Penobscot Poultry.
I have been photographing the various ephemera associated with the World’s Poultry Science Association World Congress. ( articles elsewhere).
And I came across these.
I was in the USA for the Atlanta Poultry Equipment Expo which I regularly attended in January looking for new products and new science in the research poster displays. Afterwards I headed to Maine, I think via Detroit, and the great lakes. Time dims some of the memories , its a bit like saying I am going to Cairns. I was going to buy books and to visit Robert Hawes, one of the researchers involved with a lot of pure breed conservation. He was one of the Authors of Saving Wild Turkeys from Extinction.
He is a Cochin breeder, in a part of the USDA frozen in for 3 or 4 months of the year. You know you have reached Maine when the “ Moose on the Road” signs start appearing. Robert put me up there and showed me the inside housing for the cochins. The waste water drains in the poultry houses didn’t work for a few months each year, frozen over. The birds were nice but I am no judge. Robert points out the window to the River ( I think it’s the same one that the final scene in Hunt for Red October the submarine is hidden in it but now I am not sure). Over there is where the first European trappers came ashore for the first time in Maine, says Robert. I cant remember the date but 1600 and something or other. His family have lived there for a lot of generations.
That’s a long introduction. But the memories of the hospitality of many people is important. I bought all the books on offer, and next day headed off back along the Penobscot bay, for the long haul back to Chicago. I pulled up near the wharf and went into a model shop for model boats. One of the boats has a rooster on the cabin roof. I think it was called the Penobscot Crabbing trawler. But as a model boat company, they had all the bits for making reproductions of the historical boats, including the diecast roosters to the model s. I asked why the rooster, and no one knew just that it was always so.
I bought a few just as it’s a poultry collectible. In the drawer with the other medallions and badges. Another curio. Jim
The Japanese Encyclopedia of Poultry.
In 2 volumes, one highly illustrated in colour ,and one the book of words.
I have come across this book a few times and seeing it arrive into Kenny Pomona’s collection reminded me to look it up again and tell some of its story. It is an odd book to appear in Australia as so few of us can do more than look at the pictures.