I was going through some old pictures and ran across some shots of our first hen house. In 2005, we adopted 5 hens. My husband built a very cute little hen house for them out of lumber scraps. Our flock has grown over the years so now they have their own room inside the barn. But, this was a fun way to start.

The little ramp folds up and locks at night to keep the critters out. There is a large door on the front right so I could get in there to clean. The bottom has a wire floor covered with straw. There are two rails for roosting. They all liked to use the one up top so they could look out their "window" (the ventilation screen).

On the side, my husband hung their feeder under a little patio so the rain wouldn't soak it. Oh, and an old lawn tractor tire makes a perfect base for their waterer.

On the back of the hen house, my husband mounted a door for easily accessing the nesting boxes. There is a piece of plywood mounted at an angle, slanting away, above the nestboxes so any droppings from hens on the rails above will not contaminate their nests.

Here's a view into the interior through the door on the right. The girls are supervising my intrusion into their lair.

If you have considered raising hens, I heartily encourage you to do so. We absolutely love our chickens. They are funny and sweet. OK, yes, they are often quite daft. But, that is part of what makes them endearing. Chickens are good comedy.

Ours range free during the day. Not only does that make their eggs healthier, but it also keeps down the number of bugs in my garden. As long as you give them a place to live that is safe from predators, they are pretty easy keepers.

Last Saturday, I stopped by Valley Nursery to pick up some plants for the indoor aquaponics system that I just finished building. I bought small packs of red romaine, red leaf lettuce, and bok choi. I wanted to also find a basil and dwarf cherry tomato, but they are ordering for folks who plant outside. It's just too chilly here in the Pacific Northwest to plant those sun-lovers outside yet. So, I'll have to keep looking for those.

Here are the plants in the indoor aquaponics system. I planted them in 5-inch net pots. I've also got three Smartpots with mini-bell peppers that I grew from seed that I bought from Territorial a few years back.

I chose to fill pots with Hydroton instead of just dumping the Hydroton into the grow bed and planting directly in that. Because this system is indoors, I want to be able to easily pull the plants out so I can wipe down the grow bed if it starts to get slimy (and smelly).

I had some plants left, so I planted them out in the hoop house. Here are the lettuces. In the middle of this pot is a chinese cabbage that I planted a few weeks ago. Oh, and look, there's a tiny volunteer tomato coming back from last year's crop.

You can see that I've been dealing with slugs. One of the great perks of growing indoors will be the absence of those pests. We have free-range hens so I can't put out poison. Instead, I just go out at dusk and hunt for them. The extra bok choi plants are sharing other containers that also contain garlic, Walla Walla onions, and arugula.

Last night, I was noticing that the plants in the aquaponics system appeared to be larger and more lush. So, I got out my trusty tape measure. The plants in the aquaponics system are a quarter-inch taller than the ones in the hoop house -- same plants, planted at the same time. Of course, to be a truly scientific study, I'd have to hold all variables, such as light and temperature, constant so I could measure the true impact of circulating the fish water past the roots of the aquaponic plants. But, I'd say the other variables are somewhat similar in this case. The hoop house stays pretty warm and we've had sun up until yesterday. I do have high hopes though that the grow light I purchased for the aquaponics system will really boost vegetable growth.

Here's a picture of what's going on inside the hoop house. I bought this from Steve's Greenhouses in Castle Rock, Washington about 6 years ago.

We had originally built it at our farm in Sandy, Oregon. When we moved to Kitsap County four years ago, we disassembled the hoop house and tossed it into the moving truck.

It has fared very nicely. We do pressure wash it each year to remove the build-up of green gunk that coats most garden sheds in the Pacific Northwest. Next year, I expect I'll have to replace the plastic as it's becoming brittle.

There are a lot of baby plants coming up from seed in the pots right now. I've also got some plants that stick around year to year: blueberries, strawberries, sage, lavender, chives, and strawberries.

My small herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats are absolutely loving the sunshine today. Nigerian Dwarf goats are a miniature breed of milk goat. Mine are registered with the American Dairy Goat Association.

This will be the fifth year that my family has lived in the Puget Sound area. It is still a surprise each year when we finally get a sunny, warm weekend. It is almost as if something inside us loses hope that we will experience anything other than grey skies.

My goats literally kicked up their heels, or should I write "hooves," when I let them out to pasture today. But, the prancing was short-lived as they needed to get down to the work of filling their bellies with lush new grass. Can you imagine having to graze for a few hours each day to fill your belly...and then having to regurgitate that food and chew your cud for a few more hours? My goodness, that's a lot of work. I think I'll make myself a smoothie after I write this post.

The title of my blog post today is a tip of my hat to Dr. Maciej Bartkowski. While copyediting one of his recent blog posts, I became enamored with his use of American clichés.  Actually, some prescriptivists might call it abuse of clichés. In my opinion, tired, old clichés could use a bit of roughing up. Dr. Bartkowski moved to the United States from Poland eight years ago. So, his use of English is fresh and flavored by his Eastern roots. In this particular blog post, I noticed that he flipped the words in two clichés. I found that it really helped to wake up my brain when I ran across a fresh arrangement of words. This adds life to his text. Many authors struggle with avoiding the rote, hoping to make their writing more dynamic. Newer speakers actually have a distinct advantage over the rest of us in this case. Yes, those of us with years of college-level English classes should be jealous. Here is the blog post for you to read; you may find the two flipped clichés yourself.

I recommend subscribing to Dr. Bartkowski's blog. He is a brilliant man with an important message -- that of empowering people to stand up to oppressive regimes through nonviolent conflict. I especially appreciate his recent focus on Ukraine. Dr. Bartkowski is the Senior Director of Education and Research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.