ohio Ag law 519.21 that made sure townships could not zone out ag pursuits for people who were there before the subdivisions all starting being built.Ohio Ag Law 513.21 Explained

He didn't want to hear any of that and kept on yelling "you just know people..."

chicken church and steps going down into our large garden

Actually, we do know people! We know God Almighty who has called upon us first and foremost to be good stewards of the land he has given us. In fact, the very FIRST JOB he gave Adam was to be a GARDENER! He actually made a garden for man... and job to do,
Genesis 2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

And But God has also put so many wonderful people in our life, like our neighbors Cathi and Adrian... 

Cathi happened by with her beautiful granddaughter to see the chickens when Mr. Cranky pants was over.  I was so happy to see them!! 

Here is Eve picking up our friendly Dominique aka the diamond thief. Eve was  a bit reluctant at first to hold her but eagerly picked her up on her own for a second time!  
 

Cathi and Eve went all the way home to bring our girls an apple to put on our hanging fruit toy. They LOVED IT! And thank them very much!

Cathi is amazing! We watch her furry four leggeds when they go out of town and when I asked her to do a "trade" and take care of our girls for our Plymouth, MA trip last year, she and Adrian dove right in! God bless them! They took such good care of our girls and were even rewarded with our very first egg!!! We now share joint custody of the hens... :) She, is always coming over in the summer to drop off a water melon rind or two and it's greatly appreciated! After the O-K corral show down with Mr. Cranky Pants, Adrian came over to express his support of all of our farming endeavors!! :) 

The evening was far from a wash!! We also had another beautiful neighbor family come over with their 3 amazing children Aidan, Aislin, and new baby brother Madden to see the chickens and check out our chicky momma! Aislin is a natural momma herself helping her mom Sarah out with Madden, often getting to him before Sarah does when he cries or fusses. Aidan enjoys challenging Michelle with historical presidential trivia, amongst other things, to which he often proves the wiser, much to Michelle's embarrassment... All in all it was a chicken visiting day!

So, here is a kinda shaky video showing our lil' acre in all it's guts and glory. No, it's not the best manicured lawn in the world and I admit we have areas that need improving, but all in all, we do our utmost to keep things neat and tidy. We use recycled pallet wood, it's free and is better than Lowe's and Home Depot sometimes.

Our line of ornamental grasses will grow up to 10 ft tall this summer and make a natural privacy fence. We also planted 200 privets to make a natural screen all around to block any "offending" views of our craziness, and to give ourselves more seclusion after the house behind us was built a couple years ago. Our property line ends at the grasses

We are going to slice up those ash trees with the saw mill. Everything has a purpose! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What if I went up to everyone I didn't think was "beautiful" or well kept and said "you're ugly," ESPECIALLY if I knew that person did all they could to keep their appearance as acceptable to modern society as possible, and yet, sometimes our flaws are truly our marks of beauty like a well place mole! ha! :)  

Whew... what a day... we put down tons of mulch and would have finished today but it rained all day annddd, we went to our FAVORITE greenhouse! Grant's Farm and Greenhouse 

It was a rainy but FANTASTIC day at Grant's! 

to pick up some sprightly annuals and a few veggies that didn't take when we planted seeds earlier this year. It was their annual open house and everything was 20% off! We bought the rest of our mulch there to pick up tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get a blog up about our day and provide a link here.
 So, more mulch to follow, continued cleanup, and.... the building of our pig pen- IF we can find 2 pigs at a decent price. Maybe it won't happen this year but we keep looking for some unused fair pigs.

Now, about that Broody Hen ya'll want to hear about... I felt she was worth her own little blog post so.  Please click here to see our broody hen!

Uh Oh Fox in the Hen House, Unaware That Ohio Agricultural Laws Trump Township Zoning...

Our Chicken Church!! 

Chicken Daddy Kansas aka The Builder

Welcome Ya'll!!! We started this lil' blog to keep you guys up to date on all the fun and exciting things happening around our lil' neck of the woods.

So, I wanted our first post on our new blog GOD'S LIL' ACRE to be about our cute little broody chicken. Well, we'll include the good with the bad in this one! Sometimes you have a rough start but when God calls you to do something, you do it! 


The Zoning Police have made their move... :) This should be fun! 

