Just looking casually at our six chickens, you probably wouldn’t think there is anything special about them. They cluck-cluck like other chickens you might have encountered. They mill about aimlessly, pecking at the floor inside the barn, looking for kernels of corn I’ve thrown out for them; outside they do the same kind of wandering, hunting for worms.
If you’ve ever spent any time at all around chickens, you might, honestly, have the opinion that they’re not the smartest beasts on the block, and unless you’ve gotten to know my own chickens, you’d likely say that they, too, are fairly dim of wit. But I beg to differ. My chickens are artistic and inspired, and I’m the lucky beneficiary of their creativity.
You see, the hens in my barn are Magic Chickens. They lay Magic Eggs...or, more specifically they lay Magic Photographic Eggs. I go out each evening and gather the eggs -- an outsider might look at the eggs and say that there’s nothing unusual about them --but of course I am a photographer and it's my job to notice things, and the amazing discovery I've made is that, no matter how casually or thoughtlessly I place the eggs in a spot, a Photograph happens!
To me that is BIG Magic.
A couple of evenings ago I went out to do barn chores. I gathered eggs from the hen house, and then, when I stopped to throw hay in for the goat, I absentmindedly put the eggs on our wheelbarrow. Abracadabra! A picture presented itself! The next night I brought an egg into the house from the barn. I put the egg on the kitchen table to take off my barn coat (we’d just finished supper and a candle was burning.) Presto-Change-o! The egg became a Photograph!
So I’m convinced that mine are Magic Chickens.
I’m even thinking of having a bumper sticker made that says “My chickens are more creative than your honor student.”
