The chapters are very short, taken from the author’s blog (I didn’t know she had one). Mostly they’re about her chickens, but veer into other subjects as well, such as visiting the Dalai Lama. The quality- or at least my personal reaction to them- varies widely. On the one hand, her observations of chicken behavior, relating little incidents, bemoaning the death of some (one got its head shut in a door, another was eaten by a predator) and extolling the beauty of their feathers, made for a nice read. I even learned some things (chicken combs get brighter in color when they are laying eggs, which makes me think how fishes color up vividly when they’re breeding). On the other hand, she gets so effusively enthusiastic and emotional about the chickens I’m either scratching my head or feeling a tad uncomfortable. She ties chicken musings into spirituality and life lessons- some of which seemed spot-on to me, others left me baffled. I felt like I was reading a book written by someone whose life experience and though process are very different from my own- something to respect and admire, but I just couldn’t connect sometimes. Interesting that for all the love she has for her chickens (she writes them letters from her travels and calls herself their ‘Mommy’), the author will occasionally eat chicken. Sometimes she feels guilty about this, sometimes not. She writes a bit about the morality of eating animals, mostly leaning to the opinion that if they were treated humanely, it’s okay (as far as I could tell).
Some things that made me laugh, or sit up and think: she says gophers eat chickens (I don’t think this is true). She has a favorite emotion: astonishment. I have favorite books, foods, people, places to visit- but emotions to feel? Honestly I never thought about this before! She also kept using this term “space nuts” that she made up (referring to people) which she explained but I didn’t really get it.
Audiobook- read by the author herself, which was lovely. Three hours forty-five minutes listening time. Borrowed from the public library.
