Once upon a time, there was a simple country girl named Tammy . . . .
I walked away from the chicken coop the other day asking myself, “What am I going to do?? “ Why is it that conversations with yourself seem to flow so perfectly? The Question. The Answer to immediately follow. It must be the magic of silence. “Alright, I’m going to do it. I’m going to write it down. Then, we‘ll see.” And so here I am. Yes, I’m writing a chicken story. But, not just ANY chicken story . . . It’s the story of Rocky Rock, Big Rock ~ The Barred Rock Rooster . . . And a few other pertinent details.
I need eggs. So, I have chickens. My life is simple like that. At least, provisions, that facet of my life, is simple. Clean eggs are much more pleasant to gather. The cleaner I keep the ladies feeties, the cleaner the eggs. I’ve learned this thru limited observation. As in, sitting it the corner of the pen, shifting from one leg to the next, and watching the girlz go about their day. That works better than books for me. I see what they are doing and figure out what they need me to do to help them along. I’m not going to shirk my part of the deal. We’re both depending on each other. It’s not rocket science, but it’s my method of grasping the same element of understanding. “Watching the chickens peck the ground . . . What makes the world go round.” is what I say to the kidz. As with anything in life though, once you start paying attention, REALLY paying attention, and choose to be become involved, you start noticing all that you’ve been missing and all that you’d like to see made possible.Our old codger of the group, Rocky Rock, Big Rock ~ The Barred Rock Rooster (furthermore referred to as Rocky, whew) has recently become the prime target for the natural system so aptly named “the pecking order.” It’s cruel to witness. Personally, it’s an internal struggle to have to battle my primal acceptance of the situation and my compassionate need to protect the little bugger. I am quite fond of the guy. And there I go, telling you I admire a chicken.
Lately, I’ve had to worry . . .well, . . . honestly, about a lot of things. We lost our Gracie puppy when she got hit by a car on the road in front of our house. It shook me to the core. It was my fault. However I look at it. I wrote to my friend, Michele, about farm life and the relative simple truths I‘ve experienced with animals. But, really I spilled my guts about how ignorance is bliss . . .how I longed for ignorance. I don’t remember all together that much about being a child. When I think back on what it felt like though, it’s the innocence and the carelessness that strike me as having shaped the majority of my memories. Being a kid meant I had a little invisible card that gave me a pass to be completely and wholly committed to being in the moment and not caring about yesterday or tomorrow or anybody‘s expectations or the impact of my existence. Free. Free of concern. Aaaahhh . . . . Bliss. I’ve come to appreciate the minute differences between carefree and careless. Now, carelessness has such a high price. I don’t have that little card anymore.
Gracie used to love feeding the chickens with us. It was probably her favorite part of the day. We made a special spot for her in the new flower bed next to the chicken coop to let her rest forever. The kidz say she’s keeping a close eye on those chickens for us. I’m not a kid anymore though, remember. I know she’s harassing them. Either way, it’s her that has drawn me out to spend more time with the chicky bock bocks. I kind of assumed the job as my obvious duty. You’d do the same thing I’m sure. It was a small gesture, the least I could do, in dedication to her spirit . . .aaand . . . . selfishly . . . It gave me a little time to sort and think of Miss Gracie in peace.
When Gracie died I was so crushed and sad inside. The sad that takes everything out of your heart for a little while and then slowly, like dusting off and examining your cherished family photos, picks up the tiny broken parts and sets them carefully back down as close to where they were before you disturbed them and the dust. But you know things will never be put back exactly where or how they were “before.” I was searching for why it had stuck me so hard. I was beating myself up every chance I could along the way.I watched Ben worry when I would cry. But, oh, my heart would just get so heavy and I would just burst. I would see Gracie’s eyes. I would try to put them out of my mind. I would force myself to see them again and hear all that they were saying to me. It was literally all I could do. He gets frustrated when I cry. I asked him to please let me be sad and he got desperate and said, “I don’t want you to be sad. I need you to be okay.” I saw his body get tense and uncomfortable. He was unsure and scared. He was looking at me like I was some unpredictable animal. I finally realized he was seeing in me the same frame you would see if you sat and watched a train wreck. It might be the last moment he saw me, the small part of me that was left, as he had known it before. Animals were my innocence. It was the last part of me that hadn’t been consumed by the motherly paranoid “what if’s” and now he was watching that die.
