First - unfriendly bylaws.
Second - an unreasonable Deputy Mayor who reserves praise only for ‘the professional’ born well after the 1920s.
(Dear Mr. Gosnell. Will backyard gardens - developed and maintained by rank amateurs - be banned one day inside city limits because they draw pests, like squirrels and raccoons and rabbits?)
Third - sometimes, people forget about the good stuff.
This from Tuesday’s issue of The London Free Press:
Coun. Bernie McDonald said he was raised with chickens on Cape Breton Island and they bring lice, fleas and rats.
But surely, there must be a good side to Mr. McDonald’s short, yet delightful, story.
Perhaps chickens also provided the chicken half of Sunday evening’s chicken and dumpling stew at Bernie’s house. Maybe fresh eggs at a very reasonable price graced his breakfast plate on a regular basis. Maybe skills related to animal husbandry were passed along to several young minds. And maybe, because families kept chickens and supplied their own eggs, there was more room on weekly supply trucks to the Island for comic books and shoes and spiffy polyester ties to wear to the local high school hop.
["What's that smell? It ain't the chickens!"]
Who knows. Maybe Bernie cleaned up pretty nicely and looked suave and debonair while wearing one of the aforementioned new ties - and even met Mrs. Right because of it.
Come on, let’s not forget the good times, eh.
But Bernie continued:
“You raise chickens and you start to smell like them,” he said. “I have enough problems with student housing, much less with chicken coops.”
Okay, maybe in Bernie McDonald’s case certain smells have outlasted any good thoughts, but not for me.
Chickens are a good thing, and after a reasonable amount of public education, city council shouldn’t stand in the way of progress.
This isn’t the 1920s after all.
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