E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-9761597-4-2
Verlag: High Peaks Publishing
Format: EPUB
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Chuckles the rooster avoids date with death Smartest chicken on Little Farm by the Creek impersonates hen to escape freezer November 11, 2009 When I was a kid, the chickens we raised for meat were not “slaughtered.” They were “dressed.” Or “processed.” The difference might have been lost on a chicken, but it made us feel better. Why say that you are going to scald, pluck, gut, eviscerate or disembowel a chicken when you can simply say that you are going to “put it in the freezer?” The terminology comes into play because we bought a run of 15 araucana chickens last summer, figuring on about half hens, half roosters. Instead, we got 11 boys and four girls. There is no appreciation for males on a farm. Females are desired, coddled, swooned over and treasured. But if you’re a boy, it’s an inside view of an upright Amana for you. The roosters’ date with destiny was scheduled for Nov. 4, and for three days prior, I couldn’t look any of them in the eye. We decided to keep one rooster for picturesque “crowing on a fencepost at dawn” purposes, but the rest had to go. (Stink, the stinkbug-eating chicken, was obviously the lucky boy.) As all roosters do, the fellows would run around the place while shrieking, fighting, mauling hens and being truly sociable. The hens—including one I’d named Chuckles, for her clown-like, feathered sideburns—would sit in the coop all day to keep away from the crowing motorcycle gang on the outside. So after the roosters had been duly dispatched, the hens cautiously began to emerge into the sunlight. They were understandably timid at first—all except Chuckles, who suddenly became as bold and fearless as Captain Cook. The chicken followed me around like a dog, pecked at my feet, chased the other girls with spirit and then stretched her neck to its fullest—and crowed. “You devious little fraud!” I thundered. This is the absolute truth: For five months, the jerk had lived with the hens and acted like the hens. (S)he never joined in with the band of brothers outside, never crowed, never tried to mate with the other girls—never did anything to indicate she was a he. But the day after we returned from the abattoir and he determined the coast was clear, oh brother, did he begin to make up for lost time. Lacking practice, Chuckles’ crows were a little rocky at first. But his ego exploded through the roof and he chased down every last hen, as if he were a cross between Foghorn Leghorn and Bill Clinton. So now what? Two roosters almost always wind up with irreconcilable differences, so it would make sense to eliminate one. Stink’s value and virtue are beyond reproach. Then we have Chuckles, whose resume includes deceit, duplicity, betrayal, dishonesty, subterfuge and a blackness of soul unparalleled among fowl. But, in him, we may also hold title to the wisest chicken to ever walk the earth. Plus, there’s an unwritten rule at Little Farm by the Creek that once you receive a name, you are safe from the butcher’s knives. And he has those curious and wondrous locks that jut from his cheeks like Martin Van Buren experiencing an electrical shock. So for now, let’s just say that Chuckles is on double secret probation. We have another load of broiler chickens that have a date with the freezer in another week. Chuckles can shape up or get dressed. The choice is up to him. Social events at our house go to the dogs November 30, 2009 When normal people have guests, there are a standard number of questions to be answered. What do we serve? Which wine would be appropriate? Is the tablecloth clean? Where should people park? Do we force people to watch our stinkin’ slide show of our trip to Dollywood before or after dessert? We can’t be bothered with these trivial matters because one question relegates all others to afterthoughts, and that question is: “What do we do with the dogs?” Basically, this is an issue of limiting human-canine interface to the degree that the laws of physics will allow. Perhaps it’s because we have visitors infrequently. Perhaps it’s because we have excessively exuberant dogs. Perhaps it was poor training on our part. Perhaps it’s because people are always hesitant about dogs they do not know. Whatever the case, whenever Hannah (bulldog) and Opie (bouvier) sense new meat on the premises, the encounter almost never goes well. We always issue the standard caveat to any new visitor: “The dogs are friendly, but …” The devil