Taking the "chick" outta CHICKen...

So Story and Eve ( named for the night that we found them, and the fact that picking them up on Christmas Day makes for a pretty good story), had rescued poor Sadie from her impending doom. It seemed that our little farm had come together quite nicely. To make it feel even more "official" I planted an organic fruit, vegetable and herb garden. Which the chickens of course found immediately.

Speaking of "chickens". I get asked a lot "how do you tell whether a chicken is a hen or rooster when they are still young." And I can safely say that I have mastered THE fool-proof answer. WAIT till they aren't young anymore. That's it. I could end this blog right here actually, but obviously there must be a story that goes hand in hand with how I discovered that "answer". And lucky for you there is.

The sun hadn't even graced the day with its warm smile yet as I stepped from the warmth of my house into the cool of the barnyard to begin the daily routine of menial "farm chores". By this point we had established somewhat of an "ok-ish" routine, wherein I would not let the chickens out to free range until it was light due to any lingering "creatures of the night" that may perhaps still be present. Yes, I know that Hawks, the obvious predator, only hunt during the day, but I'm not really worried about Hawks. It's the possums.

Possums? No it's not an autocorrect. I really meant possums. They are sneaky little ba$+@?&$ that have been fooling us into thinking that they were vegetarians for centuries. Not unlike the skinny girl in yoga pants who has "suddenly" and miraculously developed a gluten allergy right there in her seat at the restaurant just as the bread hits the table.

A farming friend of mine couldn't figure out what was stalking her chickens and picking them off one by one each night. She had considered a bobcat or coyote, and thus set a trap. The next morning, sure enough, the trap had gone off, and low and behold inside it was, wait for it... a 62 pound possum. And that was without the head on the scale. At any rate, that story was enough to wanna keep my 4 year old inside as long as I could, much less the chickens.

I went about the stall mucking and compost mulching until I was sure the sun was just about to peer over the horizon line and apparently that hunch was right, because as if on cue, something "crowed". Or at least made a sad attempt at doing so. And that "something" was most definitely in my roost. Remember when I had explicitly stated in an undeniably strongly worded, foot down kinda manner via the use of ALL CAPS (completely and universally legit) in a previous post my feeling on this subject? Well apparently Bess is not an avid follower of my blog.

This day that we are referencing shall hence forth be known as, "the day when our little Bess became Brewster the Rooster." What can I say? It's harder to give them away once you've named them.
I decided that there were a lot of things you could hear throughout the day that were way worse than a rooster's crow. For example a screaming goat. And hey, I'll even top that, your 4 year old son yelling, "Look mom, I'm riding Sadie like a horse!" (just to be clear she's a DWARF goat).

"Que Sera, Sera" Bess, Brewster was our Rooster now and that was that. And all was right with the world...