chicken-wired

Henri IV, the Black Gascon rooster, now has an echo. This morning after the cluck and peck feeding frenzy dies down, I hear a distant response to his broken record crowing. Great! Now, my neighbors have some chickens, too.

This old neighborhood is starting to sound like its 18th-century self again. I like to think that it took this transplanted American city slicker to remind my French neighbors that this is not a suburb. This fertile river bottom farmland dotted with modest houses is still classified as a ‘zone agriculture‘. Out of 11 other houses only one retired neighbor has a potager. We are surrounded by commercial orchards and small farms but the ‘Gasconne de coeur’ is the only one who planted fruit and nut trees as landscaping.

The reaction of students and guests to the  morning coq-au-vin call to rise has been varied. They either embrace the rural soundtrack, roll over and go back to sleep. Or they fret about the disruption to their sleep patterns. Me? Well, when I collect the eggs from the flock we are growing, knowing that they are laid by happy well-fed hens managed by a proud protective rooster, I hear but the sizzle of butter in the omelette pan, the churning of a tub of custardy ice cream, the slurping of a “tourin d’oeufs’ around the kitchen table.  Merci, Henri for doing your part… and crowing about it!  Coco-rico!