We couldn’t believe our ears: we thought we were hearing the sound of a young cockerel announcing himself to the world.

A neighbor used to keep a variety of poultry, from exotic pheasants to guinea fowl to just plain laying hens. He’s gone now, but we still miss all those birds.

What we were hearing this morning emanated from this little ventilated trailer decked out to resemble an old-fashioned gambrel-roofed red barn, and it had arrived for a birthday party, all the way from Fry’s Fun Farm, near Lockhart.

People used to acquire their chicks from the Seed & Feed on South Congress, now the Guero’s establishment. Callahan’s General Store is the general source these days, last I heard. Despite the neighborhood presence of gray foxes (which would require a sturdy coop for night-time safety), with the current plague of grasshoppers, sometimes the notion of a small poultry presence is quite tempting.