Saturday I took my mother in to get her hair done. While she was doing that, I told her I was going to Tractor Supply to pick up some goat and chicken food.

"Are you going to buy more chickens?" she asked.

I said, "If they have Barred Plymouth Rocks, I just might."

So I walk in pushing one of those low, flat carts designed for lugging feed bags around. Chick days are still on, and they have a tub full of ducklings... and a tub full of mixed pullets... a tub full of Gold Comet roos... and a tub full of straight run Barred Plymouth Rocks.

I had to think about that one really hard.

Ultimately, I refrained because 1) I had already taken down everything in the house that I used with the five week-olds (and the computer boxes I used for a brooder were burned), and 2) I'm not sure what plans for Easter my wife had made, and wasn't sure if more chicks in the dining room was amenable to those plans.

Although I could have made it work, and all I would have had to buy (besides the chicks) was a small feeder. I have an extra waterer, I could have brought the heat lamp in from the coop, and used the old dog crate as a brooder.

I told my mother about this and she laughed. Then she asked if BPR's were the ones that looked like they had stripes. I said they were and she said, "My dad kept those kind when I was a little girl."

This makes me wonder if I wasn't genetically predisposed to like raising chickens. I have no other explanation for why it resonates so much. Perhaps I'm more like my maternal grandfather than I realize (I'm a quarter Irish through him, and always wondered why Celtic music touches such a nerve with me when I hear it).

The icing on the cake is that I went home and asked my wife, "How badly would you have killed me if I'd brought home more chicks."

She said, "Well, I wouldn't have killed you..."

I said, "I was really looking hard at some Barred Plymouth Rocks at Tractor Supply."

She said, "Wow, they have Barred Plymouth Rocks? That wouldn't have been a problem."

But then she mentioned the possible incompatibility of a brooder full of chicks with possible Easter guests.

So maybe... After Easter...