give me chickens or give me death

There are times when you can feel a little embattled living in a rural area.

Right now, however, I feel embattled most of the time.

When I was growing up I never really expected to come back to live on the farm. The farm was isolated, there wasn't really any company, and was ground zero for unpleasant activities (ie. work).

It wasn't long, however, before little things started to get to me. I wasn't sure, for example, how it mattered to my neighbours where on my balcony I chose to rest my bike; or why I should suffer the scornful glances of passerby if I left my Christmas lights up too long.

It's not that people didn't care back home - I'd been privy to many a tut-tut over the state of a neighbour's barbed wire or the straightness of a swath - but most people kept it to themselves and didn't have the time (or, for that matter, the option) to send a bylaw officer over to eliminate said affront to public decency.

But it seems that, not matter how far you get from the city, the city never really stays that far away.

The recent electoral boundaries report, for example, unleashed the traditional cries of how-dare-rural-areas-have-so-many-MLAs; not taking into account, however, that most public money eventually disappears into urban areas; that rural opinions are seldom, if ever, heeded by the government; or that rural services and rural depopulation are rarely considered on equal footing with Calgary's perennial snow-removal issues and Edmonton's angst about the City Center airport.

I have to laugh, however, when things rural make inroads in the urban centers.

Take, for example, the current brouhaha over backyard chickens in Calgary. Some Calgarians wish to join the growing ranks of urban poultry fanciers with a view to produce few eggs, a little meat, and reconnect with their food.

Which, of course, has the tut-tutters out in full force. Because, as we all know, your neighbour's two or three hens contradict your fundamental right to forget that food doesn't grow in the supermarket.

This being a rural topic, and I being a rural person, I think I can offer a bit of advice to the good tut-tutters of Calgary.

It's not manners to stick your nose in your neighbour's business. If they want to go off and act like fools, let 'em.

Don't say a word about their chickens. Just watch and rest sure in the knowledge that you can do it better.

Take my word for it. You'll feel better in no time.