Chicken coop tours benefit Bainbridge Island charity

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — So this is what the recession has come to — a tour of chicken coops on Bainbridge Island.

It was no showcase of lavish estates or spectacular gardens. Instead, the island's recent "Tour de Coop" was a starkly modest public look at eight of the island's backyard chicken coops.

Long symbols of strapped times, chickens and their coops are enduring symbols of self-reliance, the good earth and the promise of never going hungry as long as there is a scritch or scratch beyond the kitchen door.

Fittingly, proceeds from the tour will go toward Helpline House, which is weathering a 30 percent increase in demand over last year for the food and social services it offers. Last month, 320 families received sustenance from Helpline's food bank, up from 270 in June 2008 and 246 in 2007, according to Joanne Tews, Helpline's executive director.

"It's a weekly occurrence to have residents come in who said they never expected to be on the receiving end of Helpline. They had always been donors," Tews said.

Longtime islander and tour organizer Jo Ann Trick wanted to raise money and give visitors inspiration to grow their own chicks and eat local. Hence, the tour was hatched.

"It's easier than raising a dog," Trick said.

The purchase of a ticket for the tour gave the holder a map of the coops located all over the island. After visiting the coops on their own, visitors were invited to meet up at Bay Hay for a party to toast the humble chicken.

Tour-goers were able to glimpse at an assortment of birds from Americanas to Aracaunas, and Delawares to New Hampshires. And the coops were just as varied.

Claudia McKinstry's coop for 20 was built intentionally crooked, by a group of fine woodworkers.

"You look at it, and you can't see it immediately. It starts shifting on you," said McKinstry, who loves chickens so much she paints them, and her works are often displayed on the island.

When not posing, her chickens produce eggs for the family and for sale, and manure for her expansive garden.

"So I use every bit of it," she said.

The tour lineup also included a coop called "the chicken palace" aside a 1901 farmhouse off Old Mill Road. Owners Tami Puu and Maurice Emery admitted to Trick they got carried away in embellishing plans for what was supposed to be a modest coop for 10.

Jill and Brian Arlt of Day Road showcased their movable, bottomless coop, called a tractor in coop culture.

Moving it around the yard, the chickens trim fresh vegetation and leave rich soil nutrients behind. When vacation time comes around, the coop conveniently fits in the back of a pickup so the couple can take their chickens to friends to be watched.

Architect Stephen Gibson used recycled doors and windows to build his Weaver Road coop. His brood of five gives up three eggs a day.

One broiler-producing coop was featured. A Madison Avenue farm run by Jeff Krueger and Russ Berg produced 200 chickens for neighbors last year.

But most coop owners allow their feathery wards to live out their days far from the gallows.

"Our point is that we will have an old chicken's home," Gibson said.

"They go on welfare and die of old age," McKinstry said.

Organizer Trick says recession or no recession, she's planning to make the island's Tour de Coop an annual event.

After all, there are as many as 400 of them on the island.