Greening up

We're having a typical March. The weather is sunny and warm one day, gray and chilly the next. The day lilies are blooming beside dead, brown grass and bare, spindly bushes. We walk outside in tee shirts and thin pants only to turn right around and put on a jacket or find something inside to do (though Bella is stubborn enough to suffer through if it means she gets to spend some time in the great outdoors).
That's March, but it will soon be April and then May. So our intermittent drab, dreary days will evaporate under the weight of central North Carolina's wet heat and blazing sun. Those will be days when we avoid being outside for long period of times and can't adequately breathe with all the humidity.

And at the beginning and end of those days, you'll find me in our first ever backyard garden. The mountain man spent a few hours out back this weekend hammering and cussing as he built an 8x8 raised gardening bed into which I will sew tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon, corn, and herbs. I'm a little more excited about it than I readily admit.
With the little garden will come ... chickens*! We're in the market for three chicks for a little backyard coop. I had grand plans for a cute A-frame that we'd paint yellow to match the house and plant wisteria around and perhaps hang a little sign that reads, "The Tennessee Townhouse,"** but my husband dashed my dreams. Instead, he's going the real mountain route and sawing a whole in our storage building for the nesting boxes and then building the coop off the back of the building. It's going to look so classy (actually, it'll probably be classier than all MM's discarded crap piled up)!
The coolest part of this is we can work in the garden, feed and clean the chickens, and turn the compost all while watching the kids play. There will be no tantrums or whining from the under-5' crowd because they're bored and "do we have to go to the garden, again?" as I suffered with the community garden last year. We've given away this playset, but something fun will take its place, making our backyard fun for everyone.

I really can't wait. I'll be twiddling my (greenish) thumbs in anticipation and not at all googling the hell out of chicken coop designs.

* Yes, I know chickens are birds and that I will probably hate them, too. But the mountain man really wants some chickens and likes to tell people how his Papaw had a chicken coop larger than their house growing up. Of course he did.

** MM did not find this name at all funny, but it's hilarious, right? I told his mom and she guffawed heartily. Considering she's old-school Tennessee and he's only half Tennessee (his father's people are from a different mountain in Georgia), her opinion is the one that really counts. I may still make a little sign to hang out there. Just because.