I’d forgotten to bring the chickens’ food container in and overnight we’d had a
lot of snow, so they were getting the Birdseye product—frozen food.
“Look,” I said, dropping things on the ground, “I’ve brought you some bacon
fat, a little bread, a black banana.” All four came over to the edge and
looked down. There was a pause while they scrutinized the land’s lay and then
Mimo hopped back on the perch. “Nope. Too white.”
Pecorino, “Insufficiently diverse.”
“What do you need? Beetroot?”
Cheddar explained that the food was not the issue. “It’s the terrain, you see.
Gone all untrustworthy.”
“But you like white water.”
Appenzeller, the black one, said that the problem was not so much whiteness qua
whiteness, but how it made hiding impossible. “There’s no possibility of
blending in, you see. Very dangerous circumstance.”
“I do see,” I said. “And it’s cold. You might be better off on your perch,
except you’ve gotta eat some time.”
“Indeed,” said Mimo. “I don’t suppose you could find it in your heart to
introduce a big juicy worm or two into the bedroom?”
“All out of worms,” I said, “but I’ll keep an eye open for something suitable.
Did you know that a tree fell onto the living room of the neighbors beyond
ours?”
“We heard,” said Peccorino. “Most disturbing.”
“Glad you have the trees here better disciplined,” said Cheddar. Turning to
the others, she added, with absolute confidence, “He works with them just like
the dog.”
I took them an aging persimmon, some cabbage that was past its best and a few
handfuls of chicken food from the bag inside the house. “If you’re truly
worried about the color of the ground,” I suggested, “invite Hamish in. He’ll
be happy to Pollock up the place, but he only works with yellow.”
They agreed that yellow was a very fine color. Cheddar, the Buff Orpington,
was particularly enthusiastic. “Very warm and friendly, yellow.”
“Yes,” I said, “dogs think so.”
The forecast was for the temperature to remain below freezing so a little bacon
fat seemed like a good idea. I left it on the floor of the sleeping area.
Hamish stayed inside so he wouldn’t know what was what. Or so I thoght.
Hamish and I went for a good walk. He had a rest. At lunchtime he said he
needed to go out. After a few minutes alarms went off in my brain. Where was
he? It was altogether too quiet. Out I went into the snow, straight round to
the chicken coop, where I found the girls on the ground, complaining, and
Hamish up in the sleeping area, licking where the fat had been.
Mimo, “It’s not right you know.”
Appenzeller, “He shouldn’t be allowed up there.”
Cheddar, “We dont need color *in* the sleeping area.”
I explained to all present that someone was very much in the wrong, which was
quite unnecessary; we all knew.
The next day Hamish scratched to go out. We eyed one another, saying nothing.
I opened the door and he bounced across to what remains of a basketball. He
grabbed it and imitated the action of a dog ensuring that a wounded rodent
dies. “See,” he seemed to say, “all is innocence.” When I looked out the
kitchen window to check, he had disappeared. I opened the door and called his
name. Back he slunk, coming once more from the coop.
Finally on Saturday the chickens ventured out, crossing a few feet of snow and
turning the corner, which put them under the stack of garden chairs. There
they stayed for the rest of the day. The limits of Empire had been declared;
beyond the chairs was terra incognito. Adding to their uncertainty was noise
from the chainsaws of the tree fellers, guys from the three enormous trucks who
came with the tree service which undertook to remove Nature from the living
room of the house two across. At twilight I took bread out, shoveled the snow
from their door so that it could open all the way, chucked bread from where
they could see to where I wanted them to go. Noone moved.
“What’s up?”
Mimo, “Well, it’s awkward.”
“What?”
Mimo, “Well what if it eats us?”
I explained that snow doesn’t eat anyone.
Appenzeller joined the conversation, “Maybe ‘eat’ was the wrong verb? Swallow?”
I said that I didn’t think it likely that they’d be swallowed on the way back
to the coop. I conceded that swallowing was a possibilty in deep drifts, but
here was but a foot of snow and after all, they had walked all the way from the
coop to the chairs. Peccorino made an effort and flew coop-ward.
Unfortunately the guidance system she was using placed her twenty degrees off
target. She landed on top of a stump which was also covered in snow. She
hunkered down and fluffed up. I walked over and asked if she minded being
picked up. Not in the least; she was grateful to be dropped home and within
distance of the roost. Also first to all the bread I’d chucked. I went to
lift the others. Usually they’ve not keen on such intimacy but here they were
pleased. Mimo was first.
“Sorry about this. We seem to have lost the power of peramubulation.”
I muttered agreement and went back for the other two.
Cheddar was in full-English mode, by which I mean apologizing repeatedly.
“Sorry…sorry…sorry for this.”
“Not a problem,” was my response.
By the time I got to Appenzeller there was aural evidence that the others were
busy with bread. She practically flew into my arms. “Darling,” I said.
“Get a move on…and easy with the irony,” was her response.
On Reading Keegan’s History of Warfare
We all have views;
the only question is
what do we do
with the fact that
few of them coincide?
Do we take a bride,
following our parents' or our tribe’s wish,
learn to like the dish,
order something on the side,
or simply accept what is?
The alternative is the pursuit of ought,
denying what God or the gods wraught,
an escape into some city identity.
We embrace the Enlightenment's pursuit of Truth,
or throw all overboard for Romantic Love.
Keegan says we now know the past of vocal clicks,
and when a mother-in-law’s Aboriginal vocabularly was taboo.
We’ve come to abhor revenge raiding and blood prices,
and war.
So we fight over food,
and who wiped the baby’s bottom last.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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