What will the Neighbors think?

Ryan (my husband of seventeen years) wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of having a flock of smelly birds wandering around our back yard.  “They’re not very smart you know,” he quipped.  “But they’re soooo adorable,” I argued.

Besides that, we are already over committed with raising our three children, and trying to have rich personal lives ourselves.  Ryan enjoys photography, teaching kids karate, and all things computer.  I teach indoor cycling, just formed a book club, I spend countless hours in the kids’ classrooms, and I’m working at developing a social life in Salt Lake City.  We moved here about a year ago, and it’s been a crazy time of transition.

The kids talked about writing persuasive essays to convince their dad that he needed the responsibility of a bunch of chickens on top of the never-ending to-do list. 

At our family meeting Ryan came up with a substantial list of things that would need to be resolved before we could make a commitment to chickens: 

• What will the neighbors think?
  
• Is Tanner allergic to chickens?
• Does the city allow chickens to be raised in a back yard?
• Who is going to clean the smelly chicken coop?
  
• What about avian bird flu and other diseases?
  
• Who will watch them when we are out of town?

Somehow, after getting these important questions answered, Ryan warmed up to the idea.  The enthusiasm in the household for sweet, quirky, hens must have been contagious.

I knew Ryan was on board, several weeks later, when we happened to run into a friend of ours at 5:30 in the morning as we were headed for the gym.  I’m not too verbal at that hour, so though I was delighted to see Fred I didn’t have much to say.  But I heard Ryan say to him in kind of an excited tone, “We got chickens!”  Through my early morning grogginess I smiled.  Ryan was on board!