This year I was privileged to serve on the fair exhibit committee with our President, Rob Pastore, as well as Cynthia Pastore and Carl and Mary Engelhardt. Our topic this year was backyard chickens. There’s a burgeoning movement in urban and suburban areas of people keeping chickens for fresh eggs, pest control, and in some cases, meat, as evidenced by sites like Backyard Chickens and Urban Chickens. People raising their own birds can only go to strengthen ties and understanding between people from rural and urban backgrounds, so it seemed to be a good exhibit to take on.
Rob, Carl and myself spent several evenings in the weeks leading up to the fair designing and building a chicken coop (pictured below). We started with a picture of a coop gleaned from the internet and started building. As a side note, the coop we built will be auctioned off next year at Sundae on the Farm.
I’ll let the images below speak for themselves. This was our Blue Ribbon exhibit. Click on the pictures for bigger versions.
