Chooks.

When my mom passed two years ago, Bill and I hemmed and hawed whether we should buy her house and move ourselves and Henry to points east. We had both spend the majority of our adult years in one place and fully and proudly embraced what it meant to call oneself a San Franciscan.

We felt very chicken of the movement suburban.

Perhaps I could get over being chicken if I could have chickens.

Yes.

We're now part of the Suburban Chicken Movement.


I'm happiest when digging in the yard with my three fluffy bottom chooks, Stella, June, and Darling. I use my trowel to dig up weeds and yet another acorn that has began its determination to be an oak tree and they scurry with their little chicken assumptions to the spot of earth that I have uncovered. Surely I, the bearer of all treats, must know where the best grubs are hiding. Left foot scratch, scratch, right foot scratch, scratch, look, look, repeat. As an observant friend of mine said after encountering the chicken sisters, "they're endlessly entertaining." (That may sound like sarcasm, but she was being sincere . . . and correct.)



And of course there's the egg thing. I eat an egg a day now (the AMA says it's ok). How cool is it to say thank you to the being that laid your breakfast? And who knew that the whites of a cooked fresh egg are thick and dense like steak and the yolks are like a brand new super special never before seen Crayola color? And the shape of each egg is slightly different. Some are pointy, and occasionally one is a huge Frankenegg. And who knew chickens love meat, even live meat, even mouse meat? Endless edutainment.