My daughter Angelica Rose (7) loves chickens. She loves them very much. Our own flock of laying hens is cared for almost entirely by her these days. She does the feeding, watering and egg gathering. She lets them out in the morning and locks them in their coop at night. She gives lengthy discourses on the merits and drawbacks of different breeds to most anyone who will listen. And she draws chickens. Boy howdy does she draw chickens.
She is currently putting the finishing touches on her first book about chickens which she calls The Happy Family. In this story there is a world populated by sentient chickens. A bachelor rooster sets out one day from his apartment in Chicken City and comes across a lovely hen who is weeping by a fountain. They fall in love and start a little family. Then, for some reason, they get into a ship and travel to earth where they are thrown in a Chicken coop and have to escape back to their own world with the help of the earth chickens.
The story closes with a new batch of eggs beginning to hatch and the words “It’s always the sign of life.”
Here are just a few more random chicken pictures that have found their way to my desk (you can click to enlargify):
