The 2012 Tour D’Coop will be on Saturday, May 19.
The 2012 Henside d’Cock-Tail will be on Sunday, April 29.
More information to come early next year.

The Tour d’Coop was featured on News 14 Carolina this week. Rick Bennett talked with Tracey Early on Monday to discuss the tour and how it benefits Urban Ministries.
Watch the segment on News14.com

By popular demand, Tour D’Coop T-shirts will be available for sale this year. The shirts are $20 for adults (sizes S, L and XL) and $10 for kids (S, M and L). They will be on sale on the day of the tour at the Whole Foods and Steven B. Andreaus, DDS, PA ticket locations.
All profits from the sales of the shirts go to Urban Ministries of Wake County.

View the mapThe featured coops page is now updated with descriptions of all 19 coops (including 8 that are new to the tour) along with pictures of many of them. There’s also a map that shows the approximate locations of each coop as well as the locations where you can pick up tickets with the coop addresses on the day of the tour. So you can now start to plan which coops to visit on May 21.

When: Sunday May 1, 2011 6 – 9pm
Where: At the home of Wayne Freeman and Cronin Byrd: 300 Ramblewood Dr. Raleigh, NC
The Cock-Tail party will kick off the 2011 Tour d’Coop. This home, which will be featured on the National Garden Conservancy Tour this fall, is a haven for 26 chickens, amazing coops and magical gardens. Guests will enjoy drinks, delicious food and a silent auction filled with surprises.
The Cock-Tail party and Tour benefit our partner, Urban Ministries of Wake County. Your support of the party, whether through a sponsorship, ticket purchase or an auction donation, will help Urban Ministries continue to provide the basic necessities of life: food, shelter and medical care to 23,000 of our neighbors each year. We hope you will partner with us to build a stronger and more compassionate community.
Tickets are $25.00 per person.
You may be a host sponsor for $100. This includes 2 tickets and your name on event materials.
Organizational sponsorships are available.
Tickets can be purchased on the Tour d’Coop site.
To purchase tickets over the phone, please call Alisa Broadwater on the Urban Ministries staff if you want to pay with credit card – her phone number is 919-256-2171. Her e-mail address is abroadwater@urbanmin.org.
Or if you want to pay with a check, please make it to Urban Ministries of Wake County ($25 per ticket) and in the memo line write HENside D’COCK-Tail Party – P.O. Box 26476, Raleigh, NC 27611.
For more information, please contact: Kirsten Reberg-Horton at kirstenrh@yahoo.com or Laura Ridgeway at lridgeway@urbanmin.org.
This is an adult-only event
HOST SPONSORS:
• Wayne Freeman and Cronin Byrd
• Dr. Stephen and Kim Andreaus
• Phronsie H. Dial
• Gaugert Financial
• Dr. Andrew Cook, Jr./Dr. David Bailey: Garner Family Eye Center
• Jeana Myers and Will Hooker
• Ilene and Larry Holmes
• Kalmia Landscape Design: Kirsten Reberg-Horton
• Dr. David and Fran Miller
• Marillyn Nations
• Bev and Chuck Norwood
• Ruth and Al Reberg
• Diane and Dave Rodger
• Drs. Gerald and Mary Sibrack
• Seaboard ACE Hardware
• Danita Morgan and Chris White
• Laura Ridgeway

WHEN: Saturday, June 4, 2011, 10:00 a.m. OR Sunday, June 5, 2011, 2:00 p.m. OR Monday, June 6, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Room 159, Kilgore Hall, NC State University
COST: A fee of $5 per person will be requested. (No pre-registration required.)
This presentation by long-time chicken-keeper Bob Davis will confirm that keeping backyard chickens is both desirable and attainable. Chickens produce eggs, make wonderful pets, and provide an earth connection for their humans. Details of their care will be covered, including sources of birds, housing, feeding, and health.
Bob will present the ‘Chicken Keeping 101’ talk on three separate dates and times. It is the same talk each time, so you need only attend one. The talk lasts about 1.5 hours, depending on questions, with time for further questions at the end, so you might want to allow about two hours. Please try to arrive a little early, so that the class can start on time.
Free parking is available in the Brooks Lot on the corner of Brooks and Hillsborough. Kilgore Hall is directly across Hillsborough Street from the parking lot (bamboo structures in front). Room 159 is located in the center of the building on the first floor.

While visitors may not realize it, coop owners spend many hours all year preparing their yards and coops for the tour. We mulch paths, trim bushes, and add new plants to our gardens. Some of us give our hens baths. Some of us seed our yards and then forbid our families from even thinking about a touch-football game until May 21st. Some of us do last-minute, night before projects that leave us tired and a bit punchy during the tour.
At my house, we make a list each year of what did and did not work after the tour. In the haze of post-tour euphoria we blithely add ambitious tasks to the list. In my family last year’s list had the following items:
1. start beans early inside so garden looks nicer
2. add second run for hens
3. find shady area to talk to groups
4. get it to rain!!!!
5. wider paths!!!!
6. photographer!!!!
7. top secret fun thing!!!!
Obviously, we were a bit delirious. And excited! Look at all those exclamation points!
We make the list, exclamation points and all, because if we don’t I will piddle in my garden until the week before the tour and then I will embark on a non-stop, no sleep garden renovation. Actually, even with the list there is a slight chance I’ll come up with my best idea ever the day before the tour and then stay up super late executing it. The list is my family’s attempt to minimize that last-minute, late-night rush.
Now, with the warm late winter days we are finally getting that list out and beginning to tackle it. I have already handled #1 by purchasing my bean seeds. I hope to start them in pots inside soon so that they will twine around our bamboo trellises. If I start them in the ground in my usual way they’ll be barely tendrils by the tour date.
Items #2, 3 and 5 are proving difficult. We’d like a second run for the hens to show off in. I want to widen the paths in our garden to accommodate groups and not sweat while I talk to people. The coop is located in an area that receives shade in the middle of the day but unfortunately the area around the coop, where I stand and talk to groups for several hours on tour day, is just outside the shade. Short of an amazing growth spurt in an ancient crab-apple tree, nothing will add shade to this area. I am considering some type of interestingly constructed bamboo shade (maybe planted with beans?) but there is a really good chance this will be a last-minute project. Widening the paths and adding hen runs also involves a bit of a challenge as I hate to give up valuable gardening spots to foot traffic no matter what kind of feet they are. Since the tour is just one day, and our hens often run in the entire yard, those two items may or may not happen.
Item #4 is rain. Rain. Yeah, I put that on the list. Did I mention the euphoria, delirium and exhaustion?
Item #6 is on my wish list for all the events in my life. I want a photographer to stand by and take very flattering pictures of the hens, you, the garden, even me. This is pretty much in the fantasy category, but I put it on the list anyway AND I gave it exclamation points.
Oh, that ‘top secret fun thing’ on the list? There is a really good chance that that item will be my Up All Night project. If I do it, trust me, you’ll be able to tell what it was. The paint may still be wet.
I’ll see you on May 21st.