Our australorp hen is on the cover of this week's Columbus Alive! Read raising the roost about keeping 'pets with benefits' in the city. Learn a little more in the two sidebars, keeping chickens 101 and why to raise chickens.

I love sharing about our homestead. Along with an interview for the article, I had the pleasure of watching a professional search for the perfect chicken pictures.

First, photographer Jodi Miller came out with writer John Ross on a drizzling cold day. She shot for almost an hour. I posed with the chickens and baited them with stale corn chips to do their thing. My girls are so tame that they rarely gave Jodi the 'crazy' she was looking for.

A few days later, Jodi returned with a background and different lights. This time she had the idea to try to catch a hen in mid-flight.

Because the girls don't jump up unless surprised and it would be impossible to catch them doing so against the background, there was only one choice: drop them.

I held a hen a few feet off the ground and released on Jodi's count. She spotted the ground and flapped to a gentle landing. I don't think this counted as animal torture, as the hens jump farther to get out of their coop several times a day.

Sadly, none of the flapping chicken pics ended up in the Alive. It was reassuring, in a way, to watch a professional straining to capture the vision she had in her mind. I go through a similar struggle on a daily basis!