Chicken

A couple of days ago, I was sitting at the computer working and Brooklyn came in from outside saying "Mommy look what I found!" I calmly turned around...and just about fell out of my chair. Clutched tightly against Brooklyn's chest was a little, fluffy yellow chick! Chick! As in baby chicken. Apparently the little guy just wandered into our yard and Brooklyn fearlessly scooped him up. It was love at first sight for Brooklyn and I was tickled to see her so excited over a silly little chicken. She was all set to call him Fluffy and have him be hers but, sadly, the moment was short-lived. Our neighbor came looking for her missing chick only about 15 minutes after Brooklyn had adopted it as her baby. It was heartbreaking to force Brooklyn to give that chicken back to its rightful owner. Brooklyn was devastated and I very nearly had to pry that poor chicken out of her little hands. I kinda hoped our neighbor would say "aww, just keep it" but no such luck (even though it wasn't two weeks ago that we gave her a chicken that someone had given Sean from the jungle). To our neighbor that little chick means a week's worth of meals or several years' worth of scrambled eggs or extra cash when things get tight. I tried to explain to Brooklyn that that little chick is our neighbors' food and they need it more than we do. Okay, so that wasn't the best time to be completely honest :-) Anyway, she got over it after a while. But Sean and I are ready to go buy ourselves a couple of chicks to put in our front yard. No, seriously. They are easily available here and very cheap - and once it gets big and not-so-cute we can give it away if we need to...or eat it. Either way, it would be fun for Brooklyn and it isn't like chickens are hard to take care of here. Hey, it's cheap entertainment for a little girl who loves animals. We'll let you know what happens. It may just be that this little patch of land in Shell, Ecuador really will become the Cannon Farm!