Mad As A Wet Hen

As you know, this all started last Thursday morning with a phone call from Dan Olson (Northfield’s City Planner) who told me I wasn’t permitted to have chickens. By Friday morning, I’d heard from several people who had contacted their City Councilmembers and had been told that Dan’s interpretation of the ordinance was just that: his. It wasn’t necessary shared by others in City Administration. I was encouraged by this development. Later in the day, I received another call from Dan in which he conceded that he could interpret the ordinance differently and then my chickens would, indeed, be permitted. However, that would not solve the problem of my neighbor’s complaint that my fowl smell foul. He suggested that he come over Monday to see (sniff?) my chickens and we could talk about how we might mitigate her complaint. I agreed.


I was stunned that we had gone from chickens-are-not-permitted-in-residential-areas-period-no-discussion to baby-we-can-work-it-out in just over 24 hours. Stunned but angry. Isn’t the whole point of bureaucracy that there is a fair and even application of the law instead of one person’s arbitrarily decision-making? Dan Olson chose to lie to me. He told me point-blank that I was not allowed to have chickens when, in fact, I am. Why didn’t he suggest coming over and talking about my neighbor’s complaint in the first place? (For that matter, why didn’t my neighbor just come talk to me in the first place?) This whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and frankly, I don’t know if Dan Olson’s offer to help is in earnest. Is he really interested in assessing the validity of my neighbor’s complaint or is he just coming over determined to find a problem even if no problem exists?

After stewing all of Friday evening, I decided to cut through the b.s. and go talk to my neighbor myself. Dan couldn’t tell me who it was but I had a pretty good idea and decided to approach her directly. I did. It was her. And in sum, she said that my chickens stink, and she doesn’t like smelling, hearing or looking at them.

My chickens smell and the coop I spent months carefully designing and building is ugly. Ouch.

Do my chickens stink? Obviously, I don’t think so and I spend time taking care of the coop to ensure this. But maybe I’m just sensitized to it. Maybe I’m like those women who walk around smelling like they applied an entire bottle of perfume while not noticing that everyone around them is gasping for air. With this question in mind, and also feeling that I had nothing to prove, I did not spend the weekend cleaning their coop or giving the hens baths and pedicures. I added some pine shavings, per usual. Changed their water, per usual. And went on with my life. … OK, that last part is untrue. I didn’t go on with my life. I worried and fixated on this all weekend and asked everyone I knew if my chickens were stinky. The verdict? No.

Let me be the first to say that those polled were my friends and family; as such, they support me and may be telling me what I want to hear. Can I trust their opinion? After all, they let me spend all of 8th grade believing that my electric blue eyeliner and orange eyeshadow were hawt.

I guess we’ll just have to see what Dan Olson has to say tomorrow.