As I mentioned Wednesday I spent a considerable amount of time attempting to convert my flock into bona fide Southern Baptists.  3 hours to be exact.  To be a Southern Baptist is quite simple.  Love Jesus, act each day as a missionary on the field of life, don’t dance (at least when anyone is watching!) and consume large amounts of homemade casseroles, pound cakes, fruit salad and coffee.  And sing.  Southern Baptists are even allowed to clap!  Unlike BMA Baptists.  Maybe that’s why they split.  Which is why the first time I heard a church-full of clapping Southern Baptists I was quite taken aback.  Mildly horrified even.  However, I am able to quickly blend into my surroundings and you can now find me on any given Sunday clapping with the best of them at First Baptist Church.

Anyway, back to the birds.  So last Wednesday was the monthly nursing home luncheon.  This is the day all the area nursing homes load vans and buses with their residents and haul them to the fellowship hall for a couple of hours of visiting, singing and of course, a covered dish lunch.  I try to never miss one of these, I adore old people.  I adore the fact that Addie gets to help serve dessert and give them their drinks.  I love to sing, even if it is really off-key, I figure three-fourths of the crowd is pretty much deaf so it doesn’t matter.  And I love the food.  I love seeing long, white, folding tables laden with chicken spaghetti, egg-rolls, pea salad, brisket, homemade bread, deviled eggs, pickled beets, mac and cheese, pasta salad, purple-hull peas with bacon, broccoli cheese, steamed cauliflower (which is my favorite said nobody ever), cornbread, fresh green beans, chocolate cake, carrot cake, strawberry pie, angel food cake, sugar cookies and trifles!  We Baptists KNOW how to eat!  Which is why I thought my flock were perfect candidates for conversion.  Food is their favorite thing!  After the luncheon there is always a considerable amount of leftovers and I fix my darlings a to-go dish each time.  They love me for this reason and probably this reason alone.  Immediately seeing the large aluminum baking pan, they rush to meet me halfway across the yard……….

Of course my little chicken was the first to reach me……and the food.

She was quickly joined by 2 friends…..

…and a few more.
Before you knew it……

Chickens are everywhere! “Perfect, my plan is working!” I think silently to myself. “Just keep luring them in….Wait!  Little Chicken, where are you going?!”

I guess they can read my mind.

Nope, she came back!  Food gets’em every time.  However sharing issues quickly emerged so before I lost my crowd completely I decided to get a bit dramatic and fling food all over the yard!

It worked beautifully.

Except that black hen, see the one there on the right?  She thinks I am a nut.  I mean, what kind of a lady throws food all over her yard, really?

Oh well, you can’t please everybody.

Pretty sure I got the white hen converted, see how she is enjoying her spaghetti?  She’ll be back for sure!

This rather funky, athletic creature will probably be back to, for the social scene if nothing else.

Maybe she will bring a friend!  Oh wait.  All her friends are already here.  Dang.

“I want a friend Mama!”

These two are definitely in, check out the intense “I gotta get ALL the cabbage” look we have going on here…

My Salmon still looks a bit lost, she may take some extra work.

And 50 years ago we couldn’t have let Mr. Polish come to a church event with such a hair-do, lucky for him it’s 2014.

And over 50 percent of the population has weird hair-do’s.

Poor Miss Partridge Silkie has always been a social outcast.  She may need a special class.

My Little Chicken is all in, thank goodness!

A little post-meal preening…….

….a sweet thank you from the attendees and my work for the day is done!

I’m not sure how many converts we had but everyone had a fine time and left with full bellies and happy hearts.  Maybe they are Baptists after all…..