The Poultry Capers

Dear Diary,

Today I went to a "Poultry Swap". Well, it was sort of a swap except I don't exactly, or even specifically, have any chickens or roosters or runner ducks or crazy white fluffy chickens that sound like roosters to swap. But, you know, I'd really like one.

Did you know that chicken eggs are either white or blue and that the brown ones are only brown because they're coated in something when they come out? I missed that part - the part about what it was exactly that they're coated in. I don't think she said "shit". 'They're coated in "shit", that's why they're brown.' Nope. She didn't say that.

But, unfortunately, I was feeling kind of hot-tired-lazy today so I really didn't ask that many questions. It's not as if I was writing a story. I wasn't working so to be honest after I made a few feeble attempts to learn something, and after I threw out a few seeds of conversational corn so to speak, I discovered that poulty people aren't really all that chatty. At least not today.

And, now, as life would have it, I'm having chicken for dinner because, well, hey, it was unfrozen and the Best Before Date was May 25th so what choice do I have? Yet another good reason to become a vegetarian.

I ended up at this rather unlikely place (like going to a children's birthday party without a kid) because I didn't really have any plans today.

It was taking place at The Farmer's Institute. I don't know why they call it that: Farmer's Institute. It's such a lofty title. Was that some Salt Springer's warped sense of humour?

I mean as soon as you hear the word - Institute - you expect to see a bunch of guys with tweed jackets over their overalls carrying a chicken under one arm, a text book under the other as they head off to milk a cow, and give a lecture to a bunch of First Year farmers or something. Institute? It's just a collection of buildings and stuff where the Fall Fair takes place unless I'm missing something.

I was wandering from sets of poultry on display in the back of one pick-up truck to the next and I kept having these weird flashbacks to Robson Street in Vancouver where I used to live.

On this same type of Sunday, when I might have had no plans or just felt the need to be with my own thoughts, I'd sometimes take a walk up Robson.

And, today, standing out behind the pick-ups at the Farmer's Institute my warped little brain kept providing me with somewhat comical juxtapositions between the storefronts on Robson Street and the poultry in cages, on display, awaiting eager buyers. Don't ask me why?

And, as I was standing there I thought to myself, I fit here, behind the pickup trucks staring at the chickens more than I fit on Robson Street. Sure, I might not own a chicken (and it did take every bit of will power not to bring home a Runner Duck) but I really enjoyed looking at that poultry more than I typically enjoyed looking in those Robson storefronts or walking with the flocks who meander like baby ducklings down Vancouver's well-known street.

I mean, heck, gee, shucks, I even provided entertainment to some old farmer when I asked him what kind of egg was sitting all by itself in the back of his truck in the middle of a basket. Ostrich? Osprey?

He picked it up and said, "Plastic. It's a plastic egg. See the line in the middle?" he said to me, the complete moron who was saved by the fact that I can laugh at myself and he laughed at me and with me as I was laughing at myself. Idiot!!!!

But, after all that, I have to admit that my favorite chicken (or I guess it's a rooster?) was the little white ceramic one sitting in the back of his truck, in a little brown basket on the old fashioned oilcloth.

For me, that little ceramic hen, chicken, rooster or whatever the heck it is, is a throwback from a simpler time when kitchens had ceramic chickens and egg cups got used.

That little piece of man-made poultry just shrieks out "Welcome to the Country" louder than a cockadoodledoo at the crack of dawn.