Chicken Keeping in the Age of Hopelessness; Rock and Roll, Freak Shows and a Hawk or Two...

I suppose I should write something here about my Backyard Poultry Meetup: Keeping chickens has been a total joy for me; they are hilarious and sweet, and a slice of real life that strikes a chord with me.

So, in the interest of getting together with other chicken farmers I decided to find a group of them. When I realized that the closest organization supporting chicken keeping in this area is out of NYC and really based in Brooklyn, I decided to start one myself. So, here I am writing press releases and fielding calls, and in the infancy of something that is very popular right now, trying to organize myself enough so that I'm not just taking questions all the time and actually moving into some sort of theme based classes. The meetings are currently once every 2 weeks here in Stamford, CT, with the next one being July 26th, at 2 PM. Full information is here along with some very cool pictures of my chickens. I think that everyone can keep 2 or 3 hens in their backyard pretty easily, and they provide food in the form of eggs! Visit my Meetup page to see great pictures of my birds!



Someday, if I ever get married, which I have avoided up till now, I hope to have a wedding as original and full of life as this one. I'm not one to really believe in "marriage" per se, but I think that if it comes over you that its the thing to do and that yours will be the one to last, its probably worth a shot. I guess i think that marriage is best left to those who are seriously co-parenting and older people who have lived enough to be able to predict their future feelings. Sometimes I think that with age comes a sort of settling down and giving up. Most men seem to be really ready to commit when they can no longer lie about their age successfully on Match.com.
I'm still waiting to see what happens, but life isn't like, you're out there in the chicken muck and Sam Shepard comes by from the farm up the street, smiling past that dead tooth, and hes the one.

This clip gives me a little hope for the kids who are gonna take over this place...I hope they know that these moments of joy can be fleeting, and that the real hard work is still to come!



h/t Jill...Brilliant at Breakfast

Onward and upward...
William has been playing alot of Rock and Roll music this summer, and he just finished a camp at The Paul Green School of Rock Music, which was a performance boot-camp. For the first time he agreed to be lead singer, and he was assigned Billy Jean!...and Ive got to say that he killed! It was fantastic! I'm sure that he wont allow me to post the video here, if I can even open it, what with how incredibly annoying the formats are, but it was pretty great.
The school will be performing much of Woodstock on August 15th in a park in Bedford NY, just up the road from here; more on that closer to the date. Its going to be a great show, (but Will is not in it!...he is doing a KISS show in the fall and has too much on his plate as it is!) and we will be hanging out that day. I'm encouraging everyone to come. I love this school...the people who work there and the teachers are all fantastic, and it is just so much fun for kids interested in music. It also gives rocker type kids a place to go and a way to connect with kids who are like them. This area is very sporty and if you're not a jock, a geek, or a homeboy, it can be a little lonely....maybe that was just me, because my son seems to have managed to be very popular and very individual at the same time.



Also, in the news around here are two events that conflict with my chicken meetup but...oh well...The Coney Island Preservation folks have a great organization that is trying to work along with developers that want to put some monolith hotels by the boardwalk. There is such a sense of history there and a thriving arts culture as well, so its a balancing act. The preservationists feel that the hotel plans go too far and destroy too much of the vital history of the area. They are holding a rally on Sunday July 26th to address that issue, and if you're in the area you might want to check it out and see if they are reasonable or what...we all want the area improved, but those of us that grew up with Coney Island as a grimy playground year round, want to keep the flavor too. I'd say that its a great time to buy a little beach bungalow out there...too bad nobody has any extra money floating around except for these rich developers!
In any case, I love their page and I love their mailings.



Also, the Greenwich Audubon, which has invited me to have a booth at their September hawk watch, if that makes sense, is having a picnic on July 26th which will feature visiting raptors from their Sharon facility. I love raptors, even if they want to eat my chickens and I'm happy to be involved in an organization that does so much for birds in the wild and that educates the public, and especially children, about this vital part of our environment!

Click on the picture below to see some fantastic pictures of Pale Male and Lola...and their friends, just south of here!