Really. I DON’T collect chickens.

Truly, I am not a collector of poultry themed items.  Although it APPEARS that I collect them.  My friend, Becky, recorded a post long ago of a conversation between her twin daughters and her husband.  It was one twin telling a story that bore a STRIKING resemblance to “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”  They were about 4 at the time and called each other “Sissy.”  They have four siblings who also call both of them Sissy.  It’s a good thing they know which is which.  ANYWAY–each time her twin would point out the obvious, “Um, Sissy.  This sounds like the Three Bears,” the authoress/story telling twin would say, “Sissy!  It is NOT the THREE BEARS!!!!!”

I feel her pain.  No one seems to understand the fine nuances of texture when it comes to such things.

I only have this jaunty cockerel holding the door open in the study.  He is an antiqued cast iron, and we bought him the summer we were building our house.  Really, he’s Tony’s since he’s in the study and all.

Then there is this fellow atop the bookshelves in the game room.  I originally bought him as a Christmas gift for someone, then found something else and kept him for myself.  He has a “war wound” on his back where something got dropped on him and so chipped his resin plumage (part of the whole me keeping him thing), but you can’t tell when he’s that high up in the air.

Here he served as part of the autumnal decor two Thanksgivings ago.

These are my “girls” who sit in my line of sight in the kitchen.  The multi-colored gal is a set of measuring spoons–a gift–so she doesn’t count.  And next to HER is one of my most recent acquisitions.  A little “nesting hen” that I bought on my trip in October (that I have yet to REALLY post.)  My Nanny had a nesting hen candy dish when I was a girl.  It was amber colored glass.  I’d never seen one this color OR this small, so THIS is just nostalgia.  And also a gorgeous shade of cobalt blue.

This fellow is Jean Luc (pronounced Zhawn Luke).  If you watch TNG, you know the reference.  Although Americana-ish in coloring, he struck me as very, very French.  I found him in the course of looking ALL OVER HOUSTON for a solid WHITE version of him.  He sat in the middle of our kitchen table while our house was on the market and has graced the top of the kitchen hutch since we moved in.  I recently flanked him with the breakfast buffet plates I got from The Big Texan this summer when we were in Amarillo.  A VERY NICE waitress helped me procure those plates.  Her name was Rachel.  I need to take a close-up photo of them–they are lovely.  So Jean Luc is not part of a collection as he was just a VERY lucky and reasonably priced find/proxy for the large white poulet I’ve yet to locate.

If you are a VERY important part of the non-collection, you get a name see.  Up until Christmas, this pretty lady had no name–but I loved her anyway.  I bought her the same summer we bought Mr. Study Door Holder.  She’s BLUE &WHITE, so she IS part of the blue and white collection.  And she has this filigree thing going on and she is fluffy (though not soft in the least.)  Here she presided over a Mother Daughter Luncheon table.

Alas–she was alone–and not too unhappy about it as hens are content to muck about without a rooster anywhere near them.   Then, my sweet family located her Filigreed Ceramic Soul Mate and gifted me with him for Christmas.  He HAD to have a name.  I chose Hank.  And Thad immediately named our maiden chicken, Henrietta.  So now Hank and Henrietta live in what I call my “Chickenscape.”   They are atop of the “school supply” cabinet (yet ANOTHER tardy post)–which faces the kitchen hutch.  (The window is from my paternal grandparents’ home in Louisiana. )

(You’ll also notice the lovely portrait that Stephanie painted for us from our old house, and we have Victoria’s little farm house table at the ready for visits from Heather.)

There is  a VERY tall rooster weather vane on the ridge of our roof.  But that’s traditional, and therefore doesn’t count toward the non-collection. (Tony proudly putting the rooster on the roof circa January, 2009.  This was a Sunday afternoon right after we moved in.  It was VERY COLD,  I was somewhat cranky that I was missing my nap as (A) I didn’t want him to fall off the roof and die without me knowing because I was sleep and (B) he insisted I take pictures.)

So you see?  It’s not so much a collection of POULTRY decor as it is just stuff I/we like.  Is there anything you find you have a lot of that you don’t really collect?  (Please, say yes. . .or just make something up.)