Yes, that’s right, you read the headline correctly: chicken scene. Need more? Fear not: for this week’s Three Things, I have for you a setting (spooky 19th-century manor), protagonist (lovely bookworm), and specific scene (overflowing garden, with chickens).

The inspiration for such a combo? None other than my (yes-alright-Wren, our) mother: a Jane Eyre-loving, chicken-raising green thumb, who, on this very day, happens to be turning 29 (you’re welcome, Mom!).

John Atkinson Grimshaw, Autumn Morning, 1864. Oil on canvas.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Woman Reading in a Landscape, 1869. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Gustav Klimt, Garden Path with Chickens, 1916. Oil on canvas. Destroyed by fire, 1945.