What the Hell is That?

This past Saturday, the entire Russ clan went to commune with various fleabitten farm animals at the Smith Plantation's Fall Farm Day. This momentous occasion occurs once a year, when Roswell's premiere antebellum tourist attraction, The Archibald Smith Plantation Home, flings open the doors to its old-timey toolsheds and meticulously replicated slave quarters and invites Roswellians of all ages to spend some much-needed quality time with goats, chickens, sheep, mules and llamas. Well, the llamas may have been alpacas or vicunas - I really couldn't tell you the difference. They also have old-timey activities, like panning gold, and old-timey demonstrations, like a 1,000 year old blacksmith making lawn decorations.

I will avoid the obvious question of why a family ranging in age from 32-82, with nary a small child in sight, would make a special trip to an event otherwise patronized almost entirely by people under 3 feet in height and their chaperones. I will avoid pointing out that not a single parent had Purelle or wet wipes or whatever with them, which would be unheard of at the Propsect Park Zoo's annual farm day, Brooklyn's equivalent event. I will avoid going into detail about how I'm no germ freak, but my heart is squarely with paranoid Brooklyn parents on this issue. To paraphrase Bob Geldof, that place was tick with mixamatosis and anthrax, not to mention fleas, ticks and god knows what else (oh, the Bob Geldof thing is this: Russ Sr and Mrs. Russ Sr. were at a party in Bermuda once upon a time, and Bob Geldof was there, and some fellow reveller suggested he get in the hot tub, and he said, "Are you kidding me? That things tick with AIDS.").

No, I will not be going into any further detail on any of the above because I have a far, far greater vignette from our visit to the Smith Plantation. Let's just say my llama vs. vicuna vs. alpaca confusion was not the only zoological mystery of the day. My story involves this fellow:

I saw this thing from far away and thought it was a Maltese crossed with a chicken and then killed and made into the type of bedroom slipper sold at Frederick's of Hollywood. Shockingly, it wasn't. I was also reminded of the old SNL sketch where Steve Martin and Bill Murray are bumpkin tourists and all you see is them scrutinizing something from the something's perspective and they keep saying "What the hell is that?" over and over again. At some point one of them says "Kids, get your lips off that thing." It well could have been the above-pictured creature (or "critter", as we saw in these parts). Who knows. However, no one in the Russ clan is dumb enough to not figure out that this thing was some kind of fancy chicken. It was chicken-sized, chicken-shaped, and pecked like a chicken.

Not so for the redneck who appraoched my mother and asked her - wait for it - "What the hell is that?" My mother answered that she thought it was some kind of chicken. The redneck paused, sucked his teeth dismissively, and said "No ma'am, I reckon that there is a baby ostich."

I know I make a lot of typos but please note that he really did say ostich.

For the record, it's called a silkie bantam, it is indeed a fancy chicken, and for anyone who is interested, there is an alarming amount of litertaure out there by and for fancy chicken fanciers.