A true French hen (per the Internets).

This is a French hen. (Over yonder. To the right)

It’s pretty good-looking as chickens go, actually.

Not that I’m an expert on chickens.

Although I’m willing to be.

Some friends of mine have a hen house with a variety of chickens of varying race and creed (a situation they describe as “not socially optimal”) and one of them produces the most incredible robin’s egg blue eggs. So they’re that fragile, pale robin egg blue…but a full-sized chicken egg.

When I inquired, I was told they were the ‘ugliest ones,’ but – to me –  they’re not so bad at all…for a chicken. I think the issue is that they have some stray feathers sticking out here and there. Kind of a mustachioed and semi-hair gelled chicken, if you will.

Not much in life is naturally super cool, but naturally blue eggs are super cool.

In other Three French Hens news, I have a friend whose neighbor just got a rooster. I assume she knows this for noise control reasons. Having done a week’s hard time on Rooster Island (Kauai), I am very empathetic to this situation.

At the same time, it could always be worse. Once upon a time, my across-the-street neighbors in Portland got a goat. It would eat through its rope and get loose and sense my presence and come into my yard and chase me around and ram me in the ass. I called the city, and it turned out the zoning allowed farm animals!!!

Thankfully, they killed it on Christmas day and ate it (and threw the hooves over the fence into the next-door-neighbor’s yard). The hooves were a nice touch, I thought.

Maybe because they weren’t in my yard.

(And thank god, because I was vegan then. I wasn’t in any way mentally – or otherwise – equipped to deal with freshly slaughtered animal feet.)

Anyway, point being, if someone gives you three French hens today (or ever), at least it’s not a goat. Or a rooster.  Or Randy Quaid.

This is the bearded blue egg laying chicken, the Ameraucana.