Something to crow about

The faux rooster caught my eye – a bantam with coppery feathers and a tail that curved in a long arc toward his head. But he was the lure not the merchandise; he was NFS outside the Tinicum Arts Festival's White Elephant tent. I wasn't the only one smitten with him. Adults and kids alike stopped to stare at this lifelike bird before sauntering past tables laden with used curling irons, out-of-season ornaments, glass candle holders – and my favorite in tackiness, a 16x24 cross stitch of a paint-by-number rural landscape. Framed, even! But that rooster ... I wanted to take him home. I don't have any chickens, not even fake ones, although for about a year, I contemplated getting a flock of Rhode Island Reds for the back yard. Fresh eggs, I promised my husband. Too much work, he countered, adding that the red tail hawks and foxes would help themselves to chicken dinners and we would be out of eggs. During that year of fowl arguments, I met a Nockamixon woman who kept chickens and was also a talented nature photographer. A close-up Natalie took of a fuzzy-feathered hen won a ribbon at the arts festival this year. I don't have her eye for form and color and composition; my photographs are snapshots. But if I'd brought my camera to the festival I could have taken home that rooster – the NFS rooster – in pixels even if I couldn’t have him to hold.