I went to the chicken coop building workshop at the ReStore yesterday. Brad Halm, one of the two men who make up the Seattle Urban Farm Company, taught. We had about an hour of lecture and questions and then we all shuffled outside into the parking lot to build a coop out of salvaged materials from the ReStore itself.

At one point, I thought to myself, "What a diverse group we are. We range from me, the youngest, to a gay man in his fifties, a lesbian couple, and a young man with a five year old son." Then I realized that every single one of us was white.

It was highly amusing, watching nine or so people with seemingly little carpentry experience be directed by Brad, who's a pretty quiet and overly polite kind of guy. We had to do most things twice, but we had an almost-finished coop by the time we started cleaning up. We built a chicken tractor, a design with a built-on run, that can be moved around the yard so that the chickens don't destroy whatever surface they're on.

This workshop combined with the Chickens 101 class I took last month leave me feeling pretty confident in my basic chicken knowledge. Can't wait to put it to use! Who knows, maybe I'll set up a wee coop on the deck of the Valkyrie if we move onto it next summer.