Category Archives: Essays

When Jim Ferry couldn’t get help from Sacramento Mercy Hospital he armed himself with paintbrushes and fought back. Smokers from the hospital were plaguing him, sitting on his wall, smoking under his windows and dropping butts.

Ferry went to hospital meetings, asked for help and complained through all the appropriate channels. All for naught. Patient and employee smokers in the neighborhood were not on the top of Mercy’s list of concerns. The smokers needed a close by place when a craving hit and Jim’s house was a good place to go. It’s right next to the front of the hospital on 40th and J Streets and has a convenient short-wall fence. Perfect sitting height.

Last year the hospital adopted a smoke free campus policy. There is no doubt that this is a good thing. The problem is––where can you go to smoke now that all of the hospital’s designated smoking areas are gone? The hospital cannot control where the smokers go––they just won’t let them smoke on hospital property.

East Sacramento Preservation suggested to Mercy that hospital housekeeping routinely check the ashtrays and help keep the neighborhood clean by making a butt sweeping round at least once a day, or more. We also suggested that hospital security help the neighbors by moving smokers along who smoke near houses, or sit on neighbors’ property. We have not see any evidence of this happening.

Ferry was fed up and Mercy didn’t count on the power of art. Out came the paint, the brushes and loads of creativity. Ferry used his wall as a canvass and made his case. Bright, optimistic images remind smokers and Mercy not to use his property as an ashtray. His tactic is positive and non confrontational. It’s art. It’s open to interpretation. And it’s working.

 

 

 

 

When Charlene Jones retired the backyard became a priority. “We’re going to be here forever and wanted a beautiful place to live,” she said. Jones went to work and terra formed the once average 58^th Street backyard into The One-eyed Dog Chicken Ranch, an urban micro farm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The backyard is now a bounty of crops, including figs, a bee garden, a butterfly garden, and numerous vegetable and herb containers. She groomed a Redwood grove to create a natural chapel framed by young red-barked giants and left plenty of grassy room for the grandchildren to play.

 

Then the City decided to allow back yard chickens. With crop husbandry under control, Jones decided to fulfill a long time dream. “I always wanted chickens. My sister had them and I loved them.” She plunged into research—books, blogs, online information and friends helped her get ready for The Girls.

The Girls

Della poked around the hen house, “Brrrr ack ack ack.” Her low squawking rose in intensity. “She’s getting ready to lay,” said Jones. We stared at Della expectantly only to have her turn away from the hen house and continue scratching and poking around the gravel path. Della is a chubby Australorp (national chicken of Australia). Harry the Girl is a Barred Rock and Rosie a Rhode Island Red. All steady layers and hearty, friendly breeds.

The chickens came to the farm freshly hatched. “It was winter so we raised them in the house for the first eight weeks,” Jones said. “We used a heat lamp to keep them warm and watched them grow from chicks to pullets.”

Chickens need a coop and Jones went upscale. A custom made condo sits in one corner of the yard. A fence enclosing a chicken yard is under construction. The birdhouse was made by Greg Howes and Brian Fikes whose business Two Flew the Coop took off when the City authorized backyard chickens. Their colorful one of a kind chicken houses are available at Pietro Tallini’s Nursery on Folsom Boulevard.

The One-eyed Dog

Mini blinked at me with her eye. “She was abandoned, had recently whelped and was miserable,” Jones explained. Now she is the farm’s mascot and part of Team Chicken. Mini weighs in at about four pounds, just the right size for the The Girls.

One happy repercussion for The Girls of the One-eyed Dog Chicken Ranch is Jones’ reluctance to eat chicken meat. “I look at them and can’t do it,” she smiled. “They’re not just here for fresh eggs. They’re pets.”