My grandmother didn’t grow through to a farm. I did so not grow up on a farm. I was raised in suburbia, in the San Fernando Valley first, then in Simi Valley. My grandmother was raised in northern Viet Nam in the richest of rich families in a big house and many servants.
She did not learn how to cook, aside from farm and raise pets. The chickens were a seminal part of our youth. All our parents worked, so during the summer time all the cousins would get slipped off at grandma’s house (when I say “all the cousins”, I mean ALL the cousins.
To illustrate, my aunt, whom my grandparents resided with, used to consider us to outings to Costco by tying us together with a rope around each of our wrists. Grandma was not a huge believer in enjoyable children. We interested each other. We’d a lot of Hong Kong fighting techinques sitcoms, we’d board games, and we’d the chickens.
I can list more things about these chickens, but perhaps it’d be easier to fast forward. The chickens petered away as she and we, grew older. I had seen chickens like ours anywhere else never, nor would I for many years. From time to time I’d do an search on the internet, trying to find what “ga ac” is at English. No luck. The web wasn’t what is it now in those days.
When I noticed my first “ga ac” decades later, at a Farmer’s Market in Novato, my eye teared up. I asked, sounding like a crazy person probably. I got my answer: “Japanese silkie”. I took an image and sent it to all the cousins. Lately, since Benicia Community Gardens wanted to build a coop, I have already been considering chickens. What did I’d like chickens for, they asked. I put replied, because that’s what they were, but certainly if the sight of the fluffy white chicken brought me to tears, these were more.
My sister named the chicks that hatched every year (Alas, poor Snow White, squished in the gate while pursuing her back into the yard–I still remember my sister crying on the chick). We ate the roosters after they served their purpose. Mainly we collected and sold the eggs. Were they income and food just?
I lived with my grandmother until I used to be five, and then transferred in with my parents and siblings. My image of having children involved weeding in your garden always, each morning because that is what my grandmother and I did. I still have that muscle memory. Pulling the plant by the main. Squishing snails and throwing them on the fence to the chickens. Alas, nothing of my children prefer to weed. My grandmother passed away when I was 19. Before I acquired married at 28, I had a dream. Perhaps that’s why I had fashioned trouble finding the English name for them. They are called so because they have black epidermis, blue combs, blue ft.
- Engage in Composing
- Suckers on trees and other grafted plants that are approaching from the foundation
- 1 is only for inner corner highlighting
- Pretty floral increased scent
- 3 1
- 81 ~trichrome cranberry, orange, and yellow metal
- Pigmentation changes may take place
Everything about them, minus their snow white fluffy feathers, is dark. Upon researching silkie, I started reading about how adorable and lovable and nice they may be and what great starter chickens they may be and how they make lovely dogs and cats. I kind of relish the irony. We didn’t have silkies because they were sweet.
We had them because they’re Asian. They are Asian chickens–the earliest reference to them in the western is through Marco Polo. Look up “silkie” and you’ll see a great deal of the “adorable” webpages. Look up “ga ac” and you will get page after web page after page of recipes. Initially I had been against the idea of chickens.
