mmmm...it's a quiet friday evening, and i'm enjoying the beginning of a four day weekend (i have tuesday off...neener neener neeeeeeeeener). just got off the phone with a new/old friend, i'm on my second beer (raw food cleanse be damned!), and the house is hushed, leaving me with my thoughts, and you.
what are your plans for the weekend? tomorrow i'm hoping to go to the marin county fair. no...it won't be as cool as the county UN-fair that you may remember from a couple posts back. BUT. this fair will have livestock competitions...and you know what that means.....FANCY CHICKENS!
hooray! plus really trashy food and rides that will make me completely ill. awesome.
when i was a kid, we actually had a chicken named 'fancy'. she was goldish beige and had fluffy feathers on her feet, thus the name. she was part of a larger flock of chickens, who were my constant companions from the age of 5 on up. all were tame and were kept for their eggs (and their friendship) only. for the most part they were free range, and slept in a large persimmon tree at night. as i got into my teens, they eventually all got picked off by some very clever owls and foxes. (i had murderous visions of staying up all night with my father's shot gun, crouched behind the large metal feed can, ready to pop the fucking head off of the goddamn perpetrator. but such is the natural way of things). they had a little morning ritual of strutting down the hill to the bottom of my bedroom window, where they would proceed to preen. and cluck. and cackle. and kick rocks against my wall during enthusiastic dust baths. oh they knew it was my room. i didn't mind at all. as a matter of fact, at night, whenever a neighborhood dog would find sport in chasing them out of their tree, they always came running past my window, screaming for their lives, and i would immediately respond by leaping out of bed, banging on the window and screeching my head off, then racing out the door, desperate to do anything to save my friends.
but the very best part of my on-going, fowl love affair, were the early spring mornings when the clucks of the hens would change into insistent, sweet, coercive cooings, followed by almost indistinct, high pitched, "peepeepeepeepeepeppepepepep". and then i would leap out of bed for a different reason, yelling, "they've hatched!! they've hatched!" and fly out the door in my pajamas, to welcome the feverishly awaited new additions. and i wouldn't be satisfied until i had picked up and examined every last fuzzy handful. the next few weeks would be taken up with name giving and taming and general bliss. 'fancy' chicken was the best mother of all, and we often gave chicks to her when other mothers just weren't up to snuff.
i've often felt silly, or stupid, as an adult, thinking of my bond with my chickens. i used to disclaimer it, not able to stand tall in my belief that, no, really! chickens aren't stupid at all! feeling ridiculous for spending my summer days reading them stories, and following the roosters around, trying to figure out what they were saying to the hens. but now, i just feel sad, that this animal that many of us come into contact with everyday (as food) is so incredibly misunderstood. or just not even understood, period. just written off as an expendable creature, stupid enough to justify our abuse of their lives.
i'll tell you this tho. nothing, and i mean NOTHING, beats holding a warm, feathery hen in your arms, and hearing her contendly coo as her eyes close and you look down at her and feel her heart beating against your chest.
what are your plans for the weekend? tomorrow i'm hoping to go to the marin county fair. no...it won't be as cool as the county UN-fair that you may remember from a couple posts back. BUT. this fair will have livestock competitions...and you know what that means.....FANCY CHICKENS!
hooray! plus really trashy food and rides that will make me completely ill. awesome.
when i was a kid, we actually had a chicken named 'fancy'. she was goldish beige and had fluffy feathers on her feet, thus the name. she was part of a larger flock of chickens, who were my constant companions from the age of 5 on up. all were tame and were kept for their eggs (and their friendship) only. for the most part they were free range, and slept in a large persimmon tree at night. as i got into my teens, they eventually all got picked off by some very clever owls and foxes. (i had murderous visions of staying up all night with my father's shot gun, crouched behind the large metal feed can, ready to pop the fucking head off of the goddamn perpetrator. but such is the natural way of things). they had a little morning ritual of strutting down the hill to the bottom of my bedroom window, where they would proceed to preen. and cluck. and cackle. and kick rocks against my wall during enthusiastic dust baths. oh they knew it was my room. i didn't mind at all. as a matter of fact, at night, whenever a neighborhood dog would find sport in chasing them out of their tree, they always came running past my window, screaming for their lives, and i would immediately respond by leaping out of bed, banging on the window and screeching my head off, then racing out the door, desperate to do anything to save my friends.
but the very best part of my on-going, fowl love affair, were the early spring mornings when the clucks of the hens would change into insistent, sweet, coercive cooings, followed by almost indistinct, high pitched, "peepeepeepeepeepeppepepepep". and then i would leap out of bed for a different reason, yelling, "they've hatched!! they've hatched!" and fly out the door in my pajamas, to welcome the feverishly awaited new additions. and i wouldn't be satisfied until i had picked up and examined every last fuzzy handful. the next few weeks would be taken up with name giving and taming and general bliss. 'fancy' chicken was the best mother of all, and we often gave chicks to her when other mothers just weren't up to snuff.
i've often felt silly, or stupid, as an adult, thinking of my bond with my chickens. i used to disclaimer it, not able to stand tall in my belief that, no, really! chickens aren't stupid at all! feeling ridiculous for spending my summer days reading them stories, and following the roosters around, trying to figure out what they were saying to the hens. but now, i just feel sad, that this animal that many of us come into contact with everyday (as food) is so incredibly misunderstood. or just not even understood, period. just written off as an expendable creature, stupid enough to justify our abuse of their lives.
i'll tell you this tho. nothing, and i mean NOTHING, beats holding a warm, feathery hen in your arms, and hearing her contendly coo as her eyes close and you look down at her and feel her heart beating against your chest.
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Remy