This is the day that the lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
I will rejoice more when a fellow parishioner, who is going into the abatoir business, comes to take my mortal enemy, Othello, the Wyandotte rooster, to the guillotine. Ah, I had such hopes for him. He would be as beautiful as the one my Grandmother had when I was a child. This is the reason I opted for some silver-laced wyandotte pullet chicks and one little cockerel.
My granddaughter named him Othello when he was just a small, cute, peeper. She also named a dainty auracana, Desdemona. The little chick became a pretty little hen and will not receive the same fate as the literary Othello's wife did - at least as long as she keeps laying eggs!
The rooster of my childhood was not an aggressive type and simply added a stately beauty to the flock of layers in our backyard coop. However, there was another rooster before him who was the bane of my existence.
Big Red, and he was big, and he was red, a Rhode Island Red as a matter-of-fact, made my life miserable. My chores were to feed the chickens, gather the eggs, and muck out the run and turn the earth with a shovel after a rain. I was about nine or ten when these duties fell to me.
Gramma had constructed, yes, GRAMMA had constructed a row of nest boxes that opened from outside the enclosed run. She constructed the run as well. One of my blogs tells a lot about my grandmother and her multitude of talents. However, I had to open the run gate and venture in to throw scratch or fill feeders.
Big Red decided that he objected to my daily intrusions. His spurs were sharp, and so was his beak. Gramma hung a stout stick outside the gate. I held it before me, to parry and thrust at the attacking foul fowl. He was not easily deterred. One time, as he ran at me, I managed to whack him on the side of the head and knocked him out. I thought surely that I had killed him. With mixed emotions "Oh, what have I done?" to "Hah! No more trouble from you," I backed out of the run and watched. The hens had scurried to a corner and were bunched together clucking and doing the chicken cacophony thing. Again, with mixed emotions, I saw the red menace stagger to his feet, reeling a bit like a drunk on Saturday night, and eventually come to his senses. Had he been given a lesson he wouldn't forget? Hardly! He immediately made a half-hearted (probably half-brained) attempt to get me through the gate. This behavior kept up until the day he mercifully died of old age.
So now, my hopes for a creature who would add stateliness and beauty to my mixed flock of hens, are dashed forever. This son of the evil one comes at me daily. He gashed my arm in two places, which took weeks to heal. He tries to get at me through the run and through the portable fencing that allows the chickens to free range out of the coop and enclosed run. Yesterday he pecked my leg through the fencing. Luckily I had on heavy jeans. Even before I can close the fence he runs at me to see if he can make contact before I get to the opening. I carry a large rake to ward him off. His spurs are now losing their sheaths, which makes him even more formidable. It's time for him to become a part of my next cassoulet or a hearty chicken stew. "Deliver me from my enemies, O my God: and defend me from them that rise up against me." Psalm 58.1 5/10/12
No comments:
Post a Comment