Courtesy Violation Notice

*sigh* dear Lord, I thank you for protecting us and giving us the strength to walk in kindness and love for not only is the law of God on our side but so is the law of man... at least in Ohio.

Someone complained about our property.One of our elderly neighbors has been going around talking about how our yard used to look so nice (ie, perfect lawn) and now it's a "jungle."  We LOVE this neighbor. He has been so kind to us in the past.

He needs to know Jesus!! :) He wasn't the one who called but we think we know who did. It's really kind of sad but actually it's been a motivation to high tail a bunch of spring clean up we've had on the list to do anyway!!

 A few of the girls enjoying a morning treat of leftovers!

We will comply with the citation as much as possible... need to put the plates on Matt's trailer, clean up some wood in the back.. but the 2 things they want us to take down- the chicken coop and the carport used for agricultural purposes, they're gonna stay.

Meet Our Lil' Girl Jasper the Husky who loves the garden!

Sydney our Border Collie guards the chickens! 

We were cited for nick picky things but when I called the officer, HE WAS SO NICE!! He didn't want to cite us and told me to ignore the citations until we spoke to the township zoning head.

Really, we have nothing to worry about, and if you live in Ohio, you might have more freedom than you thought. Of course, as a blue blooded AMERICAN, we ALL have the right to life, liberty, and to do whatever we want on our own property, ESPECIALLY when it comes to living green, protecting the environment, and raising organic, free range animals and vegetables to combat the chemical laced products they try to peddle to us in the grocery store! Listen, I get it Mr. Neighbor(s)... winter has been rough on all of us and our yard could use a good cleaning up. Believe me, we love clean nice landscaping just as much as you, but we differ on what has to be planted to look "nice." See, I believe that gardens should be both aesthetically pleasing and serve a purpose. When faced with choosing between the two, I'm going to have to choose, "serving a purpose, " such as providing food or natural medicine for me and my growing family!

Just me being silly in the garden! 

After having a huge successful garden for several years, last year we decided to take the plunge and get some backyard chickens.We love them!! We knew that chickens weren't technically "legal" in our township but we had talked with our township admin, Lou, and after several meetings over 2 yrs he said "You know what, just go ahead and get them. If your neighbors say anything, send them to me." All the cities around us allow chickens, even the small town of Milford right next door. It costs a lot of money to get zoning changed and we were promised for 2 yrs that the township was working on it to make it happen and that people went to the township every week to ask about getting chickens.

Now, I've been studying this Ohio Ag Law for about 3 yrs. I finally have come to some basic understandings as to what exactly it means for those who live in townships in Ohio.

All agricultural activities are exempt from Ohio Zoning... but then there are some "buts and unlesses" in there...

Here's the Law I'm talking about

519.21 Powers not conferred on township zoning commission by chapter.

(A) Except as otherwise provided in division (B) of this section, sections 519.02 to 519.25 of the Revised Code confer no power on any township zoning commission, board of township trustees, or board of zoning appeals to prohibit the use of any land for agricultural purposes or the construction or use of buildings or structures incident to the use for agricultural purposes of the land on which such buildings or structures are located, including buildings or structures that are used primarily for vinting and selling wine and that are located on land any part of which is used for viticulture, and no zoning certificate shall be required for any such building or structure.

(B) A township zoning resolution, or an amendment to such resolution, may in any platted subdivision approved under section 711.05 , 711.09 , or 711.10 of the Revised Code, or in any area consisting of fifteen or more lots approved under section 711.131 of the Revised Code that are contiguous to one another, or some of which are contiguous to one another and adjacent to one side of a dedicated public road, and the balance of which are contiguous to one another and adjacent to the opposite side of the same dedicated public road regulate:

(1) Agriculture on lots of one acre or less;

(2) Buildings or structures incident to the use of land for agricultural purposes on lots greater than one acre but not greater than five acres by: set back building lines; height; and size;

(3) Dairying and animal and poultry husbandry on lots greater than one acre but not greater than five acres when at least thirty-five per cent of the lots in the subdivision are developed with at least one building, structure, or improvement that is subject to real property taxation or that is subject to the tax on manufactured and mobile homes under section 4503.06 of the Revised Code. After thirty-five per cent of the lots are so developed, dairying and animal and poultry husbandry shall be considered nonconforming use of land and buildings or structures pursuant to section 519.19 of the Revised Code.

