Journal of a Living Lady #121

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

          This has been an interesting day. Charlie arrived home safely from El Salvador at 3:00 a.m. He grabbed a few winks and headed to his summer job. Feeling better than usual, I  mustered up an unusual full meal, complete with banana pudding,  for my men.  Buddy advised me at supper time that he had stomach cramps. Charlie came in the door, ignored the dining table,  and staggered to bed. Haven’t seen him since.

The postman delivered a bill today for forty boxes of chewing gum. When Ms. Red, our sitting red hen, ordered the gum, I do not know. However, I have a word of advice to future egg farmers. Don’t let your hens have chewing gum. It results in chicklets. This morning Ms. Red hatched 18 babies.  Actually, I suspect Farmer Buddy slipped some extra eggs into her straw nest. About noon, I discovered another dozen baby chicks in the incubator. This required a rush trip to the feed store. Being an impulse shopper, I couldn’t resist the three loudly screaming baby guineas on display there.  Alas, one of the baby guineas was a con artist. He promptly escaped, so we  now have only two.

            Before Buddy got the stomach ache, he put Ms. Red on the barn floor so the babies wouldn’t fall out of the nest. I added two or three new babies at a time from the incubator. This  mama hen is like the proverbial old lady in the shoe… so many chicks and guineas she doesn’t know what to do. They don’t all fit up under her out-stretched wings, but they snuggle up as close as they can.

  Now, if we can just keep the varmints from coming into the barn at night terrorizing every living creature, we should do okay. No, we still don’t know what happened to the heretofore rooster. It is one of life’s big mysteries. I did get a cryptic note of explanation from Saddam. He said, “We have been watching this rooster’s unprovoked acts of aggression on the Nation of Hens. We were quite justified in giving the rooster anthrax which we do not produce and have never seen.”

We Kellys were not intimidated. We bought a gorgeous new black rooster with fringes of red and gold.. All the baby chicks, except the switched banties, are glossy black like him. There is no question who the daddy is.  And can he crow! We are surprised our sleep-deprived neighbors aren’t egging us.

Buddy and I share in the joy of raising chickens. Buddy is not only a chicken farmer, he is a chicken charmer. He and one of our banty roosters have a strange and wonderful relationship. You can decide which one is strange and which one is wonderful. One cocky little rooster lets Buddy get right up to him and then, with a swift  kick,  spurs Buddy’s hat from his head. It is a daily game for both of them. It doesn’t take much to entertain little ole men and miniature roosters.

One of our elderly hens aspires to be a writer. She takes me under her wing sometimes and shares some fowl wit and wisdom. This was her latest adage: “Chicken soup is not good for your health… if you are a chicken.”

 

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nancyk@alltel.net