If we did not keep chickens, my family would not have learned …
To laugh at the silly things that chickens do
To feed them corn from our hands and feel their pecking beaks
To be awakened early in the morning, by roosters crowing, not alarm clocks
To know you may need to outrun an overbearing rooster or stand up to him
To know you don’t need a rooster to have fresh eggs, you only need a hen
To observe a rooster catching a bug, just so he can feed it to a hen
To learn to care for those that cannot care for themselves
To build a pen to protect them from varmints and cold
To climb a tree to rescue them and carry them to the safety of the barn
To have fun watching them scurry after a grasshopper
To care for them when it is freezing cold, when they would rather be inside where it is warm
A Golden Phoenix hen and rooster with an Orloff rooster.
To see a hen hatch her eggs, which change into fuzzy chicks, and see her protect them with all her might
To be wary of a hen’s beak when gathering eggs from her nest
To show your favorite chicken at the county fair and win a ribbon
To enjoy the calamity of an audience scrambling to catch a chicken accidentally turned loose at the fair
To feel the loss when you lose one
Ordinary? I think not, I think Extraordinary.
