Posted by on Jun 27, 2013 in Backyard Brood, Blog, Featured Post | 3,626 comments

Oh, dear Guin. Are you going to Scarborough Fair? There’s just something magical about you. Your pretty markings and sanguine attitude call to mind all sorts of interesting tales.

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Is it your coat of many colors? Your exotic eye makeup and sprightly puffy cheeks? The rich layering of variegated feathers that creates the effect of a golden cloak around your noble shoulders?

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Or is it the way you hold yourself, like elegant and self-assured royalty, not to mention how you fit right in to the ren faire underbrush of the back yard?

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Sure, you are regal like Dottie, but not as aristocratic somehow, and with a special glint in your eye. Perhaps it’s the allure of the unknown; from start you’ve been the greatest mystery of all the girls. Being an Easter Egger means you’re not a standard breed, and there’s a huge variation in the way your brethren look and act. Would you have a prominent tail? Ear muffs or a beard? Light or dark feathering? A curious, patient, or motherly disposition (turns out all three, lucky for us). And the looming question we’re all still waiting to be answered, the greatest wonder of all: Will you lay blue or a green eggs?

Yes, Guin, yours is an older, more magnificent and mysterious origin. Fantastical, even! And so your name derives not simply from a diminutive of the fabled Guinevere, but from a weaver of adventure and sci-fi tales even closer to our hearts: Ursula K. Le Guin.

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One day we’ll read you the fabulous Earthsea trilogy or the beloved masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness, but it just seems to us that even left to your own instincts, you’d quietly fly the coop to speak with dragons, converse with alien creatures, and restore magic to the realm.

Oh and you’d look so good doing it! Such a striking chickie. We haven’t even mentioned those little fluffy pantaloons!

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But you wouldn’t go on your quest for fame or fortune or good looks, oh no. You’d do it because you’re curious and intelligent, and because it would be the right thing to do to keep your flock safe and sound. Another good mama hen, you are. And when you got home, you’d pace around and cluck all about it in that low chicken voice of yours, relaying each detail and tasty morsel to your feathered friends.

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And in the end, the day saved and the darkness vanquished, you’d be right back where you belong: on top of the chicken pile.

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