I think I revealed most of my chicken history in this show. It is an ongoing saga, though I am much more in control of my crazy love for chickens. I finally recycled all my old hatchery catalogs. Okay that’s not quite true as I kept one Murray McMurray catalog…just for reference…really. Oh how I love to look at the pictures – almost always paintings, by the way – of the different breeds in those catalogs. And no, I do not read them at night under the covers with a flashlight. That’s frowned upon. But oh my gosh, Delawares, Wyandottes, Polish, Cornish and Buff Orpingtons! You know what I’m talking about!
Anyway the song was inspired several years ago when a friend told me she fed her chickens the garden huckleberries (Solanum melanocerasum) she grew in her garden and I thought, I bet those chickens love her and would do anything for her.
The photo is mine. Those are some Ameraucana chicks that I purchased last spring. I couldn’t help myself! But anyway, listen, if you too like chickens and would like to add a book about the history of chickens to the shelf where you keep your “raising chickens the right way” books and your hatchery catalogs, I recommend Why Did the Chicken Cross the World by Andrew Lawler.
Petey says it is the year of the Desert Cottontail and tells us all about the furry little rascals that breed like rabbits.
I read in HORTUS THIRD that there are about 150 species of Vaccinium found in “cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere,” 40 of...
Petey jabbers on and on about some native bunch grasses. Fall is certainly the time to get out and visit the vast grasslands in...
