First, you build a hen house in your back yard. Not just any hen house mind you, but a fancy chook palace. Then you get yourself a few fuzzy little chicks that really are the sweetest and you make a great big fuss about it. 
You name them, raise them, the chicks turn into 3 lovely lady chickens, and you fancy yourself a sort of glamorous yet earthy urban flock tender. You do your best mother hen taking good care of your feathered family; often whilst wearing a vintage apron, and you make a great big fuss about it. 
When one of your chooks lays the very first egg, you do a little song and dance number, you take lots of photos, tell all your friends, and generally make a Great Big Fuss about it.
Inspired by your back yard farm, you whip up some happy chicken themed projects, you make slightly less of a fuss about it but you do show it off a little. You know, I have often wondered how people with large collections of a particular animal say, got started on their collections. I once had a neighbor who's house was filled with pigs; piggy banks, piggy towels, piggy salt and pepper shakers, paintings of pigs, softie pigs, and so on. I never asked her how she came to own so many pig items. Did she set out with a passion for pigs, collecting every pig she came across? Or did the collection find her? Perhaps one day she mentioned to a friend that she thought pigs were cute, and that friend bought her a little porcelain pig for her birthday, then because she liked pigs and it was a present from a friend, she went on to make a great big fuss about it...then all her other friends thought, 'Ooh, I know what I'll get her for Christmas!' and it just grew from there.
I do see how that could happen; it does appear that a few friends and family members have noted my making a Great Big Fuss over chickens and have thought to themselves, 'Ooh, that Lola really likes those chooks!' So, over the last couple of years a wee flock of vintage chickens have arrived at the little green cottage.
It is a sweet little collection, just manageable without seeming like too much an obsession. But before it gets out of hand, maybe, just maybe I should start making a Great Big Fuss over something else... like chocolate.
my favorite is the little vintage hen and chick bank from my mom
20 comments:
Haha, yeah. I've always wondered the same about animal collections. My grandmother's house is full of turtles in all shapes and sizes. She also has a live turtle crawling around her living room. I think shopping for presents can be difficult for people, so if they know you like something, they'll latch onto it.
Your chickens are cute. Both the live and the decorative ones. :)
I am all too familiar with how "it" starts. For a few years my mother in law would give me pig related items for the house. One was cute, but it was soon followed by all kinds of oddities. I wondered if there was some kind of not-so-subtle message she was trying to deliver. Finally, I think my husband discreetly mention while I was fond of pigs in general, I didn't have any special affinity toward collected them. The next Christmas she hand me a package and apologized for mistakenly gifting me pigs all this time. I opened up the package to find several black and white cow themed items inside. My mother in law smiled wide and exclaimed, "All this time I thought you were into pigs, but now I know it's actually cows you like!" I never had the heart to tell her, and until we moved I had a bw cow themed kitchen to enjoy.
Oh . . . next time I will edit my typing before I hit PUBLISH COMMENT. Sorry for all the errors above.
I LOVE hens and have an ambition to grow a little flock in the garden. I may have mentioned this to a few people and have to admit to a small collection of pretty hens that has mysteriously appeared over the past year or two.... and I still don't have any real birds.... YET!
With me it's rabbits. We got two bunnies when my daughter was young and I fell in love with them and I started collecting bunny things. Then people started to buy me bunny things. Sadly we no longer have our lovely girls but my house is full of rabbity stuff and I'm still collecting!
Vivienne x
P.S. My word verification is 'unhopt', can you believe that!!
I just love your henhouse - so stylish! My basket collection grew like that, and I also have lots of Scottie dog things, even though I no longer have a Scottie.
And I do have a few chickeny things, now I come to think of it - I especially like your chicken notebook, but it is the house I really covet, it is such a wonderful colour!
Pomona x
Too true! The chicken house is stunning and I love the spice containers! Love how the little chick is tucked under mama hen's wing on the bank.
I cannot explain how so very jealous of the chicken spice pots I am.
I have a friend who always gives me novelty candles. At lest you can burn them and not feel guilty.
How she can miss my enormous vintage jug collection I don't know.
I have the most adorable possum collection!
This is a great post and how fun that everyone shared about their collections. All of your chickens are very sweet...you are very clever to start a 'chocolate'collection, do you think it will catch on like the chooks?
I love your little collection; I think I am heading down the path of making a big fuss over little Dachshunds so I may very well be overrun here by weiners & sausages & doxie's & whatnot, but without as much style. ;)
I don't know if I've seen your chook palace before? I LOVE IT!
The same thing happened to my brother and sister in law - they started keeping bees and everyone began to give them bee-related gifts!
I mentioned that I liked cream pitchers and everyone started to give me pitchers. I have 6 cow cream pitchers alone! I finally put a stop to it!
That is surely the most impressive chook palace out there, beautiful! I've got a room full of fabric but I guess most other crafty bloggers do too. No other obsessions, although my husband would second the chocolate suggestion but that gets eaten way to quickly to build up any form of collection!
Ha! In our house we call this "The Dorito Effect" in honor of the times my in-laws insisted on continuing to buy Doritos every time we visited because we'd said once we liked them. They've done this with numerous other things through the years, and 'though we appreciate that they are trying to please us, we always laugh that they latch on to a particular thing at the exclusion of all else and seem surprised we might like other things too. :)
Chook, eh? You've been hanging with too many Aussies. ;)
Oh love your collection - and yes I can see how a collection can grow. My dear hubby catches that I say I like something and then all of a sudden it's lets buy 40 of those for her and recommend it to everyone who asks lol :)
I adore the chook palace! We are hoping to have some hens, what's not to love? Maybe curb "it" now though, while your collections is small and charming...
Once I had a dream that my friend had a camel collection. There were camels everywhere. I told my friend and we had a good laugh. But weirdly camel's started coming to her and now she does!!! She doesn't even like camels. I think it's so funny. (btw I've been stalking you on twitter)
I shall heed your warning and aim Great Big Fusses carefully. Lovin' (all) of your chookens...
that's sort of what happened to me with bear, although I will admit I'm completely and utterly obsessed.
And if you did choose to come join me on the dark side of collecting a couldn't think a animal worth celebrating more than the humble chook xo
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