Friday, April 25, 2008

The Chicken

As I was walking down Stanton Street early one Sunday morning, I saw a chicken a few yards ahead of me. I was walking faster than the chicken, so I gradually caught up. By the time we approached Eighteenth Avenue, I was close behind. The chicken turned south on Eighteenth. At the fourth house along, it turned in at the walk, hopped up at the front steps, and rapped sharply on the metal storm door with its beak. After a moment, the door opened and the chicken went in.
From 'True Tales of American Life' edited by Paul Auster

What I like about keeping hens is if you get waylayed, at the pub for instance, they will just put themselves to bed.


The Great Aunts after whom our hens have been named, here on a picnic with Uncle Clifford, Gramma Colwell and Uncle Frank.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great hats. Why don't people dress like that for picnics anymore?

Jeremy said...

Lovely post, and while I don't want to rain on your parade, I will just recall that our chickens were quite capable of putting themselves to bed, but somehow never got the hang of closing the trap door. I don't even know whether they tried. But they paid dearly, with their lives. I felt so bad ...

Misshathorn said...

Q - You're right, I need a picnic hat.
Jeremy - Thank you for the word of warning. I've been watering around their enclosure with male urine to put Monsieur Reynard off the scent. Oh, and my Kokopelli membership and lettuce seeds arrived in the post today! So thanks again.