Eggs 4 Sale, but not in Kamloops

We were driving through Westsyde one recent afternoon when Syd saw one of those spray-bombed plywood signs that said, “Eggs 4 Sale, $4.”

“Stop here,” she said.

So I pulled into the driveway and we got out and went to the front door. There was obviously nobody home, but a note pinned to the door said, “Please leave $ in jar.”

Syd looked over the assorted cartons of eggs in a cooler that sat on a chair on the front step. Finding one that looked pretty good, she shoved a couple of toonies in the jar and we continued on our way.

There’s something rather civilized and neighbourly about a free-enterprise system in which the seller leaves a jar at the front door so customers can help themselves and leave payment while he’s in town.

The place looked like an acreage so the eggs 4 sale were probably legal, but chickens are not a popular item in Kamloops. We’re one of the few cities left in the province — maybe in the entire country — in which urban chickens are against the law.

In more enlightened cities, chickens are recognized as a good thing, a part of the green movement to greater food independence. In Kamloops, they are regarded as vermin.

City council has yet to understand it’s entirely possible for people to raise a few chickens in their backyards without the whole town going to hell in an egg basket.

A couple of years ago I promised I’d keep faithful readers apprised of progress on my chicken coop as I thumbed my nose at my less fortunate urban cousins.

Alas, the coop is still only in my head but, who knows, maybe this is the year — once again, I have an offer of a few fat young hens deemed surplus by a close neighbour who does more than talk a good game.

Selling eggs, as opposed to just eating them yourself, would bring in a whole new City Hall bureaucratic debate, but the urban-chicken concept in general is picking up speed.

Saanich is the latest to embrace it, setting a limit on coop size, number of hens (five), and prohibiting front-yard coops, a not-unreasonable restriction.

In nearby Victoria, Oak Bay and Esquimalt, chickens are already allowed on residential lots. I have it from a very good source that the daughter of one of our Kamloops councillors has chickens in Victoria and can’t understand why they aren’t allowed here.

Surrey, Nelson, Burnaby, New Westminster and Vancouver allow backyard chickens.

Those against chickens claim they’re messy, but any chicken lover will tell you it’s not so if the coop is well maintained. In Kamloops, it would seem, it’s perfectly fine to have cats and dogs running around crapping all over the place, but not chickens that are confined to the backyard.

At least chickens earn their keep.

I don’t see this becoming much of an election issue, but it would be refreshing to hear a candidate or two declare support for backyard chickens.

Don’t forget the words of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who said, “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.”

Chuck Palahniuk put it differently: “Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”

I’d never heard of Chuck Palahniuk until yesterday, and don’t know why he said it, but I’m sure he meant City council should stop brooding and get cracking.