April 18, 2009

Easter Weekend Part 2


After the dog walk we grabbed a bite to eat and hit up our next community event. The 1st Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour was going on from 10am til 4:30pm on Saturday. We were both extremely excited about this event because of our recent interest in "backyard chickens" around the neighborhood.

About 3 months ago Jason noticed that a house that is on our normal walk with Bella had about 8 chickens in their backyard. We were extremely surprised to see this because we were both under the assumption it was illegal to have live poultry within city limits. Then shortly after this discovery we found out our neighbor across the street had chickens and suddenly it felt like chickens were popping up everywhere in Austin.

The Funky Chicken Coop Tour provided us with a back stage pass to having backyard chickens in Austin. We were able to talk with the owners, ask questions, and see a huge variety of different coops. It was such a blast! We ended up going to about 10 different coops and rated them on what we liked and disliked. Our favorite one happened to be a coop just a couple of blocks away from our house. We liked it because it had a fairly large chicken run area and also incorporated a garden to provide shade and nutrients for the chickens.

Our favorite coop...



The tour definitely inspired us to start looking into adding some new members to the Dzubinski household. Although we do need to get our nursery done first, Bella may need to prepare to adjust to more than a baby here in a few months.

This is a picture of another coop we found interesting. It's a called a tractor because it's on wheels and people move it around to get different parts of their yard fertilized by the chickens.

April 11, 2009

Easter Weekend Part 1


This year we decided to be part of the "Mighty Texas Dog Walk" held in downtown Austin. All of the events proceeds go to the Texas Hearing and Service Dog Organization. So on top of it being fun for Bella, it was for a good cause!
The walk started at 9am on Saturday morning, but we came around 8am to visit with the different vendors. We arrived with Bella's best friend Aydie and her master Grant. We ended up getting so much free stuff for Bella, it was like her version of Halloween; trick-or-treating from one vendor to the next. Gifts included: dog treats ranging from biscuits to bones, frisbees, chew toys, and a couple of snacks for the humans.
When the race finally got going Bella insisted on being the very first one to cross the start line. There were alot of photographers taking pictures before we headed off, so hopefully we made it in a paper. The walk was about 2 miles and the weather was an enjoyable 60 degrees, so it was a great morning activity.

Part of the purpose of the dog walk was to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Apparently the largest dog walk was held in London with approximately 10,000 dogs attending. I'm not sure we surpassed this amount, but there's always next year!

Bella met her twin!



She visited with Scooby and his gang...