- March 28, 2024
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Chickens are everywhere.
You can do the chicken dance at most weddings. You can play chicken in fighter jets, souped-up racecars, even on playgrounds. When it comes with waffle fries and has a ‘fil-a’ on the end, chicken can be at the center of a societal battle over what constitutes a marriage. Chickens, one way or another, are often in the spotlight.
I have some direct knowledge of chickens, as when I was a kid growing up in North Carolina and we lived on a ‘farm’ — we had a great old barn, a horse and a pony, a pond with ducks — I got a small rooster from a neighbor. I named him Brooster and he often took to a dogwood tree near the house at night. Never knowing when to stop, I soon had many more I kept at the barn. Many more.
I was a weird kid. My mother, who now receives this paper each week, surely started to nod her head upon reading that line. But it’s true; so, I’ll own it. Weird kids are how you get weird adults. If my partner ever read what I write, his head would be nodding as well. My chickens were all pets, and I don’t believe we ever ate one of their eggs, for that would have eliminated the possibility of a new baby chicken. They were my pets, nothing else. Food was what you got at the grocery store.
Chickens come in varieties most will never know about. “Silkies” have light, fluffy hair. “Topnots” have large feathered wigs. I named them all, had an Elvis and Priscilla, other characters from TV shows and movies. When I met last week with Rachel Whited-Smith, the initiator of the effort to allow backyard chickens in Winter Park, she knew all about these others types of fowl, even told me of “designer hens,” which are now kept in some New York apartments. She likes to name her chickens, as well, but she’s a big believer in eating the eggs.
Rachel, 24, meets me at a lunch stop on Aloma to discuss the Winter Park Backyard Chicken Initiative’s efforts. She’s a fashion photographer by trade, looks the artsy part in plain black T-shirt, orange and red scarf, studded leather belt and Birkenstocks. She’s excited to tell me all about the effort, takes in stride silly questions I like to throw in to keep things interesting. Original recipe or extra crispy? Scrambled or sunny-side-up? If there are only hens and no roosters, do they at least get to go on Match.com dates? She responds, continues seriously, undeterred.
She tells me of her sister-in-law in Raleigh, N.C., one of the “greenest cities in the country, there are community gardens everywhere. They’re allowed to have chickens. So she had chickens, and she was telling me about them at a family reunion and I thought, that sounds awesome.”
Rachel is armed with statistics, photos, tells me of chicken coops available at Williams-Sonoma, of a similar effort now in Orlando, and already passed ordinances in Sarasota, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. She talks of chickens as pets, but always focuses on the functional side of the effort, other benefits to having them around.
We discuss a generally American trait, brought about by amazing convenience and likely a desire — as with me — to see all food, especially meat, as an immaculate product that started its existence in the wrapped Styrofoam tray at Publix. Rachel says what I know firsthand: “People are so disconnected from where their food comes from.”
“The farm-to-table concept is trendy right now, but it’s a good thing, healthy,” she says. She talks of getting married recently in Paris, of the fitness of the people, their propensity to walk everywhere, of the food being more natural, less processed.
I joke with Rachel, but I realize it’s so easy, and I feel encouraged to joke because we’ve become so far removed in our society from our roots, where food actually comes from, the work involved to make it. No longer that weird kid, and fond of a good omelet, I see benefits apart from fresh eggs and more apart of the idea itself.
In a time of iPhones and Wiis, I like it for its simplicity, and for what it reminds me of, not personally, but as a society and culture. No food just magically appears in the grocery store, as much as I sometimes may wish to forget how it started out, which was necessary to deliver it to that freezer or counter. When you believe in the power of going local, it’s difficult to get more local than your own backyard.
So, I decided to put it out there, not be chicken to do so.
Local Luv'n Local
Check out original local photography printed on canvas by Clyde Moore of I LUV Winter Park at Bistro on Park Avenue in the Hidden Garden Courtyard, 348 N. Park Avenue. Like what you see? You can buy it there! Also, any T-shirts or other items purchased online at ILUVParkAvenue.com can be purchased online and then picked up in the new Bistro Loft Shop with no shipping charge.
Clyde Moore operates local sites ILUVWinterPark.com, ILUVParkAve.com and LUVMyRate.com, and aims to help local businesses promote themselves for free and help save them money, having some fun along the way. Email him at [email protected] or write to ILuv Winter Park on Facebook or Twitter.