Love Thy Neighbor?

One year ago my neighbors behind me decided to join the Urban Chicken movement and bought seven hens. I was very excited about this news because I always joked with many of my friends that I wanted to own an exotic chicken. 

When they began this little experiment they had a custom coop built. It was about three feet high and four feet wide. It was painted in a classic yellow with white trim. They stored it behind the their house near the door to the garage... it was so in sync with the backyard and (might I add) perfectly blocked by the large maple tree on our property line... perfect. 

A month later, they began to clear the area along the back of the property. They cut down and pulled out many trees. I was a little sad to see the natural border cleared and quickly disappearing; but I adjusted, telling myself that it was good to have some of the dead wood and weed trees out of the way. 

chicken coop shanty

Then, about three months later (right before my garden party), they moved the yellow and white coop back against the cleared property line and they built two chain-link pens onto it... one large... one medium. Together they measure about 12 feet wide by 6 feet high. Now, I can make the best out of a lot of situations, but I have not been able to get beyond this eye soar. As the seasons began to change, pieces of wood board, tarps, and stacks of hay started to appear. the more that were added, the more the leaves on the trees and the color that helped camouflage them began to disappear.

So here I am, Spring 2011, looking out my back window every morning, trying to imagine how I can disguise the view. Some of the ideas I have so far are either adding fast growing pines or building a trellis of sorts. If anyone has additional thoughts, I would love to hear what solutions you might have. It is a mostly shady area and sits between a really large cherry tree and an even larger shaggy maple... thoughts?