Warning: Given my 'druthers, I prefer to not be overly serious - or serious at all. Darn it, if I can't laugh at myself - and everthing around me - it just isn't worth getting out of bed in the morning.
As some know, I suffer from vertigo and hearing problems resulting from Meniere's disease, and it has become harder and harder for me to safely handle our Dominiques, because they are so active and run under my feet. I'm terrified I'm going to step on one or fall on one and break its legs or kill it.
On the other hand, chickens find the sight of someone lurching in circles before crashing down on their back by the apple tree, to be absolutely fascinating - or possibly hilarious. Finding oneself lying on one's back, one's head spinning, and lying still for twenty minutes, afraid to open one's eyes because one really feels like Alice en route to Wonderland and knows that opening one's eyes will reveal a world that looks suspiciously like the side of a top - and one's stomach will attempt to follow.... And then, when finally, after screwing up the courage to open one's eyes, one finds oneself contemplating a curious chicken standing on one's chest, looking right back at you with great seriousness, an effect that is only slightly damaged when said biddy decides to scratch her face with a foot while continuing her contemplation of your position or chooses instead to make it clear that she wants her treat and thinks it is very wrong of you to lie down on the job instead of giving her a bit of kale, or perhaps a blueberry or grape leaf.
Despite this, I went to the show looking for good Dominiques - for awhile I have had my eye on some incredibly lovely bantam Dominiques raised by a woman I shall refer to as "Jan", who may choose to reveal who she is if so inclined. I came home with an entirely different attitude and a lovely young pair of LF Javas.
The beautiful sheen of their feathers, their calmness and elegance, and the fact that they are alleged to be reasonable layers for backyard birds sold us on them. That and the fact that they are the first birds I have ever owned that are truly standard bred.
They will also aid in solving an embarrassing social issue in our neighborhood.
For a long time, between the Black Stars enthusiasm for laying, and the dogged steadiness of the Dominiques, we had saturated the local interest in free eggs on our block; a fact that became painfully apparent when I knocked on the door of a neighbor down the street, and she took one look at the bowl of eggs in my hands, and asked me if I had any extra zucchini for a change
This from a woman who locks her car in the church parking lot during zucchini season because, she insists, otherwise the squash seems to spontaneously erupt, already neatly bagged on her front seat.
Now, as a teenager, I had commercial White Leghorns laying away in the backyard. The flock was large enough, and their temperament was nasty enough, that one didn't really get attached. Their ideal social distance for ineractions with human beings seemed to be about 20 feet - they preferred to be at least 16' up the nearest tree while you remained with both feet firmly on the ground. I am quite convinced that they snickered among themselves and peered down suspiciously when some poor slob came out to try and run them in at night. I also firmly believe that they preferred providing a meal to a raccoon than having anything at all to deal with people. In fact, I have come to the very definite conclusion that back in the late 19th and early 20th Century, people from urban areas travelling across country on trains, looking out on the plum and other orchards where running hens was used as a means of pest control after foreign countries got snippy and refused to import US fruit sprayed with arsenical insecticides, quite likely came to believe that Leghorns, and eggs, grew on trees.
Having small flocks of American class birds, the sort that can be counted with one's shoes on, has caused me to fall to the level of naming each individual bird. In other words, I have become a wee bit oversentimental.
