Tag Archives: chicken

The Computer Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks

So I was thinking about whether it would even be worthwhile for space aliens to come all the way to our pale blue dot, steal our water, and pack us into meat lockers. It seemed like a logical place to start might be with some assumptions about energy, desalinization, and nutritional value. This sounds like a job for Wolfram|Alpha!

I asked a few oblique questions and got somewhat but not terribly satisfactory answers:

Huh, OK, but I was hoping for an approach that would come closer to using every part of the animal, if you will.

I just asked outright:

Oh, you don’t like that at all, do you?

Maybe you just want a more specific question:

Now that I think about it, maybe you’re right, and we shouldn’t continue this conversation after all.

Update: I ended up using a rough estimate of human heights and BMIs, less 14% (skeletal weight) and multiplied by the USDA estimate of calories per 25% fat ground beef. I’m sure that’s close enough for my purposes. Feel free to contribute any other suggestions. Oh shoot, I probably should have used pork.

Lazarus Hen

And what’s not to love? There’s something intrinsically happy about a chicken. The name: a little hiccup in the mouth. The shape: a jaunty upswing of feathers, a grin. The ceaseless bobbing, scratching, pecking. It’s nearly impossible to feel melancholy in the company of chickens. They are a balm for the weary urban soul….

Imagine our dismay last June, then, when Gertrude, a Rhode Island Red and our prize layer, was stolen.

Chicken Vanishes, Heartbreak Ensues

Is it wrong to feel this way?

Just saw a gull in a little park near my office, chewing on a chicken bone. It attracted the attention of a crow, which rushed the gull a couple times. (To no avail.) I would LOVE to get a shot of a gull and a crow fighting over a chicken bone. Almost enough to start leaving chicken bones in that little park.

Poulterer’s Dozen

My stepfather started raising chickens and ducks in the yard a few years ago, and now he has a lively and growing poultry operation offsite. He added turkeys this year – we ate 2 at Thanksgiving, also a duck. (They were delicious!) My stepfather has always loved eggs as aesthetic objects, and he’s been entranced by the variety of eggs he gets from his birds. He’s taken to crossing some of them in an effort to get different egg colors (particularly smooth, olive colors). They’re all beautiful.