[lit-ideas] Sunday Chickens
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 12:14:51 -0800
This week's questions include: what is the essence of chickenness, do chickens
respond to the behavior of other birds, what is their preferred diet and why,
how are the schisms? As is often the case in life, there are many more
questions than answers, but we do know that chickens do not hold finches in
high regard. When a flock of finches rose in startled flight this week, the
chickens just looked at one another, "Finches!" As naught compared to the
mighty fowl.
Back before the storm, in a heroic rush Pecarino finally breached our perimeter
defences. L was holding the door open to see if the dog wanted to go do his
morning ablute and flooooom in comes P on the fly. She lands beside the dog
food bowl, sees that it's empty, spits out a brief, "Damn," speeds on out. The
dog didn't move. There was some history to this. Earlier in the week we put
out sour milk and stood back to watch. The chickens were hard at work, turning
the compost, and so were slow to notice. "Bowl!" the cry went up. Here they
came, running. Chickens run with a roll, like a person whose thighs are too
wide, or someone who has spent too long at sea. On arrival they took a good
long look, "Funny that, the water's gone white."
"It is white water."
"How exciting." (A hint of ironic tone here)
"Do we like white water?"
"I have no idea."
"Are you going to taste it?"
"'Spose I could. More of an explorer's job that though."
"Over to you, Mimo."
(Some background information here. Chickens do have taste buds; I looked it
up. One websites says 20, another thirty, another seventy. Let's agree on
"less than a hundred." By comparison, we humans have ten thousand, but before
you begin to feel smug, digest the fact that an ox has 30,000. What does this
suggest? I know nothing about biology, so I'll simply repeat what I read:
omnivores need more taste buds than carnivores because they have to decide on
the advisability of eating a wider number of things than carnivores eat.
Herbivores need yet more taste buds because they have to pick out deadly
flavors in, say, a bunch of grass, or find salt from sources that aren't meat.
I don't know if you find that at all convincing, but it makes me wonder how
omnivorous chickens would be if they had a little more choice in the matter.
Which will be important later, when we come to the bone story.) Back to the
milk. A chicken begins by dipping her beak, but of course the wattle also
tends to dip too, so the next procedure becomes a dance step: open the throat
and swallow, swallow...and...shake. So it is that all present get liberally
doused with little drops of milk. On Wensleydale or Cheddar (white and fawn),
Rocky or Pecarino (the spotted pair), this was hard to see, but all-black
Appenzeller and Mimo came in for grief. "Love the new look, ladies," said
Rocky. "Will you be on 'Dancing with the stars?'"
Wensleydale has been leaveing long white plumes, here and there. These are
probably no sign of surrender or accusation of cowardice. We think the
symbolism connects to her belief system. Pecarino, however, is trying another
theory out. "She's foregrounding the fact that our world is a construct."
"If only," said Appenzeller, "they'd put more signs up."
"More what?"
"Signs."
"I beg your pardon?"
"'To the food' would be a helpful one. Or a little light that indicates when
the dog's dish is unattended."
"I'm not referencing physical signs. It's way more complicated."
"Nothing complicated about food. Either it's there or it isn't. Very binary
thing, food."
Captain Mimo wandered up, "What are we discussing?"
"Dog food," said Appenzeller.
"Theoretical underpinnings," said Pecarino.
"Bloody marvelous this morning," said Mimo.
"Marvelous," they agreed.
They were talking about our error. Military history is ripe with examples of
divided command leading to disaster. Such had been the case in this instance.
I fed the dog; E. let the chickens out. We did not synchronize watches, we did
not send memos, we did not check with one another and so, for a brief but
critical period, Mac's kibble slipped between jurisdictions. Mac, it turned
out, had no interest in keeping fierce-beaked dinosaur relatives from eating
his bits, so he failed to call our attention the the mayhem outside. Chicken
delight was absolute and raucous; they rounded the corner in the usual
optimistic state and there, for once, it was, "Dog food!"
Their eating resembled dancing, "Dog food!"
"So much nicer than that wild muck."
"And convenient."
