Never Too Shy to Cluck Like a Chicken

Usually, Future Farmgirl is about as shy as one can be in a new setting.

Indeed, when we first walked into the Cheney Mansion this afternoon for Green Sunday activities, she hid behind my leg and averted her eyes from the man who welcomed us.

So you can imagine my surprise when after the greeter asked if either of the kids would like to compete in the upcoming chicken clucking contest, FFG nodded her head yes.

I couldn’t believe it, but she was as serious as a rooster winding up for sunrise. I wasn’t sure she’d go through with it, especially as the crowd assembled. But when it came time to cluck, she did her best, though fairly demure, baaak bak baaaaak.

Judging the contest was Jennifer Murtoff, who runs an urban chicken consulting business called Home to Roost. [Bookmark her blog if you’re contemplating backyard chickens, but feel like you’d like a little helping hand or someone to call in a chicken emergency.]

I won’t hold it against Jennifer that she didn’t pick my daughter for the finals, even though I thought her clucking was far superior than one or two of the others.

And I have no quarrel with the winner, a woman named Patricia who put her full personality into the clucking, including the wing motions and strut.

FFG was a winner in our family’s book, so we rewarded her with a trip to the ice cream parlor and the Oberweis sundae of her choice.