Allison posted this video on YouTube yesterday.  Subsequently, this note was posted on the Oakhurst Message Board…

This year’s Senior prank at Emory was to unleash a flock of chickens and chicks in our library. Comical, but there are chickens that need homes or they may be put down.

Around 10 left at Dekalb Animal Control: 404-294-2996. The address is 845 Camp Rd., Decatur, 30032.

Anyone know if the other 10 were ever retrieved?

HAHA!  Allison just pointed out that her Bison joke made it into this week’s Creative Loafing ‘Hood Highlight…

Pic above from David. (Click to enlarge and enjoy the full panoramic view!)  Info courtesy of Stephanie…

Oakhurst Community Garden Project Plans its Largest Spring Plant Sale Yet!

50 varieties of tomatoes! 30 varieties of pepper! 20 varieties of eggplant! 5 varieties of basil! Plus over 200 varieties of herbs, fruit trees, perennials, annuals, natives, and succulents!

Open to the Public: Saturday, April 9 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sunday, April 10 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Lettuce and other spring greens are available for purchase at the Oakhurst Community Garden Project starting April 1. Check out the website for more details. www.oakhurstgarden.org.

Summer vegetable transplants will be available for puchase until June 15, 2011.

Forget chickens.  Urban homesteading pioneer Allison Adams, who played a key role introducing Decatur to the world of backyard poultry, is taking it to the next level.

From her blog The Southern Urban Homestead…

Meet Nellie Oleson, my first baby bison.

Nellie arrived on a methane-powered livestock truck from a ranch in Montana. She is a domesticated breed of the American bison, meaning that genetically she has some cow in her. This makes her (and the additional head I will acquire as I gradually grow my herd) easier to manage as livestock — hopefully she won’t knock down the rain barrels, for example, or trample my dog in a stampede.

…I believe that the bison’s presence in our city signifies a restoration of this land’s once-great biodiversity, not to mention the virtues of homesteading at its most Ma Ingalls authentic. But don’t get too attached. My plan is to raise Nellie to become a protein source, and I’m really looking forward to a nice, thick rug for my own hearthside. In the meantime, the manure is working wonders for my early spring crops.

Allison says that the city has thus far been very helpful and will soon change its municipal code to “accommodate this most American of efforts.”  I can’t wait for that city commission meeting!

Love it!  ZBA member Kyle Williams writes in about last night’s approval of a new community garden tucked behind Northern Ave and Oakland Street residences…

Last night the Zoning Board of Appeals approved plans for Tanyard Community Garden (see Agenda Item No. 1 on the…agenda materials). The proposed garden is a tremendous community-led initiative to create useable greenspace in city-owned stream buffer areas that will “build strong communities” as you highlight in your post from yesterday Are Environmentalists Just “Fiddling While Rome Burns?” Our approval might also be the first official action on the new Strategic Plan:

The Tanyard Community Garden is consistent with the goals outlined in the Strategic Plan under Goal #8, which recommends that the city develop a “necklace” of planted bicycle and pedestrian linkages connecting the major green spaces of the city. The connection of the various green spaces will result in multiple benefits: I) easier, safer and more aesthetically pleasing access to existing green space, 2) “new” green space on existing public land, and 3) traffic volume and speed reductions. The City believes that the project will promote a more healthy and active community.

Tanyard Community Garden comes on the heels of ZBA’s approval of Sugar Creek Garden and is part of a citywide effort to identify and create useable community greenspace in these pockets of flood, detention and stream buffer areas.