All the new news ...

Ok, well today has been quite a busy day around here! First, I went to City Hall to see Lisa Garst become the 3rd woman to serve on Salem City Council (YAY LISA!!!), and to see our newest mayor become elected. Congratualtions to our new Mayor, Randy Foley.
Then, at 11, channel 10 (WSLS) came out to interview me about our chickens, and how the current laws are in conflict with each other. I have to say, I felt that the piece ran a little on the negative side, but in all it was fairly good. The best thing though would be that within an hour of the piece airing on tv we had 8 more people sign our petition!!! YAY!!!! Here's to hoping THAT will continue! Here is a link for anyone who would like to check it out: http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/local/article/chickens_wont_fly_in_salem/13370/
After this I invited Vickie Daulton over to see the chickens. Mrs. Daulton works on the Planning Commission in Salem and will be part of the board that 'yay' or 'nay's the decision to go before Council to allow chickens. We talked for about an hour. I tried to impress upon her, as I have other City Officials, that the current laws in the code dictate how chickens are to be kept. Currently they're worried that, while we may be responsible chicken owners, others will not and how to enforce that/what to do. I've told them they already have that in place. Perhaps I see it more simply than they do.
After this I talked with Melinda Payne who works with Planning Development in Salem. She said the current situation is that they don't know what to do, so for now, our chickens have been given a reprieve to cluck away happily. This is only mildly comforting.
Finally, we've had a slight set-back in our kwh usage & solar power commitment. Jomo, our newest puppy, is full of mischief and has COMPLETELY destroyed our solar-powered pump for our pond. Luckily, the pond came with an electric pump so we've been able to hook that up. The odd thing is that the solar pump didn't really have much of a filter on it and the water was full of algae; we knew we needed to do something, we just weren't sure what we could do cost-wise. I guess Jomo made the decision for us. When the pump was turned on the odor that began coming out of the pond was fairly foul, so we're hoping there aren't lots of dead fish in there. I suppose we'll see soon. Till then, I guess we will have to add "saving $$ for a new, improved & proper solar-pond pump & filter" to our list of things we need to be doing.

Solar Power goes to the Dogs

I've been wanting a pond for a while, no big secret there, and the other week we stumbled upon one being sold at our neighbor's yard sale!! Liner & pump, only $25 = SOLD!!! We finally have gotten it in the ground and ordered a solar pump to go with it. We decided that any new "additions" needed to be green ones. I know this photo doesn't show the pond full, or even the pump in there, or even the other flowers we've added around it, but it gives you an idea. We're now eagerly looking forward to adding some water plants and some fish.

One thing that we knew we needed to be a little concerned about though was the dogs. We have an 8 year old Chocolate Lab and a 9 week old American Bulldog/Bandogge Mastiff mix. This isn't intended as a swimming pool for them!! So, we were annoyed but not surprised when we walked out the other day only to find that they had been playing (read "digging") in the mulch and un-dug most of the front of the pond. Ok, put it all back, and now we have a little fence up around that area - going from the rosemary bush across the front of the pond, to the flowers.

Yesterday we come out and they've gone around the new flowers, dug up most of the irises, the coreopsis, and the solar panel. We fixed it all, put them back in the ground (plants, not the dogs), and added some more things to block them from getting in.

Today, I noticed that the solar panel has been broken off of the little spike it rested atop. I'm praying it still works - it is cloudy and overcast, so none of our solar fountains are currently running. I replanted another dug-up iris and put up more barricades that will hopefully hold until we get more fencing up.

I knew solar power can be an expensive alternative - I just didn't think it would come in the form of "because our dogs keep destroying it!"