Suburban chickens
April 24th, 2009 by Rob Hart
At 9 A.M. today I was in a warm room, quiet except for the soft groans that come from someone getting a kick-ass massage. Forty five minutes later I was chasing a pair of hens around a backyard in Oak Park. When I came across an item in an email this week from the Green Community Center about a resident who raises chickens in her backyard I was sold. My love of the bizarre, needs no documentation. I was expecting more than two chickens, to be honest, but then reality sets in and the Village of Oak Park allows two fowl per backyard. The owner, Helen Standen, declined to be photographed. So Poppy and Magnolia became my stars. This is shaping up to be a fad, or a trend, or whatever. There are many websites, Backyard Chickens, Urban Chickens, and even a good blog about one in Chicago. Most days my job rocks.
So I totally want some chickens now. My cats would *love* them.
4/24/09 OAK PARK, IL Helen Standen's chickens Poppy and Magnolia run around her backyard where she raises them at her Oak Park home on Friday, April 24, 2009. Standen harvests the eggs daily and build her own coop. (Rob Hart/Staff Photographer)
excerpt from Chris LaFortune’s story:
Perhaps this comes as a surprise, but Helen Standen doesn’t mind that people call her the chicken lady.
“I home school, too,” the Oak Park resident said. “I’m used to being different.”
Standen grew up just outside of Cleveland on 12 acres of land. Her parents owned goats, pigs, other farm animals, but they weren’t really farmers.
Standen’s father traveled a lot for work, her mother was an avid gardener and canner.
“Looking back now that I’m grown up as a parent with kids, I don’t know how my parents did it,” Standen said.
So she’s quite content with just the two chickens that she owns and keeps in her Oak Park backyard. Poppy and Magnolia, two ISA Browns, have a coop in the back of Standen’s yard, a structure she built.
“It’s great for the soul to produce stuff, to make stuff,” Standen said. “It doesn’t have to be of professional quality.”
The Standens first owned chickens in 2004. They’ve lost a few over the years to various mishaps, and the current pair came in last year.
4/24/09 OAK PARK, IL Helen Standen's chickens Poppy and Magnolia run around her backyard where she raises them at her Oak Park home on Friday, April 24, 2009. Standen harvests the eggs daily and build her own coop. (Rob Hart/Staff Photographer)
4/24/09 OAK PARK, IL Helen Standen with one of the two chickens she raises in the backyard of her Oak Park home on Friday, April 24, 2009. Standen harvests the eggs daily and build her own coop. (Rob Hart/Staff Photographer)
My favorite reporter and partner-in-crime on the Oak Park 365 blog, Chris LaFortune.
Staff Writer Chris LaFortune holds a chicken in Helen Standen's backyard in Oak Park, IL.
Tags: chickens, Chris LaFortune, Helen Standen, Oak Park, Rob Hart, urban chicken
Posted in Oak Park, OakPark365, Rob Hart | Comments (1)
October 10th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Saw your chickens on TV last evening, & loved them ! Used to have chickens out here in Westmont many years ago, before zoning outlawed them. I am an experienced pet-sitter & quite capable of caring for chickens—If you ever need this type of service, I can send you one of my brochures.
Thanks,
Kathleen Vasek 630-805-0635 housecarers.com (username Granmoo)