Julie in Nantucket, Massachussetts, was tickled when her father used the expression weak as hen turd tea. More commonly called chicken poop tea, or chicken poo tea, or in Australia chook poo tea, hen turd tea is a mixture of poultry manure steeped in water that some believe is helpful to spread over garden soil. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Hen Turd Tea”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Julie in Nantucket.
Hi, Julie, welcome to the show.
How can we help you today?
When I was a teenager and living in New Hampshire with a very large family, I was going past one of the bedrooms one day and my father said, “Julie Ann, get in here and help us move this bed.”
So I went in and I picked up the end of the bed that was open. My brother and father were on the opposite end. Didn’t think about that at the time. And I only got to get it, you know, a few inches off the floor. And their end was pretty high up.
And my dad says, “Julianne, what’s the matter with you? Are you as weak as hen-turd tea?” At which point I just started laughing and dropped the end of the bed completely. And then my brother started laughing. And my father was like, “Oh, God, we can’t get anything done around here.”
As weak as hen-turd tea? As weak as cancer tea.
Yeah, well, I’d never heard him say it before, and I just lost it. It was too funny.
Was he someone who kept chickens or did gardening?
Well, he liked to have a garden, and he might have grown up with one. I’m not sure. And he did get us chickens for a couple of years, but I think he gets so fed up with none of the kids wanting to actually take care of them. And then, oh, I know, we had weasels or something coming in and helping themselves to the chickens.
Well, the only thing I can think of is that there’s something called chicken poop tea more often than hen turd tea. And it’s a way of sort of composting chicken poop by using about one-third poop and two-thirds water. And you soak it in there in a pillowcase or burlap sack.
You don’t drink it.
No, no, no. You don’t drink it.
No, you do not drink it. That had crossed my mind for a second.
No, no, I’m sorry. I should explain that some people think that this is something helpful to put on your garden. There’s some controversy about that.
Got it.
But some people think it’s good for plants, and it’s known around the world as either chicken poop tea or chook poo tea in Australia and New Zealand. Chook being the Australian for chicken.
Where a chook is a chicken.
Yeah.
Or rabbit poop.
Oh, so this is actually a practice of some sort.
Yeah, it’s a kind of fertilizer, basically, a liquid fertilizer.
Yeah.
Oh. It would look, I assume, I haven’t spent any time with it really, but I assume that it looks just sort of like weak coffee.
You mean you didn’t do the whole reason?
It’s on my list. When you have YouTube, why do it yourself?
I couldn’t resist. Somebody else make the mess.
But as far as I know, that’s unique to your father, that particular use of it.
But it’s pretty clever, as weak as hen-turned teeth.
It is pretty clever.
That’s outstanding.
And he got your attention.
I made you laugh, which is always a dad’s job.
And I’ve thought of it over the years, you know. And then I listen to your show a lot, which I love, by the way. And just, you know, all these idioms. You just wonder, who came up with these things? You know, you just wish you could find that one person that came out with it way back when.
Well, you know the guy who came up with that one, it looks like.
Oh, good. Chalk one up for dad.
Yeah.
Julie, thank you so much for a really nice call.
All right.
We really appreciate it.
Thanks.
It’s been a pleasure.
Okay.
Take care, Julie.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Sometimes stuff just belongs to a family.
We’ve had calls where something someone said lasted for generations and never really left the family, but really, really belonged to that family and characterized their humor or their outlook.
Yeah, yeah.
It sounds like one of those things.
And you hear something like that, and it just takes you back, right?
There are people who are great at language who don’t write books and don’t give speeches. They just do something out with their lives, and their only audience is their family.
It sounds like one of those guys.
Well, we’d love to hear the stories about language that have come down to you through your family.
Call us, 877-929-9673, or send us an email.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
