The right to my own opinion

I was just outside, an event that is always met with a flock of chickens hurling towards me in great glee in anticipation of any treats I might have for them.  They crack me up, and lately I have been using this to get them into their pen when I leave in the evening, so I don't have to concern myself with them being out after dark.

They follow me quite willingly, and only a few chickens will realize that they are penned in, while the rest are happy to gorge on the treats, oblivious of their surroundings.  Those few get irate, they begin to pace around, dart into the coop to see if there is an escape there, and so on, but of course they are safer in their pen and I leave them out all day long, so too bad chickens.

As I walked down there with them all behind me, they followed me into the coop, but this time I didn't lock them in.  I was collecting eggs, so they grew bored with the treatless me, and all started running across the yard, busy to get back to whatever they had been doing earlier, and I thought to myself, they really do exhibit happiness when they run in their freedom.  The very act of being free to do whatever they want is a part of them.

Over the events of the past week, I wasn't buying into the fear factor that the media loves to build up, I didn't believe after the initial blasts that there would be anything else, only based on common sense.  If this was a terrorist act, and by that I mean a non-domestic infiltration of crazy-assed extremists blowing themselves up, then they wouldn't have been happy with a few booms that killed three people and wounded a hundred or so other.  I am NOT minimizing this event, let me be clear.  I felt the same horror as everyone else did when it happened, only magnified when I received a phone call from my daughter saying she was within a block of the blast and that she was okay (I had no idea that she was there).  For a few minutes I let all the could haves wash over me, I panicked a bit at the thought that there were more bombs in the vicinity and that she was in serious danger, and then I realized that the greater threat would be the cops and homeland security, so I told her not to get on a train (it would not surprise me in the least if they shut down trains with hundreds of people trapped in them in the tunnels for hours, weeks, days) and to get out of there as fast as she could, again, not because I thought that she was in any more danger from bombs, but from our own protection services, who would think nothing of trapping people in place for hours.  (And this did happen, but she managed to escape it and get out of town, though it took a long time.)  But my gut told me the worst had taken place, and I knew also that they would identify them with all of the cameras that are available in this crazy world we live in today.  My daughter's college had a bomb threat, I heard of other bomb threats ... but once nothing came to pass, it became clear the fear mongers were at work ... let's get the people in a frenzy, scare the shit out of them and then ...

And then close the whole damn city down and not let people out of their houses and flood the streets with cops and soldiers.

Did you see that coming?

And all for a 19-year-old boy?  I mean, the term over-kill doesn't even being to encompass this situation, and while I can certainly get that people were scared at the possibility that they could be shot or blown up, again, King Kong hadn't come to town.  It was a 19-year-old boy.  Yes, not a very good one, not a very smart one (since he didn't leave town after he killed people) but there are so many things that don't ring true for me.  How did this army of cops let this boy get away to begin with?  How did they miss him in the boat, that was "beyond the perimeter," when after they had searched all of the buildings within the perimeter, why didn't they go another block, or two or three or four?  Was it really worth keeping everyone behind closed doors, when in the end it was a person behind a closed door who discovered the kid?

The news doesn't have a clue ... I get that ... and I am sure all of the "facts" that we know today will be different tomorrow, but the one thing that blows my mind was the willingness of what they are saying was close to a million people to just stop their lives and obey the police.  It makes sense, to a certain degree, but a very small one.  We have had horrific acts in this country take place before, and we will again, but this new measure of total military/police occupation is scary as shit.  Even on the news today there were soldiers standing on the streets.  Why?  They need to go now, thank you very much, the child has been taken into custody, there is no further indication of any crazies on the loose with pressure cooker bombs, time to pack it in. 

Following the arrest was a photograph of a skinny kid, handcuffed and with a bloody face, no explosives strapped around him, and while I have heard reports of gunfire in that vicinity, it seems odd that they wouldn't have killed him once gunfire opened up.  Were they shots to create more fear?  To underscore the danger of this person, who spent the day in a boat, probably quite oblivious to the fact that the ENTIRE city and surrounding towns had been shut down due to him?

Listen, I am not defending this kid; I just want questions answered, facts proven, motives explained; and that doesn't seem to be a priority -- especially with our news organizations, who will report for as many consecutive hours as they possibly can saying absolutely nothing.  But who am I to pick on them, because my ideas and opinions are just as plausible as theirs!  We all got them out of the thin air, more or less, it would be possible to string together that tape that PROVES they carried the bombs ... I guess a picture paints a thousand words but these days a picture can be contrived with very little skill.  None of us should forget that.

