And Then There Was One

It's hard to remember the exact chain of events that led to four chickens in our backyard, but the final straw was receiving the coop from The Nana for Mother's Day.  Shortly thereafter, we welcomed Eloise, Lucille, Mildred, and Vera into our family (and our garage).  Mildred, the Barred (or Plymouth) Rock was my favorite  because of her beautiful speckled feathers.  Lucille, the Buff Orpington, was my second-favorite because her breed was so highly recommended, and she was so clean-looking.  Vera, the Rhode Island Red, was next just because Eloise, the Black Sex-Link was my least favorite.

Of course, Kay Kay loved them all.

We took great care of these little biddies.  Each day, we'd take them away from their make-shift mother (a big plastic bin with a floor lamp leaned over it) and put them in the grass outside to "free-range" until they were finally old enough to live outside permanently.  The Papa re-purposed a 10' x 10' dog kennel to form a very spacious run for "the girls".  I might mention that this has been the highest and best use of the dog kennel which will tell you something about either us or our dog.  At this point, we would go out every evening and lock them in the coop, and we would go out every morning and let them out.

Even though these girls have plenty of room in their run, The Papa is still a big fan of letting them out to "free-range".  I, however, am not a big fan of this because our black lab, or "Bubba", as Kay Kay renamed him, likes to go in and out.  In and out.  In and out.  All day long.  And especially when there are birds on the ground in our backyard.  Chickens are birds.  I am also not a big fan because they liked to hang out on the back porch, often pecking at the door as if to say, "Knock knock."  In addition, chickens don't care where they poop.  Get my drift?

Anyway, about 10:00 one Thursday night, I was awakened by The Papa, and all I really remember from the first few minutes of the conversation is this:  "Mama, I made a mistake and Eloise is dead."  There were other words spoken, but these are really all I remember.  I watched enough episodes of The Sopranos to be really concerned about what I'd heard, but after I completely woke, I understood perfectly.  We never went back out to close the run and lock the coop at the end of the day, and when The Bubba went back out for the evening, he went exploring.  The girls were apparently roosting in the coop when the dog stuck his nose in.  The Papa found the other three hiding underneath the coop, and Eloise lay dead at the bird dog's feet.  Not mutilated in any way, just dead.

This blog post is getting really long, but for the sake of posterity, I have to tell the rest of this story.  Earlier in the day, The Papa and I had a "discussion" about the getting the dog comfortable with these birds so that they could all roam our vast homestead in harmony.  My final contribution to the discussion was the idea that The Papa just buy a chicken to sacrifice in an effort to train the dog.  We raised these little chicks, and I had grown rather fond of them.  Remember that Eloise was my least favorite?  Well, just that day I had decided that she had grown to be my absolute favorite.  Her feathers were so black they almost had a green sheen to them.  And her body was so round.  She really was a beauty.

I can't imagine how hard it must have been for The Papa to wake me to tell me that the dog had killed one of our girls, and my favorite one at that.  "What are you going to do with her?" I asked.  His ideas were to bury her in the backyard or take her out to the power line right-of-way near our house.  I'm not sure about rules concerning corpses and landfills or I would tell you what was my suggestion since it was Thursday evening and the trash is picked up on Friday mornings.  Eloise might have been my favorite chicken, but she was a chicken, and her death was untimely.  The next morning as we lay in bed, The Papa said to me, "Why do I hear the trash truck on Thursday morning?"  I immediately understood that, in his grief, he had lost track of the days, and the trash can was still in our backyard.  The entire next week I was unable to open the trash can because I had a completely understandable fear that the ghost (or not completely dead body) of Eloise was going to come fluttering out.  Truthfully, I still fear this a little.  The ghost part, that is.  The trash actually has been taken out since then.

So, then there were three.  Did you know there are almost as many names for chickens as there are ways to prepare shrimp?  Not counting any slang terms, there's chickens, pullets, cockerels, hens, and roosters.  We wanted hens because our primary mission was to gather eggs and not ruffle any of the neighbors' feathers with the quaint sound of "cock-a-doodle-doo."

"Are you sure these are females?" I asked the breeder.  "Oh, yes ma'am.  I worked in a chicken factory for some twenty years sexin' chickens, and I ain't gonna sell you no roosters."  Wow.  Twenty years of turning over little biddies and squeezing.  My, what some people can do.  It wasn't long, however, that I remembered that just because someone does something for a really long time doesn't necessarily mean that they're good at it.

Those big, red combs developing on Mildred and Vera were our first clue, but we didn't want to believe it.  But, sure enough, Mildred finally crowed to reveal her his true identity.  We found a very excited and knowledgeable 10-year old young man to come and get her.  Honestly, the next morning, Vera began crowing.  I forgot to call "the rooster rescuers" that day, and they couldn't come the following day.  On the third day, when The Papa got in from work (around 10:30 pm), he was not very happy to learn that Vera (Vernon?) was still in the coop.  Since he was determined to not hear a rooster crow the next morning, he decided that she, I mean he, should go camping.  He assembled the dog crate, put the chicken in, and took her him to the woods near the aforementioned power line right-of-way.  The next morning, after crowing time, he went back and got her him.  Our neighbor said, "I heard a rooster crowing at 8:30 this morning.  Little late for a rooster, isn't it?"  I just shook my head.  Later that morning, Vera went to back to live with Mildred.

We were not offended by the idea that Mildred and Vera might become someone's dinner.  We eat chicken, and honestly, we might have eaten these if the feathers would have cooked down in the crockpot.  I'm more into the idea of cooking things "from scratch" if they're like lobsters.  Know what I mean?  Boiling things alive I might could do.  Butchering?  Don't think so.  But, I have to admit that I'm so glad "the girls" got a good home.  The look in the eyes of their new owner is something I hope to never forget.

Grandma Elizabeth told me that sometimes hens will crow.  Many years ago, like about 80 years ago when she was trying to learn to whistle, her mother told her that she really didn't want to learn to whistle.  "A crowing hen and a whistling girl never met no good end," she said.  At least the first part of that adage still holds true.

So for now there is there is one.  Lucille the Lucky, Lonely Hen.  For now.