For the last week, Ben has been getting journal grade updates on the happenings of the chicken coop and my sympathies, ever expanding, on Rocky. Today it ended with me in tears, again. It seems I’ve deemed the animal world unfair and unjust. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, although I’ll shout it out and readily make jokes about them at every opportunity. Line up a few unfortunate circumstances and it’s easy to pin it all on a sick joke called destiny. I keep wondering, “Mother Nature, Are You Just Mad At Me? Seriously??? You can obviously see what’s been going on here. Don’t you think a little intervention is called for??? Take it out on me, personally, if you’ve got a grudge. Please. Surely, Gracie deserved more. Rocky deserves more. He’s the “goodie,“ as Camble would say. “
We’ve had four roosters get put in the pot in the last couple of years. It’s risky business to keep a rooster, especially around kidz. If you have one, you’re shaking your head because I’m speaking your language. You start noticing how pretty their feathers are and how getting up at 4 seems to kinda make sense. It’s okay. It’s worth it. How does that work? One day they’re figuring out how to strut and doodle doo to look cool for the ladies, the next they’re flying at your baby boys face and you’re getting the gun.
Rocky was old when we got him. He took a couple weeks to lay low and figure out the scene, very unassuming like. Then he made quick work of taking on the pip squeak of a rooster we had at the time and took over the coop. He wasn’t obnoxious about it. He was actually rather discreet. Isn’t that something? He did all his rooster business like it was just a matter of fact. He woke up his girlz right on time each morning, called them quietly over to feed, called them in at night and kept everyone safe without making any of us the least bit nervous. He was practically professional about the whole thing. To be completely accurate, he has been a complete gentleman. The kind of rooster you’d be happy to send your hens out with. Good, on all accounts. But, just like anybody that does a good job just because it’s all they have in them, we took it for granted.
We ended up “winning” three chickens at the Cottage Grove Rodeo last summer. It was all very exciting. There is an animal scramble put on for the kidz as an intermission program. It’s intended to provide a resource of free animals for kidz. For farm families, this is an incredible blessing. That is, if you have the good fortune of scooping up just what it is you’re missing in the barnyard. I’ll be honest, our family had a stealthy plan of going after the Hampshire piglet. That was all we had a need for. We even brought friends. We had six kidz. It was practically a sure thing. Right? However, it’s an event that is intended for the kidz and that means I didn’t reach out and grab the pig when it came shooting straight at me. Nor did I scoop it up when it was cornered right beside me and I had to shout out to direct the kidz , any kidz, over to where it was. And, when the boy pulled it out of Morgan’s hands, as his mother was sitting on top of another pig half way across the riding arena, I did my best to explain to Miss Morgan that we would accept the loss and try to find some understanding in the hope that maybe their family needed those pigs more than we did. She was ticked. She was robbed. So, I was going to fix it all and console her with, “Hey, there’s still some bunnies and chickens out there.“ she looked at me, and very disgustedly pointed out the simple fact ,“I’m not going after a bunny or chicken. All we needed was a pig!!“ When it was all said and done, we still went home with three chickens. We were winners ???? She was right. We didn’t need three chickens. We were just greedy. But we chalked it up to the game of chance. Chance, being what it was with chickens, we still didn’t know if we ended up with hens or roosters . . . . Roosters, The boobie prize of the barnyard. We were hopeful though. We were holding our breaths.
