MOTHERS

Most of the hens would lay their eggs in the Chicken-house, nesting boxes, but some laid around, under, even in the house: in our laundry pile; one in the trunk with the stuffed animals in it. Of course we wouldn’t let them accumulate there. Then a brown hen we called Brunhilda, started laying eggs in the Dog house, right there on the deck. We didn’t have Dogs at Dogs Plot then, so we didn’t collect the eggs; and Brunhillda kept on laying them. When she had accumulated near a dozen eggs, she began staying on them night and day, with only short times off for feeding. With nobody to show her how, but with good instinct with some difficulty: she turned each egg, every once in a while … which helps them develop properly without twisted beaks or clawfeet.. She accidentally broke a few of the eggs, in the process, but she ate them, shells and all. A few chicks pecked their way out and died; but one one dingy little thing survived. We named it Geraldine; I don’t remember why the name, but we were greatly proud that little potato. Then one night Georgia and I up in the sleep loft were awakened by a SCREECH. I came down the ladder from the loft as fast as fireman down his pole, slid open the deck door … and there was Brunhilda, standing over the chick, screeching, her hackles sticking out all over, facing a Coon that was back on its heels and screeching too. . Maybe I was screeching too, but any way I kicked at the Coon … with my bare foot … and didn’t manage to make contact, which was good; because the Coon went up on the rail and ten feet up into crotch or Horse Chestnut tree that spreads over the deck, and stayed there, looking down at me. I keep a shotgun ready, mostly to finish off Deer hit by cars. I fetched the gun and I shot the Coon out of the tree. I’d had a pet Coon for a while when I was eight or ten, but he bit my ear once ,,, his family came back for him night after night, so my parents set him free. Now anyway, forgive me: I fetched the gun and shot the coon out of the tree. That Coon was a goner and Brunhilda was the wiser for her experience, Next night, she and her ilttle one roosted in the Horse Chestnut Tree. Geraldine didn’t have much in the way of feathers, but had good flight genes, could flap up to the rail, then to the hanging spider plant, then up into the Mother tree. That first night in the tree, Gerald fell from the perch, landed on the hanging spider plant, and stayed there making a churrupping, noise, while Brunhilda cried like a woman who had lost a child. But after a few minutes, and before I had to help out, the little thing got back up there. When “Geraldine” began showing his true colors and coming out with a croaking sort of crowing, he became Gerald. Gerald was as big and enhanced as any cock on the range, so he didn’t need a lot of protection, but Brunhilda was, and remained hyper-attentive to her little prince. She tried to lead him around until he was full sized, and then she FOLLOWED him around. She would catch up with him and, if he stood still, get right under him and stay there for as long he didn’t move. Together, they looked like a four-legged Chicken. Gerald tolerated this attachment, and despite or because of it, grew to be cocksure and did well in the accelerating series of mock battles ,as well as real fights for supremacy. He was King of the hill for a good long time. During the Reign of Gerald, our flock didn’t even suffer from a lot of wild predators. . Stray Dogs had been no problem when I had two dogs of my own qt Dogs Plot, but now, strays would come around, and most of them didn’t know a Chicken from a squeaky toy. A neighbor a mile across the woods and cattle pasture neglected to refresh the batteries in the shock collars her dogs wore to keep them from crossing the invisible fence. They showed up here frolicking, and killed a couple of our chickens, just wanting to have fun. They did have license tags and submitted to mild kicking, so I tied them to a tree and called the dog-warden. The father of the dogs owner came right away, apologized and gave me a hundred and fifty dollars, w, and that’s a good neighbor. But one day well into the Georgian era, I heard barking in the yard, looked out the kitchen door, and saw a goofy Great Dane chasing our Chickens. I burst out the door yelling like a rabid person, so the tall dog veered off, heading cross-lots, angling toward Moonshine Road. I called a friend who lived down that way and asked if she knew whose dog that would be. She did: a prison guard who lived with his elderly mother and the dog just down the road. Our friend gave me the phone number, and Georgia called. The woman herself answered and said yes that was her son’s dog ; it was back with her now and she was terribly, dreadfully sorry . She explained that her son worked day shift at the Auburn prison, so while he had his breakfast each morning, he would let the dog run around the yard and just before going to work, he would call the Dog in and put it in a cage which he had installed there in the house with her so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the great beast. But that day the dog hadn’t come in when her son called it. So the man child had to go off to the prison; dog ran off, now this call ….. and the poor mother began cry so loud I could hear. Then for five minutes Georgia spoke to the dog prisoner mother, for five minutes, so softly I could only guess at what she was saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgGV9BTRxqA She don't stink, she don't chew, and she don't hang with the bugs that do !

