I went out to give the last of my microwave bowl of popcorn (note: no addititves, it’s a great device that just pops kernels you’d use on a stovetop) to the chickens. As I picked my way around the yard, defiantly wearing Birkenstocks despite the chill, I realized that the summer dry spell had turned the grass yellow-brown – and there were darker spots on the landscape to avoid.

We are luckier than Snohomish County apparently, residents of which found out that that Odd Smell wasn’t the sewage plant run amok, but in fact chicken poop. That all happened in September.

A bit later that month, another fowl-smelling incident occurred in Orlando Florida – but in this case its human-caused. A large truck hauling 35,000 pounds of frozen chicken meat overturned on the Florida turnpike.

And finally to top it all off, British reality television has assigned a “chicken-themed endurance task” that propelled one housemate – Harry Blake – into triumph.  They even had to eat chicken feed and sit on eggs. 

The world is a weird place. Check your shoes carefully!