Life goes on at the Calhoun chicken coop. This is
abundantly evident while the first sun is beaming through the early morning
haze amongst the magnolia trees. At that time you can lay in your warm,
cozy bed and listen to the cacaphonious commotion cascading upon you from
the chicken coop, and you know, Dumplin' the duck has laid her daily egg.
This is what you hear after the 4:30 cockadoodledoos so faithfully rendered
by Reggie, Pedro, Sugar, and BoBo (and there are two crops of chicks growing
up, I'm sure that contain several roosters).
Nope. There's
never a dull moment from morning till night around this place. All you
have to do is look out the window at the back yard bunch and you can observe
a social order that is very interesting to say the least. It can rivet
your attention for hours if you allow it. You say, "Well what can be so
interesting about watching chickens?" Well, what makes it even more interesting
is when you have a fowl mixture of chickens, ducks, a guinea, and rabbits,
and they were all raised together from specks. I think some identities
have blended. You know that does happen.
Anyway,
BB the MP (that's the guinea), keeps things in as much order as possible.
BB always is the one who runs interference between an aggressor and the
weaker one. BB ran with Boo Boo anytime she was out in the yard. BB actually
stayed between Boo Boo and the roosters or any others trying to get at
Boo Boo. They can sense weakness. Here Bee Bee is laying a couple of pecks
on Sugar, who has been shackled for assault and battery. He is always causing
trouble and fighting, yet he earned the name Sugar for his sweet disposition
as a young chick. Now, he is quite radical.
BB does
that for others, too. BB and the ducks run together. The ducks are not
quite as agile on the ground as chickens, and they don't have a sharp beak,
so in that sense they are the weaker fowl.
There is
a definite social order in operation in the backyard chicken yard. Sometimes
it's backyard bedlam and sometimes it's a lazy peaceful paradise. But,
one certain sound from any one of them who spies Hook 'em Hawk, and every
fowl eyeball and every rabbit is instantly on full alert. They take care
of one another.
Changes
occur. Adjustments are made and life goes on. A wave rolls in and you ride
the wave. You reach a new destination and the water quietly slides back
out to sea and mingles with infinite possibilites of what will roll in
on the next wave.
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