How Are You Going To Keep Them Down On The Farm-

I was reading an email from my brother tonight when my eyes drifted to an ad on the right side of the AOL page. An ad from William-Sonoma's "Agrarian" division.

The ad showed an elaborate green designer chicken coop with wheels.It costs almost $1500. The ad boasted that the coop was predator proof,which I guess in upscale urban neighborhoods means that your maid can't get into it. The wheels presumably allow you to wheel it around on the roof of your condo down in the Gulch.

Now anybody's uncle can put up a chicken coop after spending a few bucks at the farm supply store, but that is just not the Brentwood way of doing things. Williams-Sonoma reassures the purchaser that the coop arrives with "white glove handling", and that the people who deliver it will set it up.

Now the local, sustainable crowd who call carrots "veggies" and too many damn squash a "bounty", are not going to be satisfied with just a coop.

They will want accessories. Louis Vuitton egg collecting satchels.. Chanel work boots.Ruffoni copper chicken feed pails. They will need their own magazine as well- perhaps something along the lines of "Town and Chick Country"

And who thinks they would be satisfied with chickens from Dixon or Joelton either. They are going to want heirloom chickens from France. Sustainable, bountiful chickens fed on a diet of heirloom veggie scraps. Chickens who cluck with European flair.Bilingual chickens. Unfortunately these chickens will need to be educated as well. Someone will need to teach them that that fat ring tailed creature with the mask is not the family cat, and does not have the chickens' best interests at heart.

I knew this was coming. I knew it when I saw an article in "Where Women Cook" that showed a lovely young woman dressed in white organza and black work boots standing in her own special chicken house. If you want to wear white in a chicken house that is your choice, but remember that up in Fairview people are laughing at you.

Well, not really at you.

At the crystal chandelier you installed to keep the chickens from straining their eyes.