in praise of dinosaurs

they're nasty little peckers

I spend a lot of time with little, prehistoric beasts.

Tiny dinosaurs are a big part of my life.

No, dear reader, my children are much older meow so much so that the term ‘children’ is inadequate.

We are not playing ‘Barney’ CD’s in our house. Nor am I at all interested in any of those ‘Jurassic’ movies.

I simply spend a lot of time with my chickens. They are little monsters. When not preening or beating each other up, they’re hunting.

They devour bugs and slugs constantly. Laura lets them pick the worms clean outta her hand. Though they are hard little peckers it doesn’t hurt.

They become most animated when I feed them comfrey.

They attack, pecking and tearing away at the large, fuzzy leaves.

As opportunistic omnivores, one would devour the other if she were to fall.

It’s probably a very good thing that we eat their eggs. Were they all to hatch, the earth would quickly be covered by the monsters.

Then?

There’d be no escaping the constant scratching and pecking.