in praise of...chickens

we're building a fence at my house for our latest tenants:  chickens!  i'm quite excited about the prospect of the little cluckers, plus it's been fun to learn some new building skills.  i romanticize what it will be like to throw them their food in the morning, name them, and collect the richly-yoked organic eggs to eat and share with friends.  so i got a kick out of this little book, "in praise of chickens:  a compendium of wisdom fair and fowl" by jane s. smith.  on the intelligence of chickens, "can a chicken beat you at checkers?  despite the persistence of insults like 'dumb cluck', there is growing scientific evidence that chickens are hardly birdbrains...no inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of expression and so copious a language as common poultry."  on hen-hood, "maternal love sublimes the passions, quickens the inventions, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation.  thus a hen, just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and clocking note, she runs about like one possessed."--gilbert white, natural history of selborne, 1789.  and simple wisdom from none other than benjamin franklin, "an egg today is better than a hen tomorrow".  that hardly settles the debate as to which came first, but we will praise them nonetheless.