My life in the bush of chickens

RD: "Big Eighties cool points if you get the allusion in the subject line without peeking!)"

I'm Byrnein', I'm Byrnein', for you...check out Byrne and Eno's brand-new collaboration after 27 years, just out last week:

nytimes.com/2008/08/17/arts/music/17pare.html

"I'm disappointed that the Flip video...is so herky-jerky"

Hey, "herky-jerky" virtually defined that whole New Wave tendency we so dug, c. 1977-83 - early XTC, Talking Heads, &c.

Rod could name his next chicken dish Herky-Jerky Chicken. Concrunchy Fried Chicken - CFC - is another possibility.

If Rod and Julie continue morphing unto Chicken Man ("He's everywhere, he's everywhere" - early-1970s FM-comedy feature "Chicken Man") and Chicken Lady (see Kids in the Hall for Mark McKinney's character thus), pretty soon we won't hear a peep out of them.

Word to your peeps.

Byrne/Eno

No offense meant, but I sure am glad my neighbors (here in surburbia) do not have livestock. Eeeek! The farming of crops I think is great. The chickens not so much.

"When they do run free, they usually head over to our fig tree"

Except when they're going to meet their lover down by the Eucalyptus Tree:

youtube.com/watch?v=HyvqWNBHV6g

"Exaxo."

Not to be speciesist - and chickens, take this comedy-fan's compliment, please - but there's something inherently funny, to me at any rate, about chickens, including the word itself, and phrases including it, e.g., "chicken tractor", "chicken sexer", "You can't milk a chicken", Colonel Sanders, Foghorn "I say, that's a joke, Son" Leghorn, roosters and their preternatural cockiness, calling cowards chicken, chicken feed...other animals don't come close: Cows? Dogs? Cats? Lions? Talking birds, though, get honorable mention - especially the late Alex, the renowned African Grey parrot who died last September, aged 31:

nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/11parrot.html

"Even up through last week, Alex was working with Dr. Pepperberg on compound words and hard-to-pronounce words. As she put him into his cage for the night last Thursday, she recalled, Alex looked at her and said: 'You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.'

"He was found dead in his cage the next morning, Dr. Pepperberg said."

So cute! I hope you get lots of eggs from them, and a few good stews when their egg-laying days are done.

Awww...they're so cute! Another advantage over factory farmed chickens is the variety. You'll notice that the eggs are as individual as your chickens, something you never see with store bought eggs.

Do you have to clip their wings? A couple of years ago, one of my neighbors had a chicken that kept flying over the fence. It was always in my yard, and I'd have to chase it back over there.

If you don't plan to eat them, you might work out an arrangement with someone else who raises chickens. Maybe there's someone in the "chicken loop" who would take your non-laying hen for the meat, and give you a new chick in return.

You'll notice that the eggs are as individual as your chickens, something you never see with store bought eggs.

My mom once had a couple or few hens that laid multi-colored "Easter eggs." A little disconcerting at first, but an egg all the same. Just make sure you wash and mildly disinfect any eggs you collect before using them.

If you ever get up to the dozen or so hen level, you'll start to collect more eggs than you'll use. Another thing Mom does is to make pickled eggs with dried cayennes and Seagram's whiskey. I can't eat them myself anymore for health reasons related to the alcohol, but I can just imagine the flavor.