Chicken...Who's Chicken?

The most recent book I've been reading came highly recommended by many people with discerning literary tastes. And it has been a very good read about the German occupation of the Channel Islands off the coast of the United Kingdom. The island residents form a book club of sorts (with the name of the book title) to get around all the limitations, domination and fear of the regime. The characters are much like the ones in the Karon Mitford Series and you just fall in love with their quirky charms and poignant stories. When I got to the part about the chickens (exerpt here)

...chickens being the reason I fell off a hen-house roof - they'd chased me there. How they all came at me - with their razor lips and back-to-back eyeballs! People don't know how chickens can turn on you, but they can - just like mad dogs.

it made me think of my nephew Ryan's nice chickens. They would never turn on me like mad dogs, would they? So, I had to test out the chickens - Colonel Randers, Natasha Luiken and Nancy - all female Rhode Island Reds. Here they are in their pen:

Ryan picked out Nancy to test the nice chicken theory. Would I be "chicken" to hold a chicken?

Keep in mind that these chickens are city girls - the train runs right behind their pen and there are neighbors aplenty. So, noises don't bother them much. Would I? Nancy is nice. So much so that Diann had a take a turn holding her, too! We'd like to think that our long-ago farmer relatives in Kansas would get a kick out of these "city girls" making a big deal out of holding a chicken. And, just in case you are wondering, hens are legal in the city of Chicago (roosters aren't), the hens are being raised for their eggs, and their type is hearty enough to survive Chicago winters!