None of us should forget that.

I repeat, none of us should forget that.  Whatever you are taking as solid proof is not necessarily so.  Here are the facts:

There were two explosions at the Boston Marathon.  Three people were killed, many injured.

In the end, that's all we really know.  The rest of it ... the rest of it played out like a bad movie, and the pictures of empty Boston streets gave me the chills ... because we're supposed to get the chills .... it feels like ... it just all feels wrong.  And while I understand that people stayed in their homes because it was "good for them," I still think our freedom is worth fighting for, no matter how many dangerous 19-year-olds there are running about out there.

And I think the chickens would agree.

What to read?

I read a lot.  A lot, a lot. I always have, and probably always will.  I also read like I do most everything -- with single-mindedness.  Meaning?  I will finish a book that I love as quickly as I can.  If it means staying up all night, then so be it.   I have a tendency to read "thick" books, because they last longer and I hate to finish a good book.  What looks daunting to one reader is a dream come true to me -- the longer the better!

But this voracious appetite for books has cost me.  I can't even begin to fathom how much I have spent on books over the course of my lifetime.  At one point, it was a given that if I went into a bookstore (and I went in frequently) it would cost me $60.  And that sum seemed to hold for years, and that was an armful of books, which was my rule.  I never took a basket because I could only buy what I could carry!  Otherwise, I wouldn't have ever stopped.  I love books that much.

Then of course the e-books came along, and suddenly I didn't have to go to the bookstore anymore.  This is like a junky getting an instant fix without ever leaving the confines of their lairs (or where ever they are appeasing their addictions) and well, that sum of $60 went through the roof.  There were suddenly NO limitations on the number of books I could purchase, and it is oh so easy, just push a button, and I did.  I pushed and I pushed and I pushed.  A credit card statement with a long line of AMAZON purchases ... I was out of control.

And I was also disgusted that publishers were charging the same for digital editions of books as they were for hard copies.  This is absolutely, over-the-top unreasonable, and well, a perfect thing for them to do because it made building a dam around this addiction much easier.  So for a long time (maybe a year?) I have been primarily reading garbage.  By that, I mean all the free crap that you can get, and while you will come across a gem or two, for the most part it is pap.  It fed me, it appeased my need, but it left me feeling empty.  A bad book, even a semi-bad book, is a disappointment, but to keep feeding myself the same stuff?   It had to stop.  I was gorging on junk food books, and it was starting to affect my complexion (with scowls!)

So I recently began reading Zelda, a novel about Zelda Fitzgerald -- http://www.amazon.com/Novel-Fitzgerald-Therese-Anne-Fowler/dp/1250028655/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039344&sr=1-1&keywords=zelda -- and became irritated because it is faction -- not a true biography, but a story based on fact.  That is a bit annoying too, and got me all mad, so when in the book when I read that Scott Fitzgerald had his first book published,  This Side of Paradise, http://www.amazon.com/This-Paradise-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486289990/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039473&sr=1-3&keywords=f+scott+fitzgerald -- I thought I would read that.  And it was only .99 cents!

Honestly, I am not sure how stringing together a bunch of thoughts and chapters turns into a novel, but it's not very good.  But because I am weird, I have decided that I am going to read all of his novels (there are not as many novels as you would think), while simultaneously reading Zelda, and creating this whole new experience for myself!  Yeah, straight booking is no longer doing it for me ... I am looking for hard stuff!  I have read them all, but years ago when the purpose of reading them was to get through them and remember enough to pass tests.  That's no way to read a book, and I was hoping for a more satisfactory experience....but thus far I am reading the book to get through it!  Geesh.

Perhaps I am hoping that the fact he was considered one of the top American novelists of his time will rub off on me?  I am not sure, but I find it an intriguing endeavor (perhaps fueled by the fact I could download his complete works for ninety nine CENTS.  Which basically means I learned nothing about cheap books!)

It must be nice to just pick up a book, read it, and move on.  Yeah, I appear to have all of these emotions tied into the deal ... fury over pricing, disbelief at content, inability to NOT finish a book which then fuels frustration ... it's quite the journey.

But when you are immersed in a great book ... oh .... oh.....oh......OH!  (I'll have what she's having)

Confessions of a second-time-around chick mom

They arrived in their small box, peeping away, and I was already in a different place than I had been a year ago, when I had anticipated the arrival of my first-ever 15 baby chicks with much excitement.  This time, instead of having their brooder prepared and set up, and all of the accoutrements that they would need in place, I had done nothing!  I knew, at the back of my mind that they were coming the first week of April, but it had never actually registered that it WAS the first week of April until I received the email that they were on their way.

