Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean has something like 173,000 followers on Twitter, where she is one of the more inveterate attention seekers among the media tweeters. Many of her followers want to know what she will do with her chickens and the rest of the menagerie she keeps in Columbia County, New York and writes about. The chickens, for one, aren't coming west.
In a matter of weeks, my husband and I will pack up everything but our winter clothes and park ourselves in Los Angeles until next spring. My husband has business there; I am merely a camp follower....The cattle, for instance, will stay in New York, with our house-sitters. (But really, wouldn’t it be totally awesome to have twelve Black Angus in a Los Angeles backyard?) The ducks and turkeys and guinea fowl, who need more space than we have in California, will stay, although I sure would like to bring them. (What an icebreaker at neighborhood get-togethers!) The dog, of course, will come with us....
Re: chickens. It is legal to have them in Los Angeles, as long as they’re a polite distance from your neighbors; and there’s a lively L.A. chicken scene already in place (I already have my Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts T-shirt, courtesy of one of the members.) But our backyard in California is small. Moreover, there are zillions of coyotes and bobcats hanging out in the neighborhood, and they are not the scrawny East Coast models: like everyone in Los Angeles, the coyotes I’ve seen there look like they work out a lot with personal trainers....At least for the moment, the chickens will stay here.
Clearly she needs to hook up with Jenny Burman.