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A little chicken history.

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You may have noticed I have a glamour chicken as my avatar.  (Yes, there is such a thing.  We’re gorgeous and we know it )  But in case you wondered why….

It started back in 2010 when our new farming neighbors got a few chickens. I’d never spent much time around that particular bird, I mean come on… I’m originally from New Jersey. The only chicken I knew came in a bucket with biscuits and slaw.

 

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But they looked so cute pecking around the yard that I started visiting them, and feeding them, and photographing them and generally making feathered friends. So when our neighbors wanted to go out of town for Christmas that year? Of course I opened my big fat mouth and said, Sure! We’ll take care of them.

Did I mention it was Christmas time?

In Maine…?

 

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I had to drive down the road, then down their driveway and then down an ever narrowing path to find them. In the snow. In 12 degree temperatures.

 

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Their coop was actually a little house, but damn.

 

 

Warm and cozy it wasn’t.

 

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There were bags of feed and corn in the building, but no water so I had to lug gallons twice a day.

 

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And look up.

 

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(Always remember to look up if you don’t want a head full of chicken poo.)

I enjoyed the temporary chicken duty and would pull up a hay bale and sit happily with the little cluckers for a spell every morning and late afternoon…  thinking,  I want chickens of our own! They’re so cute!

 

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And fun to watch!”

 

 

But remember I said “we” would take care of them?

 

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The “we” kicked in when December brought a snow storm that made driving down their unplowed road and path impossible. And oh yeah, the wind chills were 17 below.

 

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That’s when the “we” turned into my husband…. with the “me” part taking pictures from our kitchen window.

He did it, but he wasn’t happy. And he let me know how unhappy every time I mentioned getting chickens of our own from then on. That’s what comes from being married so long… they know you too well. Yours truly isn’t going outside in a 17 below wind chill for anyone… cute, feathered or otherwise. So while chicken duty continued whenever our neighbors went out of town, my dream of a backyard coop died that day.

But back to the avatar explanation – in the Multiply days, I would blog chicken pictures.

 

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And riveting chicken videos like this:

 

 

And somehow, it just became a thing.

I was the crazy chickenless chicken lady.  People sent me chicken memes, chicken poems, chicken calendars, chicken hats, chicken socks….

 

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Chicken purses….

 

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And chicken shoes.  (Admit it, you want a pair.)

If it was chicken related, I got it.

Chicken duty evolved and expanded over the years….. the few birds became a flock, and the flock became a swarm and then it got out of hand.

But that’s for another blog.

 

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29 thoughts on “A little chicken history.”

  8. Awwww I still think you need some backyard chickens of your own. If you prepare your coop well ahead of time it’s really not that awful taking care of them in the cold. It was -55 windchill here and the most annoying part was keeping their water thawed. Heck, my ducks didn’t even go in their house the whole time it was cold and they’re completely fine!

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  9. A trip into your blogging past brought me to this bit of history. What a chicken you are. Afraid of 17 below temperatures. Every winter we here in the real north get minus 40 C temperatures (equals 40 below F) for weeks on end. That is before factoring the wind chill! And, no, I do not live at the North Pole. There are still another 30 degrees of lattitude above me. Imagine Santa’s temperatures if he were real. His sled would be frozen in the ice, and his reindeer would not be flying anywhere, not in winter! They’d be heading south with the other snowbirds — in October!

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    1. Maine winters are getting milder, and the fact that I can see the change in my lifetime is quite frightening. We haven’t had a serious stretch of below zero in many years..

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      3. Being right on the ocean, this does not surprise me. The Arctic Ocean is growing larger by metres every summer, and the ice in winter is not always thick enough anymore to hold polar bears up.
        I live inland, so the effects of the ocean are not as noticeable, but even so, we notice.

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