Every day, you and your closest lady-friends have a good old-fashioned hen party. It’s never too formal. You’re happy just winging it as you gather and gossip, squawking about this subject and pecking at that one.
Life ruffles your feathers a whole lot less after you’ve cackled at each other’s jokes and crowed at your triumphs. As in “What the Chicken Knows” by Sy Montgomery, time with your ladies is pretty clucking great. It’s not often that it happens, but when Montgomery needed a rooster expert, she was happy to find one almost right next door.
The problem was that Montgomery’s pet rooster had gotten aggressive. Ashley, the expert, advised Montgomery to do the unthinkable: Pick up the creature with scimitar-like claws and cuddle him. Montgomery, an animal lover from way back, had wanted chickens before the pandemic, but she wasn’t sure how to go about it until she met a woman who promised that the birds would be a “most incredible gift.
” And so Montgomery spent a dreamy few days with a chick catalog, finally ordering flufflings through the mail, then she waited until a peeping box came to her local post office. She kept the fluffy babies in her office until it was time to transfer them to a coop; she didn’t name them, but she let the neighbor’s daughters do it. She became immersed in “the Chicken Universe.
” At least once a day, Montgomery spent time playing with her “ladies,” bringing them treats, teaching them to do tricks and kissing the.