"Well presented is half sold, I always say. Old Dutch proverb."
Mac's pacifist attitude had been hinted at earlier in the week, when I threw a
bone outdoors. He does enjoy bones and so he was deep into an ecstatic chew
when he looked up.
"Excuse me," Rocky was standing inches from teeth that could easily bite her
head off quicker than she could blink. Mac stared but did not growl, "I'm
eating a bone here."
"Yes, that is exactly my point," said Rocky. "I was wondering if I could call
dibs on it... when you are done. No hurry."
"My bone!"
"Indubitably."
Mimo came up to Rocky's shoulder, "Is that a bone?"
"I called dibs."
"You can't call dibs on a bone. Can't call dibs on something new. Not unless
you have a flag. Explorer's code!"
"More a kind of guideline."
"You take one end; I'll share. Not a word to the others."
"About what?" Wensleydale asked, wandering over. "Ooooh, a bone."
Wanting to finish in peace, Mac got up and moved. They followed. Eventually
all six chickens were gathered in a circle, practicing their head swings. Mac
gave up, dropped the bone, left them to it.
"Meat!"
Then there was the pizza crust incident. I returned from the pub with crusts,
in the usual doggy bag. I put them in Mac's bowl. He ate some, scattered
others. He generally likes to leave food for later, when he's sure that the
world's generosity is unchanging. Twelve years he hasn't gone without food;
twelve years he's preserved a little till the end of the day, just in case.
Unfortunately, I didn't see the scattering and chickens discovered it. "Pizza!"
"What a week!"
"Meat *and* pizza. If only they'd invent a way of combining the two."
At that point the chickens became bolder yet. Lifting groceries from the car
to the kitchen, I left the door to the kitchen open. After one such trip I
found Pecarino at the threshold, staring at the dog's bowl.
"I found it. It's not stolen. The bowl?"
"Yes," I said, "I know."
"You mean you knew where it was... all the time?"
"Mostly."
"And you didn't tell us?"
"It's dog food...for the dog. Im busy, with these groceries."
"We quite like dog food."
"Dog food...is for the dog," I said, shoving her clear with my foot.
She seemed unconvinced.
"I could help with groceries and maybe have a wee snack, in passing."
"No," I explained, "your place is outside."
"Meanie."
Pecarino's flying raid was then only a matter of time and opportunity.
The storm stripped branches off the Douglas Firs. They landed on our metal
roof, also the roof of the chicken coop. We woke, as did the chickens.
"I told you you shouldn't have gone inside the house," Cheddar said. "You've
angered the gods."
"Fear not," said Wensleydale, "for I have scattered sacrificial offerings
hither and yon. In the morning you'll see the gods have been appeased."
And lo! They were.
Wensleydale was rather full of herself when I went out with my coffee. "Could
you lend us a hand?" she asked.
"Sure," said, wishing it worked the other way, wishing they were able to help
me clear up detritus. "What do you need?"
"A hand," she repeated.
"Doing what?"
"Everything that hands do."
"I'm lost."
"Well they seem like useful things, so I was wondering if you had one to spare?"
"What are we talking about?"
"Hands. Chickens have feet and wings, which are really quite wonderful and I
thank the gods for them regularly, but I note advantages that hands have, so I
was wondering if one might be made available?"
"You'd like a real hand?"
"If it's not too much trouble."
"How on earth would you use it?"
"That, as they say, is a sticking point."
I decided to change the subject, "what do you call it when you roll around in
the dust?"
Wensleydale considered whether this might be a trick question. First one eye
and then the other looked me up and down. "A bath."
"That's what I thought," I said, "but you come out dirtier than you went in."
"Yeeees?"
"Well when we take a bath, the opposite is true."
She took this in, pondered. "Gods," she said finally, "move in mysterious
ways, their wonders to perform."
"We can't fly, you know."
"I'm not at all sure we can either."
"Shall we experiment?"
"Why not?"
Cheddar and Appenzeller volunteered. Wensleydale stayed under a bush and
watched. She didn't exactly scoff at their efforts, but she did not look what
you might call impressed. Then again, she rarely does.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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