It has been talked about for a couple of years, usually during harvest breakfasts. "We should get some chickens out here in the vineyard. It'd make this meal way better." Then the return to working the grapes would make sure that was as far as the chicken talk ever got, just talk.
Well, it finally happened this spring. The new born chicks at the vineyard supply shop were just too cute to pass up. So we brought home a baker's dozen and turned a harvest bin into a nursery. After a month or so of living in the cellar, the ladies were released into the wild. Well, not the real wild. Out here in the western hills of Paso Robles live coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, hawks and eagles. Not the type of place to just let them enjoy free range living. We built a huge coop for them and fenced in to huge area in an oak grove on top of the property. And now that they are old enough, they are allowed to roam about during the day, just make sure everyone is back inside come sun down. Nobody could be happier, and we are all anxiously waiting that first fresh egg breakfast come fall.