Yeah, three more roosters. First came the nubs, eventually turning into spurs. A few high feathers, turning into waves and cascading into tails. You get the picture. And, as all of those things were becoming apparently obvious, so was the old saying “You only need one “rooster” in a henhouse . . . “. They’re beautiful. I’d like to justify keeping them. But my hens are getting abused and the whole scene just isn’t too altogether happy anymore. Egg production is down. Rocky has been alienated and because it isn’t in his nature to be the bruiser, he’s taken to hanging out in the coop by himself or pacing the east fence line, trying to be as inconspicuous as chickenly possible. It’s awful to watch his reign fall into such a state. I’ve spent the last few weeks determined to make my presence be the deciding factor in the dynamics of the chicken yard. I’ve been determined to get him seated back at his throne. But Mother Nature is bigger than me. I know it really isn’t my place to interfere on that level. I also know I’m the one who did the damage here by shaking up the chicken world with high hopes of a few more layers. It isn’t their fault, they are roosters. The fact is, these little guyz came into existence perfectly formed and hard wired for their being. They’re doing what they all know how to do best.
I’m left with a quandary. Like Ben hopes for me, I want Rocky to be okay. Really, I need him to be okay. I can’t watch the train wreck. I want things to go back to how they were for him before I messed them all up. I don’t get to blame this all on chance because I know better. There’s always that final moment of discovery, once you’ve chewed on something long enough, when you realize the only person you can be frustrated with is yourself. Once you know . . . . There is no undoing that. I don’t get to plead ignorance or carelessness.
I started to walk out of the chicken coop, considering all of my possibilities, feeling the weight of all the choices I had discussed with the kidz and what was actually practical. Because, that's me ~ practical. I had just spent 45 minutes with a hoe and a feed can (which I could throw 30 yards at any suspicious rooster ~ not too shabby) trying to impose my will. This is the length it took for me to be drawn to. Then came the reality that, the major leagues wouldn’t be pulling into my driveway any minute with a contract, my mean spirited and unemployed neighbor was probably uploading the humiliating footage to YouTube, and I hadn’t, in fact, changed the natural course of events for Rocky. I was just delaying them. It was survival of the fittest and he wasn’t playing the game. I wasn’t the greater good that had witnessed his endearing qualities and was here to reward his positive attributes. Rocky was off in the corner of the east fence line of the chicken yard when I had decided to give up the ghost and come in to find my camera and prepare the next “Free Roosters” posting you’ll be seeing at the feed store. Ugh. “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” ya'all!!
Rocky came running up to the fence with me and I thought maybe he had done his chicken intuition thing and had read my little pea brain. “Do you wanna just go out of the chicken coop, buddy? I’ll let you have the whole run of the yard okay. I won’t even get mad if you scratch up my strawberries.” He cluck, cluck, clucked his head to the side and just stood at the open gate. Then he started taking a few steps backward and turned his head to the side and starred at me. Those eyes. Again with the eyes!!!!! I decided he was trying to tell me “Thanks. I’ve gotta play my hand here. There might be hope for me yet. You’ve done what you can do.” I winced and pulled the gate shut behind me, because the offer was only good for him. When I was halfway across the backyard I realized my shoulders were still hunched up around my ears because I was still informing myself of the bad news. His bad news. I turned around and saw Rocky doing his best to hide along the east fence line. Bad news is always awful. Even worse is when you know somebody’s bad news before they do. Ignorance really is bliss. I had created this. I needed to do something, quick.
And I have to wonder how it would be that my focus would toggle so quickly from this almost mechanical perspective of feeding the chickens whilst building a relationship with our puppy to shifting to the “goings on” of the chicken coop as if it was a Broadway show. I guess the point to make there, or for me to have discovered, is that it is all a matter of perspective. For me, the farm girl, this is my Broadway show. My daily drama. The world, according to Tammy, via the chicken coop. Or, is it the universe conspiring to send me a message of some sort?