Oh shit.  I tracked them and realized that they very well could arrive THAT day, and I had done nothing in preparation.  I ran around looking for a box to put them in, because of course I did not neatly stow away all chick-shit in an easy and convenient place.  The feeders were mired deep in frozen mud in the run because you know, I should have picked them up months earlier, but never got around to it, then snow buried them ... there was always time.  So there I was kicking at them to loosen them from their deep earth home, wondering how I was so irresponsible!  Then I went to every place, high and low in this rather large house and garage and cellars, looking for the dog cages.  Where did they go?  Did Peter get rid of them?  I jumped into the car to go to Concord to get food, because the food that I had stored away in the green house had been chomped by mice over the winter.  Bag was empty.  I mean, really?

Several hours later I had a temporary set-up in place, as the dog cages were still hiding and Peter said he wasn't sure where they were, and the call came shortly thereafter that they were on their way.  This time the post office delivered them to my door, how nice!  I opened the box and quickly saw one was not in a good way, and while I attempted to show the more livelier ones how to drink water, I picked up the limp form and realized that its eyes weren't open.  I put them in their small box under a heat lamp and ran to the computer to see what to do.  The information I was reading didn't look promising, and within several hours the little thing went through death throes, literally, started rolling around and gasping, and then it died.  Well, that was pleasant, I thought to myself, as I scooped it out of the box and wondered what the heck to do with it.

I didn't want to handle the surviving four chicks much, as who knew if they were all going to die as well, and so I just listened to them peeping loudly for hours and asked myself more than once WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!!

Okay, here is what I was thinking.  Last year I did loads and tons of research on chickens.  I am a bit of a chicken expert at this point, like it or not, and the best way to keep a flock laying is to constantly add to it every year.  I had ordered the five new chicks in the winter, because I wanted the easter eggers, which are wildly popular and sell out immediately because they have a wonderful temperament and they lay green and blue eggs.  Who wouldn't want such variety in their flock!  But after I put in the order, sometime in December, I pretty much forgot about them as I had crucial matters such as keeping the water from freezing in the coop for the existing flock.  What I failed to do is come to the realization that you can't take a bunch of baby chickens and throw them in with an existing adult flock.  It seems so obvious, and yet, no, I did not take that into consideration when ordering them.  Thank heavens they aren't elephants!  And having four baby chicks versus 16 is like night and day, and I will always keep new additions to a minimum because it is so much easier.

But I just don't have the time for them, poor second child chicks!  I was hell bent on socializing my first flock, and I was wildly successful.  When I go outside they come running for me with utter joy!  MOM!  But this morning I tried to "play" with one of them, and the bunch scurried to the back of the cage and clearly felt in danger.  No MOM! here, but danger danger Will Robinson.  I grasped one gently and attempted to pet her, but she wanted OUT and was screeching and struggling in my hold.  Geesh.  I put her back and closed the cage door and told them fine, you know what?  I don't care if you are socialized.  There is no way I was handling 16 chicks on a daily basis, and they turned out all right, and I walked away.  To the computer, to tell on them!

 

If I am a failure as a second-time-around chicken mother, then so be it!  The little problem I created by ordering chicks without a plan?  We need ANOTHER COOP!  There is no way these little guys will be the same size as the adult chickens for months!  And there is no way they are staying in the house for months, because they are already starting to smell.  (Another thing I forgot ... farm animals in your dining room is a temporary measure!)  They have already begun flying, with their teeny little wings, and another time when I opened up the door to change their water, one saw the opening and flew right at my face.  Yikes.  It will be interesting to see whether these new guys will come running to me, instead of cowering in the corner ... but the truth of the matter is, I don't care and will not take it personally, for they are, after all, BIRDS!

Here chicky chicky!!!!!  

The moon

I have always been drawn to the moon .. and have literally felt its pull when it rises up out of the sky, so close you feel that you could reach out and touch it.  Most nights I fall into bed and sleep until morning.  But every once in a while I will go into my bedroom and it will be so light that I don't have to feel my way around in the darkness.  And then I think, uh oh, getting close to a full moon, I hope that I sleep.

I don't know what it is about the full moon and sleeping, but it greatly affects me, but this months' moon has been crazy!  For the past three nights it has been shining into my room.  I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with the moon in my face, literally.  I could feel it, hanging out there, chuckling to itself that it had managed to work its way through the sky directly in front of the doors and on me.  There was no more sleep that night.  Damn moon.  And even worse, I could see that it wasn't completely full.  It was certainly as bright as a full moon, but not full nonetheless.