Ohio Agricultural Law Explained by Peggy Hall

Ohio Revived Code 519.21

Montgomery, OH makes sure chickens are allowed! 

How Montgomery, OH changed their chicken laws and you can too!

Appendices

Appendix A: Chicken Ordinances in Neighboring Communities

Suburb Source OrdinanceBlue Ash http://www.blueash.com/content/81/91/99 745-8500"Suburban farms" used for for "poultryhusbandry" must be 5 acres but don'tdefine poultry husbandry, so this would"likely be handled on a case-by-case basisif complaints were received." Nocomplaints.Deer Park 794-8860 Chickens allowed so long as they'recontained and don't create a nuisance.Have considered add'l ordinances butdecided current ordinances are sufficient.They've had households keep chickens,have had no complaints.Evendale http://www.amlegal.com/evendale _oh/Chickens permitted so long as they arecontained (618.01) and don't create anuisance (618.13 & 618.17.)Fairfield http://www.conwaygreene.com/f airfield.htmChickens permitted on lots of three acres orlarger (505.01) so long as they don't createa nuisance (505.08) or noise (505.09).Glendale http://www.glendaleohio.org/ordinances.htmlChickens permitted so long as they arecontained (91.08) and don't causeannoyance (91.04).Indian Hill http://www.amlegal.com/indian_hill_oh/Chickens permitted under county and statelaws.Loveland http://www.conwaygreene.com/loveland.htmChickens permitted so long as they don’tcreate a nuisance (505.08).Madeira 561-7228 272-4214Chickens are kept in Madeira by multiplehouseholds with ZERO complaints,according to a city employee. Chickenspermitted as long as they don't createodors or unsanitary conditions and are notkept for strictly commercial purposes.Mason http://www.amlegal.com/library/oh/mason.shtmlChickens permitted so long as they arecontained (505.01), don't cause a nuisance(505.08) or excessive noise (511.06), andany building used to house them is 100'from every lot line (1147.03).Milford http://www.milfordohio.org/council/ordinances.html831-4192Chickens allowed so long as they'recontained (505.01), treated humanely(505.07), and don't create a nuisance(505.08).

Montgomery http://www.amlegal.com/montgomery_ohChickens permitted so long as they arecontained (90.01) and don't create anuisance (90.08.)Mt Healthy http://www.amlegal.com/mthealthy_oh/Chickens must be contained (90.01) andkept 100 ft from neighboring homes(95.07).Norwood http://www.conwaygreene.com/norwood.htmChickens prohibited within the city limits.(505.15)Reading http://www.amlegal.com/library/oh/reading.shtmlChickens permitted so long as they arecontained (618.01), don't create a nuisance(618.13), and are 50' from the propertyline and any residence (618.16).Sharonville 563-1144 Chickens may be kept on lots of 20,000 sf (about a half acre) or larger providedthey're 50 feet from the lot line.Silverton www.amlegal.com/silverton_oh936-6240Chickens permitted if contained (90.01)and kept 200' from the lotlines (153.032).Springdale http://www.amlegal.com/springdale_oh/ 346-5700Chickens allowed on lots of at least threeacres and at least 100 feet from alladjoining residential lot lines (153.496) aslong as they're contained (90.01) and don'tcreate noise (90.03).St Bernard http://www.conwaygreene.com/stbernard.htmChickens permitted so long as they arecontained (505.02) and don't create anuisance (505.10 & 505.18).SycamoreTshp791-8447 Seems to be saying a zoning certificate isrequired to keep chickens on any lotsmaller than 5 acres (3-8), and thenchickens are permitted so long as they'rekept 100 feet from any lot line (3-9.4b).SymmesTshp683-6644 Chickens permitted under county and statelaws. One complaint regarding noiseassociated with a rooster.Terrace Park http://www.amlegal.com/terracepark_oh/Chickens allowed so long as they'recontained (90.01) and don't cause anuisance (90.16).Wyoming http://www.conwaygreene.com/wyoming.htm821-7600Chickens kept by multiple households,according to Wyoming Farmers' Marketasst mgr who herself keeps chickens inWyoming. Chickens permitted as long asthey don't create a nuisance (505.08 & 505.09) and are not kept for strictlycommercial reasons.