is in the “but.” I remember an old Marmaduke cartoon, where the postman is breaking in a rookie. Walking up the drive, he points to the animal and says, “That’s Marmaduke. He doesn’t bite, but oohhh brother.” In a sentence, that’s Opie. Oh brother, where arf thou? At about eye level, generally, given that he’s half dog, half pogo stick. If we don’t catch them in time, they’re both out the door like artillery—usually to the sound of car doors being slammed shut, as visitors consider whether our company is worth the trouble. Through some miracle of science, the word “no” has been purged from their vocabularies. We say “no jump,” and they hear “jump.” We say “no lick” and they hear “lick.” Even for self-described “dog people,” Opie, at more than 100 pounds, can cause real problems, especially when he hits his target at 40 feet a second. We barely have time to get out a frantic, “Opie, don’t …” before the sound of air being forced from lungs reaches our ears, followed a split second later by the sound of someone being pinned, with force, against his car. Many people have left our house with a human-shape imprint stamped into their sheet metal. If we hear a “thump,” we don’t worry so much. But when we hear “thump-thump” we know it’s time to call the body shop. And while Opie is working the shoulders, Hannah is taking out the knees. It’s a pretty effective team, if one can appreciate it at a distance. We have two buildings, home and office, suitable for canine incarceration, but that presents a separate risk. A forced detainment only serves to wind their springs tighter and tighter, and if by some chance we need to go inside, they’ll shoot out with exponential violence, leaving the screen door impotently swaying back and forth on one hinge. Some people are braver than others. Or less worldwise. They’ll say, “Oh, don’t make the doggies stay inside, we’ll be fine.” Beth and I usually exchange a level glance at this point, and say, “No, you don’t want that.” If they insist, there’s nothing much we can do except shrug and open the door to the four-footed projectiles. We have noticed that, unlike the dogs, the people in question generally catch on to the true meaning of “no” the first time and do not make the same request twice. Chuckles’ temperament is no laughing matter January 5, 2010 Most businesses have a policy of listening to the public, of maintaining strict adherence to the ideal that the customer is always right, and of being receptive to any and all comments from the clientele. In fact, early on, I decided that my response to any public input would be to cover my ears and chant “La-la-la.” Unfortunately for me, I deviated from this policy when an overwhelming number of people called and wrote, telling me to spare our young Aracauna rooster named Chuckles from the chopping block. In wavy dream sequence, let me remind you that Chuckles pretended to be a (valuable, egg-laying) hen up until the day that we sent all the other roosters but one (Stink) to be processed for future sautés. Chuckles is all white, with no tail worth mentioning and two mutton chop-like tufts of feathers protruding perpendicular from his cranial region. “Cranial” might be a stretch, since that suggests the presence of a brain looming somewhere aft of the eyeballs. He can’t even crow worth a lick. Chuckles is possessed of a temperament so vile, so absurd, that my first instinct was to wring the little jerk’s neck at first opportunity. In fact, Beth recently had to leave town on business and I was resolved to dispatch Chuckles in her absence. But I didn’t, partly because of a thumbs-up from you Roman hoards and partly because bad animals have a habit of making for good writing subjects. In this sense, Chuckles has not disappointed. On her return, Beth—who, frankly makes PETA look like a bunch of bloodthirsty Visigoths—seemed mildly disappointed that the rooster was still stalking the grounds of Little Farm by the Creek. And stalk he did. And does. Speaking honestly, there is nothing about Chuckles that can be loved, aside from his picturesque appearance. Part bully, part coward, part airhead, part instigator, part—well, picture Glenn Beck with feathers. My enduring memory of the bird is of him running at full speed from atrocity he himself has created. He never apologizes, he never repents, he never owns up to his failings; he just runs. He runs from the big hens who rebuff his attempts at romance. He runs from Stink, the virtuous eater of stink bugs and enforcer of justice. No wonder about that, since Stink routinely beats...
