Chicken Wire~

The funniest joke I ever heard was about a chicken on the freeway. I laughed so hard I ended up forwarding it to everybody in my address book. Only... I can't remember it. Chickens are like that. They are ubiquitous and we are entertained by them, but we don't consider chickens too much. Or, at least, we don't recall the salient details of funny chicken jokes. Today I was talking with my kindergarteners about compost bins. I was drawing diagrams on the board and mentioned "hardware cloth" and "chicken wire." Explaining chicken wire isn't so easy because you have to ensure that the kids understand "wire" and why it is favorable to use "wire that allows ventilation" instead of just leaving it open or just creating slats that may or may not allow vermin into the compost bin. Then you have to explain 'vermin.' But, before I could explain "chicken wire," Alexandra asks, "Chicken wire? They use chickens to make wire?" I laughed out loud and this, of course, made Alex indignant. "How many chickens do they use," she demands. Now, my evil twin would have blandly replied that they don't use that many, but the easiest explanation seemed to suffice. But visions of chicken parts sacrificed for compost bin wire dance in my head.