Adventures in Chicken Sitting

I married a city boy. He's become more countrified as the years have passed, but I don't think he truly understands who I am and where I came from sometimes.

My husband and I have been taking care of chickens for a loved one who is out of town. To my husband, this is a new adventure. To me, this is a pleasant trip down memory lane to my childhood.

Our first day of chicken sitting was exciting for my hubby. After I persuaded a hen off her nest so I could gather her egg, she began throwing a fit. The rooster ran to her side like greased lightning. He has his priorities straight.

The hen clucked and squawked for a bit, and then the fierce fowl warrior rooster decided to defend his gal. He puffed up and charged me. He wasn't ready for me, though.

I certainly didn't want to hurt the rooster, but I wasn't about to let him rip me to shreds. I rounded on him, made eye contact, yelled like my daddy taught me, and stomped my foot in his direction.

The chicken didn't know how to react to my defensive posture. He stopped in his tracks and tilted his head to study me. I maintained eye contact and firmly explained to him that he didn't want to attack me. I won't tolerate his talons on me.

He puffed a few more times and then slowly walked away, never taking his eye off me. Once he was back with his ladies, I told my husband we could continue our chicken chores. I kept an eye on the rooster and found him staring at me, but he didn't try to attack again that day.

Yesterday was our third day of chicken duty, and the feisty fowl was feeling froggy again. I saw him puffing at my husband with blood in his gaze. Nope. I yelled and postured again. He looked at me, tilted his head, and decided to join the other chickens in the coop.

My husband expressed his surprise at my skill with the birds. I've shared stories about my youth with him, but I don't think he truly understands my roots. I grew up in a small town, but I spent a great deal of time on a few family farms when I was a kid. In addition, despite living in a small town, my family had chickens, honeybees, and a few cattle.

My real farm experience comes from the farms of my grandparents and various aunts and uncles. My grandparents had a huge farm, and I spent many summers there learning typical farm chores. Through these early experiences, I have performed many typical farm chores.

I've thrown and stacked hay, fed and watered chickens and turkeys, gathered eggs, worked cattle, rendered lard, wrapped meat from butchering, and bottle-fed rejected baby animals of different species. I've ridden a bull, am intimately acquainted with using outhouses, and have hand-milked a cow. I've drank milk that was still warm from the cow and eaten honey straight from the freshly harvested comb. I have harvested and canned or frozen just about every vegetable that will grow in our region.

Therefore, having one rooster square off against me was nothing new. I wasn't scared, and I certainly wasn't about to be pushed around by a testy bird. The experience brought a plethora of memories I haven't thought about in several years.

Simpler times and endless summers when I felt I had all the time in the world swirl through my mind while I'm caring for the chickens. My sister, cousins, and I worked hard and played harder. The skills learned during those incredible summers will stay with us always.

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