coop, craft, and beginning
what building your first coop can teach you about starting something that holds
When I built my first chicken coop this spring, I didn’t expect it to reshape me too. But that’s the nature of real work — it forms us as we try to form it.
This isn’t just about chickens. It’s about what it means to build something that holds — especially when the land leads.
Some beginnings don’t look like strategy.
They look like dirt under your nails. A plank cut too short. A coop door that sticks — again.
You go in with a plan. But you stay for the learning — if you choose to stay, instead of chasing the next answer promising ease.
Not the kind of learning found in startup handbooks or perfectly lit videos. The kind that shows up when the ground shifts underfoot, and you move the whole foundation three feet to the left because the spirit of the land didn’t want the weight there.
This isn’t just a story about chickens. It’s about building new things that endure — and learning to listen before you lay the first beam, and to keep listening three hours later when you realize you haven’t looked up — much less taken a sip of water.
The Blueprint Always Shifts
No one tells you the land decides. That what looks perfect on paper buckles the moment it meets the root systems of what came before you.
The coop — like a business — began to shape itself. Not in rebellion, but in dialogue.
It taught me what to release. Including the illusion that this was mine to control.
Structures have their own life to live — you’re there to tend it.
Eventually, you trust the soil more than the spreadsheet.
The Craft of Tending
My hands remember clay — especially the years spent studying Japanese ceramics. Those studios didn’t just teach technique; they shaped how I move through the world.
In Japan, there’s a word: shokunin. It means more than “craftsperson.” It speaks to a posture — a lifelong devotion to refinement, where the work shapes you as much as you shape it. Not just “craftsperson,” but one who gives themselves to the work — not for praise, but because the work itself is sacred. The work is your teacher.
When the hinge squeals again, I don’t reach for a hammer. I pause.
Because the chickens deserve a door that opens with grace. And so do the people who’ll depend on what you build. You begin to realize: how you enter can shape the entire day.
So the entrance takes four times longer than planned — because it asked you to.
The Kind of Care We Need
You don’t need a title, degree, or neurotypicality to lead. Sometimes, leadership looks like sanding an edge no one else will notice — so no one catches their hand on it later.
No ceremony. No spotlight. Just sanding.
Someone has a better day because of a detail they’ll never see. That’s the kind of care we need.
Reality, Unfiltered
This isn’t a story of triumph. It’s one of continuation.
What’s ancient is the most innovative.
Then, the feed store raises prices. The deadline moves closer. And the coop — or the strategy, or the dream — still doesn’t fit the way you hoped.
But you release your perfect vision for today. Because the hens need shelter. And the people need care. It’s not perfect. It’s sufficient. And in this world, that is a form of faith.
It’s not failure. It’s what stewardship looks like.
It’s what all of us feel in the beginning — but no commercial will ever tell you that.
What Chickens and Stakeholders Have in Common
They all want shelter. To be tended to before the wind rises. To know someone has noticed — and will adjust course in time. Not with force. But with forethought. With care, rooted in awareness.
That’s what earns trust.
Final Notes from the Yard
There is a rhythm to this kind of work. Not fast. Not tidy. But honest.
A business — like a coop — asks more of you than attention. It asks you to seek permission. From the wind. From the hinges. From the hens themselves. Then — to adjust. So the hens stop stumbling on the roost. So you’re not placing the coop in a crosswind.
And when they say no — listen. The land has a lot to say, if you’re willing to look around, and up.
Not every day feels meaningful. But some arrive unannounced.
A hen you’ve raised since she was one day old settles into the nesting box you sanded by hand — the one you lined with lavender, harvested and dried in slow, careful bundles. Not because you had to. But because you wanted her to have somewhere peaceful to rest. Somewhere that smelled like care.
You don’t plan for these moments. You just prepare the way.
And then, one morning — without fanfare — life lays itself down in what you built.
The air stills. And just at the edge of your attention, you notice it: an egg. The first one — ever.
You realize it’s the summer solstice — and feel, somehow, that hen did too.
On the day with the longest light, your heart lights up in a new way. You feel it — in your chest, and in the water rising in your eyes:
You built something that holds.