10.29.07
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
“Road Rooster” - a photo by James Cummings
The old joke goes, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Answer: “To get to the other side.”
Well, being a farm girl at heart, I was quite pleased when a rooster walked out into the middle of the road to greet us, last week, when were visiting a small New Hampshire town. He had high hopes of being fed, and so did his buddies, that you see trailing behind.
There are always surprises in life, at every turn. This was one of them. The rooster eyed us, in what I interpreted to be a friendly manner. In contrast, I can’t help but recall the two Easter chicks that my sister brought home when I was little.
My parents were fit to be tied, as we lived in the city then. Sure enough, the “cute” chicks turned into these two fly-in-your-face, peck-you-at-every-chance, monsters. In fact, they were so annoying that when we, and they, were transplanted onto a farm in the country, my brother would take great delight in giving them their comeupance by tossing them high into the air, as high as he could. After that, they would behave themselves for awhile, mainly by avoiding humans.
Basically, I do like fowl, except when they are foul. On the farm, I had a pair of little Bantam chickens, make that a chicken and a rooster. The hen was very discreet. She hid her 12 eggs in a hay bale, and I only discovered them hours before they hatched. It was such a neat thing to see her “babies” trailing behind her. Little fluff balls, they were. Six of the chicks were pure white, but not albino, just a genetic fluke. I won blue ribbons, for several of them, at the local agricultural fair, as 4-H project entries.
Chickens are fun. The rooster we saw in the road was well-behaved, that’s for sure. When he saw that we were not “Greeks, bearing gifts,” he buck-bucked a little bit, then turned and went back into his yard.
When Jim and I first lived in this old house, there was a chicken coop out back and we kept chickens. There was one problem. The rooster was cockadoodle-doing too much at about 4 a.m. and he was beginning to irritate us, and probably the neighbors, too. So, my sister-in-law, who was no stranger to killing chickens, took a hatchet to all of them, including the rooster, and that was the end of that saga. We kept some of them and she took the others to put in the freezer for the winter.
Now, if those poor chickens had known of their upcoming fate as Chicken Stew and Dumplings, I am more sure than sure that they would have crossed the road, too.
I hope you enjoyed seeing the roosters above. I thought and think they are beautiful creatures, and I always enjoy meeting mild-mannered critters, whether folk or fowl.
Patricia Cummings
