For quite some time now I’ve dreamed of having chickens. (Blame Barbara Kingsolver.)

Before I’d even closed on my house my mom told me that chickens were illegal in my town. It didn’t matter much since my yard is quite small and I wasn’t about to give up a whole corner of it to chickens. But I hadn’t been in my neighborhood for long before I started hearing the distinct cockadoodledoo of a rooster.

I thought this was strange. Many owners of backyard chickens will tell you that, as long as your neighbors are OK with your chickens it doesn’t matter much what the law says. But the one sure fire way to tick off your neighbors is to get a rooster. As far as I can tell, the rooster owner doesn’t even have hens.

He’s not very loud, and too far away from me to be much of a bother. I only really hear him when I’m outside, but I do wonder what his neighbors think. But, if he can get away with having a rooster, something tells me my neighbors won’t mind a couple of hens.