in the modest backyard of rosemarie randall ' s 1890 - built house , about a full - hour from yale university , there is a small kitchen , bushes and forsythia , japanese peach and pear trees , and an backwoods - made poultry yard with 5 residents — four who lay ones and manny , who is also but one fit of a watchdog . the fowl are technically illegal under newly haven ' s zoning code , which prohibited raising cocks and other animals when it was updated during the 1950s . but these afternoons , some dozens of backyard fowl are commonly banned under the city ' s unofficial enforcement program — call it " don ' t wisecracks , don ' t move " — that mostly looks the other way . with urban fowl increasingly present , alderman susannah lemar has introduced bill that would permit residents to raise up to nine geese .
The Morgans have lived near Yale University since the 1950s.