It’s hard to keep chooks these days what with the price of real estate. Your average chook shed would use up a few million dollars of inner city espace and besides the neighbors are ready for protest, fresh from shutting down every live music venue in earshot. My grandad had chooks, I do not. This is a sure sign of the decadence of our age.
Here you see Grandad Ellard, eldest brother and chooks. Cat is optional. When viewing chooks, you wear a hat. I was not even born, and saw no such chooks.
Even by the time I was born, you were hard pressed to have chooks. You made do with less interesting substitutes.
Even the quality of image has decayed since the golden age. I can assure you that these were not good layers. Of eggs, that is.
Pigs are about the closest things to chooks that the 70′s had to offer, in fact when I think of the 70s pigs are prominent in the vision, along with fondue and Woody Allen. You could still have a shed, and they were about as bright but no one was really fooled. I’m extremely jealous of the missus who was close friends with a hen all the way up to the 1980s. Apparently you didn’t have to wear a hat to view chooks in the United States, this is probably something related to judge’s wigs.
My parents had a really weird idea of household pets.
When I go back through the family photos and see pets like ‘Slimy’ and ‘Instant Death’, I’m always aware that other kids had pets you could hug. My first pet was a turtle. I think it got absorbed by one of the others.
But at least I know about pets. When you ask the kids these days about chicken wire they tell you it’s for reinforcing sculptures. That would be sculpture wire. I ask them why it’s called chicken wire and they get that look like you unfriended them. They think chicken is something that comes in korma and why is it in their sculpture o.m.g.? One even sniffed the plaster to see if it was chicken flavoured.
I might be off the mark but it seems to me that part of the problem in the world is that as the number of household chooks has declined, the number of bad things in the world has risen (you could draw a graph). This causes things like the Batman mass murder shooting, Tony Abbot and YouTube comments. If people had a hat and chooks to look at they wouldn’t be so upset all the time. I’m going to write to Melinda Gates and suggest this could be a cheap way to make things better.
Slimy is fantastic. So no chooks equal violence! Hmmm.
Thanks for Return to Barbara Island free download BTW, hate to kiss again but it is a pleasure to listen to.
We have chooks , chooks are cool
Go on, about the chooks.
I went down to the old farm on my mothers side last weekend. Got real fucking drunk with my uncle who still lives there. He is now retiring. Last year was all he could take. He is about 60 and looks 70. Gets the shakes in the morning but used to be able to work his ass off through them. No longer.
We cooked steaks and corn still in the ear on the grill. We drank and listened to music. We shot guns. Well I didn’t, but I have a thing against drinking and shooting guns. Later, we hassled cows on a four wheeler. I walked a friend of mine around and told him all the “horrors” of farm life as my parents would send me there to spend summers to cure what was most likely now considered ADHD.
That area of the world is 1 on the 1-10 light pollution scale. As I lay drunk on the ground around 1am…the stars were swirling but for this time it wasn’t vomit inducing – it was wonderful. I let go.
Still though, my mothers portion is down to 50 or so acres as she sells off lots to assist in her retirement. And I would imagine that some day, I will no longer be able to go and romp around the woods and field pretending I know the earth. Nor will my children. It’s sad. I miss all the cows and chickens and animal noises and that beautiful clear sky.
How to get more chooks?
I don’t know. This mode of humanity seems to be all about centralizing power and buying up the small time farmer to make huge corporate farms so people don’t have to think about killing creatures anymore and make believe in hamburger trees.
I am not sure why everyone was upset about Soylent Green. It seems only fair. I bet you it would taste like chicken.
That is probably the only thing that will fix the Medicaid problem here in the states. “Turn granny into crackers NOW!”
Social Security?
“What do we want?
Granny crackers!
When do we want them?
NOW!”