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.