We Want Chickens

In the meadow is a remnant of some wooden structure and a rusted wire fence. For 15 years I've imagined it was once a chicken coop. I'd love chickens. A coop, a fence, and some chickens--February is buy-your-chicks time--and my neighbor and I would have lovely fresh eggs from beautiful glossy chickens (I want guinea hens, too, and those gorgeous Polish chickens with plumes that cover their eyes so they can't see) and intense, devoted relationships with each chicken, including the rooster, who'd never chase or bite, and whose voice in the morning I love.

Coop: Easy. Buy it. (Worry later about cleaning and heating it.)

Fence: Not so easy. Friend of mine lost chickens every night until he cut a door into an oil drum where they slept, and even so kept a firearm handy and ran outside barefoot and buck-naked to defend his chickens when he had to. Mine would need ample space enclosed on all sides including the top: raccoon-proof, hawk-proof, coyote- and fox-proof, deer-proof, dog-and-cat-proof, and thief-proof. (Demetrius said, "Everything loves to eat chicken.") Somehow fix it so moles, voles, dogs and prairie dogs can't tunnel in. Failure would mean the trauma and gore of a chicken massacre and I could probably survive, emotionally, only one such event.

Chickens: Easy; buy them. Some of each kind. Maybe buy them mail-order, and get chickens in the mail! (Worry later about mites, diseases, hen-pecking, worms, lice, and weather extremes.) But I vow I will have my own chickens someday.

My Peeps

Easter weekend had a theme. My sister Rose, brother-in-law, niece, and her boyfriend (they're 17) visited on Easter weekend and the niece had to see the baby chicks available for purchase at Dickey Bub's, so we went, and to our surprise some of the chicks had been dyed for Easter. A young employee held a chick so I could get a closeup. And my relatives love fossil-hunting and while out digging around my sister found a piece of Peep-shaped sandstone.

Not only this but today at Wal-Mart, chief among the leftover, 50-percent-off candy was rows and rows of multicolored marshmallow Peeps. One year I microwaved a Peep to see what would happen. It swells and grows bigger and bigger, about quadrupling in size, and then begins to burn.

The Mysterious Number Twelve

I'd like to roll on the floor ecstatic every time I receive from Terri's son Patrick a dozen fresh eggs, pastel-pated and stamped with their dates--these from early December--and part of the thrill is the fact of the dozen. In a base-10 culture like ours, why do eggs come in dozens? Why are there 12 hours on the clock? Remember learning to tell time, how intricate it was? Why 12 months in a year? 12 Apostles? 12 inches in a foot?

It turns out 12 is a special number, long ago agreed to be more versatile than 10. Ten can be neatly divided only by five or two; 12 can be divided by six, three, two, three, or four, for maximum possibilities when packaging, shipping, and retailing, and seating friends at table. The concept of "a dozen" (the word is from Old French dozain, from the Latin duodecim "twelve" from duo, "two" plus decem, "ten") is thus far older than its name, which appears in French around 1300. A dozen is brilliant for eggs. Ten wouldn't seem like enough, and 14 would be too many.

What, am I hard up for thrills this winter that a dozen eggs will thrill me? No! Nothing is prettier than a fresh egg except 12 fresh eggs, beautifully and naturally tinted and cradled like gems. Happy Eastern Orthodox Christmas today. I was raised Eastern Orthodox. The calendar we use diverges from the standard Gregorian calendar by 13 days. Thirteen is another whole story.

Pick Up Some Chicks

Every year the hardware store carries baby chicks, not for Easter (that's four weeks away) but for people to buy, raise, and get eggs from, and finally eat. That's just a fact. It's also a fact that a zinc tub full of squeaking baby chicks, all looking like they're made of yellow plush, melts my heart. $1.35 each....

You Drive What?

I tried to think of things to say about this delivery car topped with a giant chicken parked at the gas station/restaurant in Doolittle, MO, along I-44. But at last I must admit: I'm speechless.

Dirty Dozen

Organic eggs? Sure as yer born! So organic and so very free-range that the hens lay them all over creation: in grass, mud, you name it; and a human being, my friend Duke, who has and loves his chickens, then has to go on a genuine egg hunt. The eggs stay fresh without refrigeration for a while, protected by a special invisible coating that you shouldn't wash off until ready to use; it gets washed off when eggs are processed for grocery stores. These you could leave on the counter just as they are for several days. But if washed, into the fridge they must go.

Mom's Roosters

I'm told Mom's rooster collection began with a pair of salt and pepper shakers...and this aint all of em, either. I can understand why people like roosters: confident, crowing, pretty, winged, masculine, symbol of the daytime.

Eating Well is the Best

If you lived here, or if you came over, I would take you to town and buy you some Lions Club fundraiser barbecue, a must-have during the spring weekends around here, Fri and Sat. 10 a.m. to dusk, sold from a yellow trailer that backs onto rows of men, volunteers for the cause, sweatin' it over the grills. What would you like? I favor the pork steaks -- hard to do well -- but will never turn down a bratwurst ($6 buys you two). Nor will I ignore a half a barbecued chicken on my styrofoam plate. Midwestern men are the best barbecuers in the world.

Dinner is Served

Knights of Columbus barbecued in the parking lot by the ballfields today, and at dusk I got my dinner there, and would like to share it with you, so here it is, the Midwest's finest meal: Barbecued chicken with sauce, corn on the cob, cole slaw dressed with oil and vinegar, and baked beans (not too sweet. I like to slice a jalapeno into them).

Leave the city. Y'all come on over for dinner -- I'll buy you your own dish of barbecue, just like this one -- and you will know true bliss. Say grace first! ("Mumble mumble thy bounty, mumble our Lord Amen.") Happy first day of summer. I love your company. To my British and Aussie readers: This is what we eat in America.

Sprang Chickens

Ready to buy? $2.19 apiece at Dickey Bub's. They sell them every spring, for one week. Well fed and warm under a big light they were peeping like it's goin out of style. The initials stand for chicken breeds: RIR = Rhode Island Red; BO = Buff Orpington; RSL = Red Sex Link; click on the link if you think I'm funnin' you. Also called Red Stars. What is it in my brain always makes me so happy to see baby birds, fawns, kittens -- any kind of babies? "Heavy Breed" means they're good for both eggs and meat.