A Word About Roosters

I was involved in a minor collision yesterday; no damage, no injuries.  I was run into head on by the Barred Rock rooster (Mad King Charles) who was so intent on chasing down one of the hens that he didn't even see me and had no time to hit his brakes.  He fell back, shook his head, and immediately started looking for another playmate.  Tzar Nicholas, the Araucana, also has his way with the ladies, but he is a little more circumspect.  Charles pulled all of Nicholas's tail feathers out, and I think it's given Nicholas an inferiority complex.  The Silkie boys outnumber the girls in their pen, and one poor object of their affection has lost the feathers on her back from all their attentions.  It's not hard to tell which hens are the favorites (or perhaps they're just slow runners); the back of their head is bald from where the rooster will grab her to pin her (briefly) to the ground.  She squawks bloody murder, but a few seconds' tussle and it's all over.  He struts away like the royalty he's named for, and she settles her ruffled feathers like a matron shaking out her skirts and goes on about her business.  The race is on as soon as I open the doors in the morning, and each of the boys takes a little pleasure before going in at night.  I sometimes hear Ethel Merman singing "Call Me Madam" when I'm around the chicken pens.

It's a good thing I took that photo of the tree when I did.  A fierce wind came up yesterday and, although it's still too dark to see, I'm sure that tree is as bald as a hen's head.  Walking out to the truck, I was bombarded with leaves sailing through the air.  So many were falling so fast, the skittering sound could be heard in the house with the doors shut.  Letting the house critters out this morning, I could see the porch is ankle deep in leaves.  The wind blew all day yesterday and howled around the house all night.  There was a delay on my trip to town due to a work crew cutting down overhanging branches, and there were times I had to detour around fallen limbs.  Pine needles lay in drifts like snow on the road and, like snow, they can be just as slippery.  There was a brief hiccup in the power just as I was starting to cook dinner and I thought I might be eating my meal by candlelight, but so far, so good with the electricity.

Unless you're a hen, you just never know what the day will bring.