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Friendly Foe June 15, 2010
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Friendly Foe
June 15, 2010

I made two mistakes Saturday night. I didn’t wear my mud boots (opting instead for useless “spa shoes” with ankle socks) and I didn’t bring my egg basket.

Normally I would have done both. In retrospect, the third mistake I made was to not carry a stick.

I didn’t think I would need any of these things -- especially the stick -- but on the farm, and especially in the Hen House, one must be prepared for anything.

More sensible folks work in an office, or some place that is air-conditioned at least, and don’t have to worry about sticks and mud boots. Others my age are “retired.” They wear nice clothes for what is called “leisure time,” and visit friends, travel, even get bored.

The last, I guess, is part of why I’m not retired. Here, I’m never bored. Never.

The farm is a place of life and death, of changes -- some gradual and some violently abrupt. It’s a place of great untidiness and also of beauty. It has its flowers; it has its junk yard. The plants that sport the best fruits carry the sharpest spines and thorns, and others cause the greatest itches. Insects aplenty harass us with stings and bites and attempts to enter our facial orifices as if we are already dead. Outrageous yes, but other than slathering chemicals all over the body, or clothing every bit of skin, there’s little to repel them. We are just too attractive (food source), or antagonistic, in the opinion of many insects. And, in the opinion of other beings too.

On Saturday, the sun was fading behind the pecan trees and houses to the west. Larry was engaged by something on the TV, and I, obsessed with finishing my work day too, went out to collect the eggs, distribute feed and interesting tidbits to the hens, and let back in those free-rangers, Tootie and Toesy, the Spotty Dotties and Boss Chicks, who race me and the tasty tidbits to the Hen House.

Rusty Roo the Rooster, and all the hens know, simply know, that around 6 PM, I will exit the farm house (they hear the screen door swing shut) and they stampede, with full-throat-ed squawks, and pile up at the gate like crazed soccer fans. The first to arrive are wedged against the wire looking perturbed or pitiful, depending on their personality and the amount of squeezing.


Easing into the entry area of the Hen House, I toss the tasties from the bucket and the hens scramble for them. They can’t wait for the novelty of egg shells, or some of our cooked food, which causes real ecstasy. Their excitement over the morsels are kudos to the cook. There will be no leftovers of the leftovers.

Rusty doesn’t interfere with the tasties tastings; he anticipates the serving of the scratch. Hen scratch is like candy to the chickens. It has corn in it. I give it to them only in the afternoon as it’s almost like fast food. Moderation in all things is my motto. The hens, however, don’t appreciate my mottos; nor does Rusty Roo. 
 
He follows me into the east side of the Hen House, watching my every move, and waits, alertly by the trash can holding the grains, his head stretched expectantly high. I grab a handful and offer it to him first, and he greedily scoops it up with his spear-sharp beak. The hens who got no tasties crowd around, honing in on his private serving, and he backs up almost politely to allow them to have some. Then I toss the grain over the ground and all the chickens converge for the feast.

As they eat the grain, I gather the eggs, sliding my hand under two setting hens, relieving them of their maternal dreams until their sisters lay more eggs the next day. The feed can, masquerading as a basket, is soon full to the brim with eggs, so I set it outside the Hen House and pull a plastic bag from my pocket to hold the remaining eggs from the west side nests.

First mistake: plastic bag.

There, I clean out the water bowl and gather fourteen eggs. Rusty, satiated with the scratch, comes through the portal between the two sides of the Hen House to see what needs correction. He decides it is I.

Second mistake: spa shoes.
I am almost ready to leave the Hen House, holding the plastic bag full of eggs, when he makes his first assault. Whoa! He dives at my spa-shoe-clad feet, but seeing him coming, I swiftly engage his head with one foot and fling him about four feet. He recovers and comes at me again, irrationally enraged.

A rooster’s hormones surge in the late afternoon -- unfortunately at prime egg-gathering time. His main duties, besides eating grain, is to “romance” the hens, in a not so friendly way I must say. In fact, the tryst is slightly barbaric. With that awful beak, he grabs the hen by her comb or by the feathers on the back of her head, and climbs aboard as she sinks to the ground. After two or three seconds, the hen swishes her tail to one side, and Rusty delivers the goods. He steps off, does a little dance around her as she stands and ruffles her feathers, and then he sees what else he can accomplish. Perhaps a good brawl?

We fight each other for many long minutes (this is no tryst.) I can’t believe he won’t give up. Instead he charges over and over, twenty or thirty times. I’m not counting. The fight is fierce. I barely recover my balance before he is at me again. I fear losing my spa shoe, and have to curl my toes to make the shoe stay tightly on my foot, all the while regretting my choice of footwear. What was I thinking? Do I not realize that I should always be garbed in stained clothes and mud boots?

Third mistake: no stick.

I aim at his head with its sharp beak; he aims at my feet. They are our individual weapons (as I can’t reach the stick I see lying so close yet so far away -- behind him!) His beak strikes blood through my sock; my toes and even the tops of my feet are getting sore. I too am irrationally enraged now. I kick him repeatedly with all the force I can muster, the bag of eggs sloshing through the air. How many will be broken? Does he have a headache yet?

He lands on his back a few times from the force of my curled toes, but too far away from me to “finish” the fight, and besides I don’t have on my mud boots. Finally, after a few more sorties, we are both exhausted. He quickly walks to the east side of the Hen House, and through the gate to the run. I want to holler: “Quitter!”  But I’m too shaken. He makes a few comments, most likely telling the hens that he won handily, or he may be flinging insults from a safe distance, as I, trembling, walk to the farm house, carrying the bag of eggs. Six are broken. Larry is properly horrified. He wishes he’d known (it sounded more interesting than what was on TV.)

But the fight was a silent one. Neither Rusty nor I made a noise. It was a contest beyond "noise" -- which is muffled on the farm. It soaks into the fertile earth, wraps itself in the foliage all around, and disappears into silence.

At 5:30 the next morning, Rusty Roo the Rooster crows, the noise piercing silence like a sharp beak. It’s a new day.  In the afternoon, I will not make any mistakes.

Carol Ann

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