COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT

Ok, I have one gripe that has really been eating at me; the community that we live in changed from private hands to...*GASP* a homeowner's association. It sucks, I do not like it especially being charged a yearly fee but the worst we are not allowed to have ANY poultry on our property. Now I have wanted chickens for over 3 years. I started reading up on them while renting a home in Florida, then when we decided to purchase our first home out here in Northeast PA I thought heck we can have animals! I talked to tons of people, did more reading and every experience only further strengthened my resolve to own chickens. When the community became a HOA they disallowed poultry. I watch as the backyard chicken craze is full-swing and I cannot have chickens while living in this home. People in New York City and Chicago can have chickens, Tori Spelling in her hoity-toity LA neighborhood has backyard chickens, but out here in the country only 1 grocery store within 20 minutes I cannot.

We do not have a Target nearby (closest one 45 minutes away in NY), the Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Lowes are 35 minutes away (2 towns over) there is not very much around here we are surrounded by state forest/game land. I am so country that my kids get the Monday after Thanksgiving off…why you ask? Because you silly city person it is the first day of deer season…DUH! Doesn’t everyone have opening day of deer season off? My kids do not have recess outdoors November through February, because we are so country. What you ask does being country have to do with no outdoor recess? We are surrounded by game land, they do not let the kids out because it is hunting season during these months and it is safer for the kids to remain indoors. Nice eh? When I first heard that, the first year we moved out here and I sent my oldest to kindergarten I had serious doubts whether we made the right choice. Then to heighten my worries our house got hit by an arrow. Oh yeah I never told you that story…

K (oldest son) was 4 when we moved into our home, and since his birthday falls before the cutoff date he was in kindergarten, which is full day here. One fall day he comes in from playing outside and tells me the house is a bulls eye. I said, what? I do not understand what you mean K. He said look, our house is a bulls eye, and proceeded to lead me outside and around the side of our home. This is what I see…

Sure enough our house was a bulls eye there was the razor-tipped arrow to prove it. I called the State Police (yes we are so Podunk we do not have city cops) and they sent out an officer who took a report and after a small bit of observation noticed a neighbor with a deer target in his yard. The officer went to speak with the neighbor and oopsie it was his arrow; he was doing some target practice and lost an arrow…IN THE SIDE OF MY HOME. I guess he can hit the broadside of a barn, seeing as our home is barn-shaped. We did not press charges, no need to make enemies but I definitely keep an eye on that house now.  Now see there again…this guy can shoot off razor-tipped arrows but I can not keep any poultry on my land…dangerous, dangerous chickens.

thanks to listening to me whine I needed that...PHEW, feeling better