there are chickens in the... yard

We live at the end of our little street in the crook of an L-shaped intersection with Short Street, which is a very short street, indeed, having only two houses on it. The down side of living there is that we are on the corner and so have that whole long side of the lot (sidewalk and tree lawn) to care for. On the plus side, however, we don't have any neighbors at all to the west of us, and we like that a lot.

The other end of our street T's into a larger side street, and right at that intersection lives a very interesting family. They live in a big old two-story house, and when we first moved here, we frequently saw a big old city bus parked in front of their house. It was painted a sort of faded aqua, and the destination on the front of the bus could be just about anywhere. Clearly, it belonged to the family who lived there, and we were always pleased to see it parked other places around town.

The city did not appreciate the bus as much as we did, apparently, and posted signs in front of that house only, saying "No Parking Between Signs". The bus is still parked there from time to time, and I say, "good for them!" but we don't see it much anymore.

Yesterday evening when Rufus and I walked by there on our post-prandial walk, I saw something I had never seen there - or anywhere else in our neighborhood - before. Two brown chickens with bright red combs were chasing each other around the front yard. Rufus didn't notice them because they were across the street, but I was delighted. I asked a woman who was out in front of her house as we walked by, and she told me, "oh yes, they've had them for a while. They raised them from chicks."

Now, I am pretty sure our town has some sort of ordinance prohibiting that. (No livestock within the city limits - whatever.) Most towns do. I am delighted, however, to see that this family is still practicing their mild form of civil disobedience.

Oh, and I'm glad they don't live next door to me.