What’s the deal about the chickens?

As those who’ve been keeping up with me lately know, we hosted a promotional contest for THE LOVESICK CURE.  Entrants had an opportunity to win a free copy of the book and a flock of chickens. 

The flock of chickens as a prize was a real attention getter.  Fortunately, the winners didn’t have birds arriving at their apartment, house, igloo or mobile home.  Though the auspices of Heifer, International we were able to donate 5 flocks of chickens to needy farm families.  This is one of my favorite charities.  And I especially like the chickens and ducks program because birds don’t require grazing land or feed crops. The recipients, most often widowed or abandoned women in the Third World, are able to keep chickens who eat mainly bugs and weeds.  This provides food for her family’s table (one egg provides the daily nutritional requirements of a toddler) as well as a cash crop of baby chicks to take to market. 

But for your contest, why chickens? you ask.  Well, there are some chickens in the story, including a very territorial rooster named Arthur.  But the chickens were only bit players in the farm scenes.  No actual speaking parts, you might say.  However, the gorgeous cover design that the brilliant art department at Mira Books came up with featured a half dozen baby chicks.  Four on the front and one each on the title pages. 

Now, I happen to be a great fan of chickens.  In my semi-rural upbringing there were always chickens in the neighborhood.  Granted, some were the bright plumed fighting rooster variety, but mostly chickens were fluffy, squawking pets scratching around everywhere. 

And as luck would have it, my husband, Bill and I had been doing a lot of talking about chickens.  Our family eats a lot of eggs.  And we prefer “free range” because they simply taste more like the kind we grew up with.  As part of the push to eat local and cut down on expensive transportation costs of foods, San Antonio has had a number of community meetings on “Urban Homesteading”.  Representatives from Agricultural Extension as well as local group leaders have been made available to talk about community gardening, balcony gardens, beekeeping and backyard poultry.  Amazingly, our local laws allow residents to keep up to five chickens in a city yard! 

So we are talking, thinking imagining.  It’s a big project to take on.

I’ll keep you posted…especially if the rooster crows too early in the morning.