Chicken shopping!
We went chicken shopping today at a farm up the road. My goodness, those people had a lot of chickens!
My initial thought was Rhode Island Reds or Sussex Reds, because I used to live in Rhode Island and now I live in Sussex and I like red chickens. That’s the kind of penetrating analytical mind I’ve got.
But I was very taken with the Buff Orpingtons, a fluffy tan chicken that grows to the approximate size of a junior high school gymnasium. Uncle B took one look and his lip trembled. I think he was imagining tumbleweeds lazily drifting across the ruined dust of his vegetable patch.
So Pekin Bantams it is! These are cute little fuckers — about a quarter the size of an actual chicken — that lay teeny, tiny eggs. They look like feathery tea cozies (a tea cozy, for my Yankee brethren and cistern, is a nice warm sweater for your teapot. And yes, it really does keep the tea hot considerably longer).
Their signal characteristic: they are terrifyingly friendly. Lap chickens. The ones in the pen came flying over to see us and nibbled hopefully at my fingers, making happy chicken noises.
We didn’t bring any home with us. We’re going to get our act together and go back next week, if we can’t think of any reason why we shouldn’t.
And in six months, I’m ‘onna make you the smallest omelette you ever did see.
May 13, 2010 — 11:00 pm
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