It LOOKS Like Country But It Ain't Really

My phone rang at eight a.m. this morning, a Sunday morning, and I leapt to get it from my bed where I was still unashamedly and unabashedly asleep, thinking surely it must be Lily and there must be some problem with Owen.

"Hello?" I answered and instead of hearing the teary voice of my daughter, I heard a voice asking me about roosters, absolutely no apology for calling me up on a Sunday morning at the crackish of dawn.

Listen- I could muck out my chicken coop five times a day and I will still never be that country.

In real country life, eight a.m. on a Sunday morning is plenty of time to have gotten up, made a hearty breakfast and done the chores and then settled down to answer all the phone messages.
Because I had left a message on this woman's phone on Friday night. She and her husband raise chickens and they took some of Kathleen's roosters when it became all too apparent that she had more roosters than was needed and that the roosters were keeping the hens all agitato and needed to find other homes. And I had called to ask if they'd like two more.

Now. If we were REAL country people, those roosters would have made a fine chicken pot pie but we are not. We have chickens because we love them. They are our pets with benefits. But even crazy chicken people like us know that too many roosters spoils the coop. That's just a fact. We supposedly are raising these birds for eggs and roosters do not lay eggs and can keep the hens in such a state that they can't either, plus it's inevitable that the excess of roosters will begin to use their excess of testosterone for fighting each other and cock fighting is another aspect of chicken-raising we don't intend to get involved with.

So. That is why I'd made the call to these people who supposedly are breeding chickens to sell who can use the extra roosters. Although of course it could be a scam and they are simply looking for free meat.

I had wondered if after Owen was born I would lose some of my interest in my birds. It's not just a metaphor for refilling the empty nest that I have gotten so enamored of these feathered babies of mine. They amuse me, they fulfill something inside of me that I didn't know was there and they give me eggs. Mr. Moon and I have raised these chickens from little puff balls of birds and I was a bit worried that my devotion to them would flag a bit after I got a real grandson but so far, that is not so much true. I still love them and look forward to going out and feeding them some fruit and finding eggs and when this woman called about taking Lucille and Helen my heart did a little sinking thing because yes, I have raised them from babies and they are beautiful chickens but it can hardly be denied that they are roosters with their gaudy tail feathers, their thick tree-like legs and oh yes, their crowing.

"Would this afternoon be a good time to come get them?" the woman asked.
I grabbed what seemed like a temporary life raft in my sleepy disorientation and said, "Oh. No. I'm sorry but my children are coming out this afternoon. We're having a little party. That wouldn't be a good time."
"Well how about tomorrow?" she asked and I wondered if they already had the pot on the fire, the potatoes and carrots cut up and waiting, or perhaps the dumplings rolled out.

"Uh. Okay," I said. "Why don't you call me then and I'll tell you how to get here."

It's going to be hard, I think, watching those two birds go. I know it's stupid. They are just chickens, after all, and I EAT chicken. I'm going to cook chicken flautas this very afternoon. And, like I said, if I were really a country woman, I'd be cooking Helen and Lucille but I am not a real country woman, no matter how dirty my feet get, and I will be cooking anonymous chicken breasts from Publix.

But I remember when they were tiny, just big enough to peck at a piece of watermelon, and I cannot eat them. I am not quite Marie Antoinette, playing at being a shepherdess, but in reality, I'm closer to her than I am to a real country woman who can wring two birds' necks at the same time and then prepare them for Sunday dinner.

And la-di-dah. So what? I am who I am and I know I have to give these extra roosters up and cowboy up, cupcake and get on with my blessed life and I will. But it will be with a pang of sadness, I know that for sure.

And now I need to get busy around here. My kids and my grandchild are coming out today and there are beans to boil and flautas to make and tables to clean off. I would kill the fatted calf if I had one.

Well, probably not. If I had a fatted calf I would have named him something like Babycakes and how in the world can you kill something called Babycakes?

Or Helen and Lucille, for that matter.

And there you have today's sermon from the Church of The Batshit Crazy where we are faced with all sorts of conundrums and quandaries, joys and small sadnesses.

I hope you're having a lovely Sunday and that no one called you at eight a.m., awakening you from your well-deserved slumber, pulling you out of your soft cotton sheets, your puppy dog lying at your feet.

And now I must go feed the chickens. And boil the chicken.
Because I am a hypocrite and so it goes.