WHere's a Thanksgiving story I wrote again today: Chapter Twenty Two Tuna Noodle Casserole Georgia and I had been emailing back and forth for two years, without phoning and never yet having met in person, when she emailed to suggest it would be convenient for her to drop by - rather than mailing - a bundle of the new Metaphysical Times with another of my articles in it. I was not suspicious, skeptical, or cynical about the innocence of her intentions. She may have put a spell on me, but …as I would eventually learn … she was semi-tragicaly afraid that I would be disgusted at first sight of her: an overweight, sixty-eight-year-old,virgin. Before leaving Syracuse, she had to pick up the papers from the printer,so she would not arrive until afternoon, plus there’s always weather and traffic… so I cleaned out the guest trailer, in case it was needed. Georgia almost never started. She would not have even tried to arrange it, if it were not for her friend Betty, on whose milk can dog-food containers Georgia was painting gnomes at the time. Betty knew Georgia’s whole story, and urged her on. Georgia made it half way here, then stopped and called Betty; who encouraged her to keep on going. Georgia did keep on …. but later needed further encouragement, pulled over and called again, which worked again. When she saw a vintage junk store, she stopped to pick out some sort of gift: and came out with a mini, multi-tool, suitable for gnomes, and now among the treasures of the Dogs Plot museum. As soon as I knew she was underway, I watched the weather radar on my computer, and I probably spent a lot of time looking out the kitchen door too, because I was standing there when her little Ford pulled in off the highway. I’d told her to park out by the mouth of the driveway and walk to the house … because of the chickens and cats wandering about. I was soon out the door, and it isn’t like we were running toward one another with hair streaming in the wind …. but we met in the driveway half way between the house and the road and as I seem to remember, passed through or into one another like two clouds …because most of the evening is hazy after that. There sure was a lot of talking … and it went on past most folks dinner time. Even given my addled brain, my smittenness, my enchantment or whatever you say, it’s hard to see how in the week or so I’d had to prepare, I had not given a thought to offering her lunch or dinner. It’s not so much that I don’t ordinarily cook, as it is that for me, living alone so long, cooking had become an impractical pass-time. . Tuna Noodle Casserole it would be. Easy with green Peas in it. One like my mother used to make would have been appropriate, but instead of using Muellers egg noodles, I mixed up my own, with whole wheat flour, egg from my hens, olive oil; kneaded the dough rolled ut out, cut up and boiled it…. all to Georgia’s complete amusement …. amusement to the degree that I now realize she was only a little short of the sort of laughing fit she was prone to that had gotten her kicked out of both Lillydale and a YokoOno exhibition. She might have thought that next thing, I would go down to the pond and catch a tuna. But I’d raised Bass in the pond, not tuna, the bass died in a five year drought, and anyway, I always used StarKist then because of the logo and I used Campbels soup like my Mom did, included slivered almonds, baked and browned it, and by the time we ate, it was well past bed time. I offered to light her way across the yard to the trailer where she could spend the night in reasonable comfort. As hesitant as she had been about coming here, Georgia was not at all bashful about saying she wanted to stay up in the loft with me. Somehow that was a surprise, but that was OK with me. So up we went, We cuddled all through the night … what was left of it; the most comfortable I had been since my dogs died. We didn’t have sex that night, nor did I realize then that she was a virgin. But she drove back to Syracuse the next day to handle business, and start packing clothing, portfolios, family photos, books and dolls, her father’s Buddhas and Pearl’s fiddle. It took several trips in the next days. I don’t know why I couldn’t have been more helpful, but it’s obvious to me NOW as it is to you, that we two were subconsciously acting out the historic event of her own parents’ first thanksgiving.

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