A chicken a day: let’s visit Sweden!

Swedish chicken with my favorite wallpaper

Once upon a time, when I was 8 or 9, I got an oil paint set for Christmas.

I decided that my first masterpiece would be a still life of a painted wooden rooster that my parents had collected. The rooster was mostly red, I remember, with folk art designs all over it. I loved that thing, and spent several days drawing it on my little piece of stretched canvas and slopping the paint on as carefully as I could.

This isn’t that chicken.

My parents’ chicken was probably American-made folk art. But this one reminded me of it so much.

This one also reminded me of traditional Swedish folk art, and what do you know . . .

Teeny tiny label!

It is!

It could be older or newer—I don’t know and don’t really care. I just like the colors and the Swedishness. BluesRay is part Swedish, you know.

I’ll put my Dala chicken up on the shelf with a little painted wooden hen—no idea where or when it was made—and a little Dala horse.

Instant farmyard!

I think my sister-in-law got the American chicken when my mom downsized, and that’s only fitting, since she keeps chickens in her backyard.

I would love to keep chickens, but I suspect our dog would make a total nuisance of herself trying to herd them. Or eat them. So, no chickens for us. Except the wooden kind.

I don’t know what happened to my youthful oil painting. It probably disappeared years ago. Sure wish I had it now.

Isn’t it funny, the things you value years after they’re gone?