Chicken Chicken...

Our word for today is "chicken." It always reminds me of the classic fight between Pizza Pizza and Chicken Chicken, a business a former employee of the pizza chain tried to start, using the same business model. The case went to court and Chicken Chicken lost. St Hubert has gone back to Quebec and Swiss Chalet is downsizing, here anyway. Chicken, as fast food, maybe an endangered species!

What else is there? I do get a little frustrated with our biodiversity, as far as meat is concerned.  Our choice of fruits and vegetables is massive. Whereas, our choice of meat is really just four - pork, beef, lamb and chicken, OK, there are a few other varieties of fowl and I decided not to add rabbit and goat, because they aren't as popular. Now, for someone who wanted to be a little different, I'm wondering, if a fast food chain based on rabbit would work? There are now restaurants, Le Lapin in Quebec City, for example, that offer rabbit only, on their menus. You could call it "Bunny Bunny or Hare Hare" Somehow I don't think so. And I'm not even going to think about "Nanny Nanny" for goat.

All joking aside, I was fascinated with the idea of having chickens in my backyard, until I started reading a column about a woman, who is keeping chickens, in the city. You actually buy the coop and all the essentials, then rent the chickens. In theory the eggs are free, but you pay for everything else. I think she nets out at $1.00 an egg. Tsk, tsk or maybe cluck, cluck, this is expensive. Renting chickens, probably has some drawbacks, as well. These, then, would be used chickens. Is there a way to look at their egg laying stats. - like mileage on a car? Presumably, you don't kick the tires or the chicken equivalent there of.

As you can see, I have given up on the idea of chickens in my backyard. In fact, I'm re-thinking doing even a vegetable garden next year. It seems we've acquired a resident groundhog, who likes tomatoes. Although, we live in the heart of the city, we have a number of wild animals, who visit, regularly. Raccoons are the given. They live in our maple tree and have for thirty years. There's also a skunk that pops in every now and again, probably as often as, the rabbit, and both are more often than the opossum, which we've seen just once. We see the groundhog daily.

I'm wondering, if we could add these critters to our biodiversity for meat? Somehow,  I can't see Hog Hog or Coon Coon working either. Sigh!

The pictures? Variations on a theme!