who came first the chicken or....well it certainly wasn't Dudley

This is one of the popular photos of the Sarah House (located on 10th West) before it was finished and put up for sale. The home is a well built small-living structure constructed out of a shipping container. Amazing! 

What isn't so amazing is the man who bought the house, we will just call him Dudley, forgot the top 3 rules in home buying: location, location, location. 

See, he might have bough the house but certainty has not bought into the neighborhood. His constant harassment of his neighbors and our established, historical urban farmsteads leaves us little choice but to defend our flocks of domestic chickens, the wild fowl, & our ways of life.  

Now I don't really want a fight. I did try to help him and his nearest neighbors work something out but this week for unknown reasons he dispatched a complaint about my birds. 

It was flat out malicious on his part. I haven't even been involved in the chicken war since my initial introduction months back. My birds are not bugging him and they aren't bugging any of the neighbors on either side of us including all 5 or 6 houses sitting on their wide old lots between Dudley's house and mine. 

After talking to animal control we were advised by them to at least consider fighting the regulations. Sooooo, I'm considering getting it going. Because they are right, the current licensing and zoning laws do not meet our needs as established urban homestead. And most of all they don't protect the wild birds that roam 10th West. Heads up Poplar Grove, even one single complaint about your wild peacocks and they will be removed from your lives. 

Now I haven't fully decided that I am going to do this but lets face it obviously I am. 

The reason I have been quiet about this for a few days was because I honestly want to do the right thing here. I want to stay on the highroad. I can't afford to be angry. I flat out refuse to allow a bully that power over my heart. What gave me the biggest pause was I wasn't sure I could fight and not be mad about it...

In answering my own question about whether or not I could go to bat for all of us and not be angry, I realized that Mr. Dudley really has nothing to do with it. The fight would be with the city to upgrade or enhance the protections for sustainable ways of life in SLC. 

Anyway I can't help the man we are calling Dudley. All his neighbors dislike him and probably he them. Oh fun, that seems like a great situation to be in.

He is a man who lives in a glasshouse and is throwing stones. He is a vegetarian who believes chickens should be cooped up in tiny cages all the time. Reportedly educated in the field of psychology yet he appears to have Freudian issues; he is afraid of the cocks. [Yes, I know I said I was talking the highroad but that didn't mean I was leaving my slightly irreverent sense of humor behind me! If I passed up a good cock joke my friends might call the paramedics!] 

All joking aside, Dudley seems scared and sad to me, locked up in his tiny house alone. I truly feel bad for him. 

Perhaps a thank you card will cheer him up. I could thank him for bringing this issue to light. See, until Dudley pointed it out and dragged me into it I thought the city had made pretty good strides in supporting the sustainable arts. Things like allowing tiny houses made out of shipping containers to become someones home, edible yards, water collecting, and of course protecting backyard chickens. 

He makes a very good point: enough isn't being done to protect our way of life. Thanks for letting me know. I will get right on that!