Last night driving home, it appeared below the trees and I gasped in wonder.  So low, so bright, so big and round, I was sure it was full.  I stopped and took a few pictures, full well knowing that my phone/camera wouldn't capture its wonder, but needing to do it all the same.

Today I realized that this round and amazingly bright orb WAS STILL NOT FULL.  Oye.  I woke up around 3:00 a.m. once again and groaned.  But at least, I told myself, it would start waning and I'd go back to sleeping.  Then I checked the calendar and realized that bright ball was going to get brighter tonight!  Moon woes, I tell ya!

The cool thing about having four seasons is that entering each one has its own initiation.  When going from summer to fall, that harvest moon hangs in the sky in all of its orange splendor, and like the leaves on the trees turning color, I lament the fact that we are headed toward winter.  The grayness, the cold, the endless dark nights and shortened days ... the harvest moon is never welcome, despite its majesty.  Because I know what it is telling me, and I don't want to hear the whisper of winter in my ear.  When the season changes from fall to winter, I hardly notice, because the moon doesn't reach out to me.  Perhaps it knows that I get it ... winter is here, and it's time for us all to settle down for a long winter's nap.  But this moon, this moon in Libra (which essentially means nothing to me, but that is what it is called) is slapping me in the face, night after night.  Wake up, Lisa!  WAKE UP, LISA.  It is literally waking me up, and by googling this moon, I found this:

***

Full Moon in Libra March 27, 2013

The full Moon on March 27th will fall in the sign of Libra. It is the sign that rules relationships, partnerships, marriage, collaboration with others, doctors, therapists, employee and employer's. The next couple weeks should bring about a great sense of compromise and harmony in relationships, partnerships and even working alongside others. You would think the way others think  for you to be open to compromise especially if there are any issues or concerns that need to be dealt with and worked out. If you're having any problems in a marriage or relationship this would be a great time to work out the issues and problems and come to a compromise a resolution. It also works great if you are having any problems with a friend or family member. You will feel a greater sense of peace and harmony and equality. You will be very much open to getting things out in the open and be willing to get along with others. Venus, Uranus and Mars all oppose the full moon in this can be a time of setting changes, beginnings and endings. It could bring schedule changes or disruptions. There may be some issues or problems to resolve and to work out especially in relation to other people. Jupiter supports the full moon so opportunities may come knocking on your door. You may gain through others or collaborate or work with others to further your career, education, finances or personal relationships. Pluto squares the full moon in this can bring a time of power struggles and control issues. You may want to have it your way and no other way. You could also be battling it out with a female and may struggled through some power issues.


The full Moon will affect everyone that was born around the 23rd through the 31st of in a month from any Sun sign. I feel that the Sun signs that will be affected by this full Moon on a personal level would be Aries, Libra, Sagittarius and Geminis. These Sun signs may be affected through personal relationships and friendships. Everyone will feel the effects of this full moon so no one will be left out.
Cynthia  http://www.keen.com/CommunityServer/UserBlogPosts/the_psychic_one/Full-Moon-in-Libra-March-27--2013/564024.aspx

***
I have a 29th birthday and I am a Gemini.  I don't actually have any background in astrology, but the fact of the matter is, this moon is affecting me!  Big time.  My creative juices are bubbling, my ideas are all over the place, I have that can't quite fit in my skin feeling, where I just feel as though I might burst for no other reason than I can't contain myself.  It's not a bad way to feel, but it is very real.  And then, I feel this way on top of no sleep!  Quite a combination, let me tell you...the excitement of spring, the moon paving the way, it's all about growth, and that energy is literally in the air.

Next is the change of seasons period ... oh, I can't wait.  I am sure it will be epic!

 

The past is always there

Been a long, long time.  For months now I have had ideas of things to write swirling in my head, but since before Christmas it has been one thing or another that has disrupted my writing life -- be it the holidays, kids home on break, kids home on weekends to ski, kids ... they've always been so good at getting in the way (in a good way, of course!) Then we had trying to get my parent's condo ready, in the form of sorting through piles, then all of a sudden that was halted when there was a fire in their building, and then six weeks later all of those piles were transferred to their new home and required going through once again!  It's been an odd winter, when for the past four I was always somewhere down south with them, but this year it has been about getting them set up in their new digs.  Oh well.  Keeps life interesting I suppose.

But the biggest loser in this has been my writing, and oh how I have missed it.  Yesterday the kids and I were over at my parent's house and my father was showing us some old pictures.  My grandfather was an excellent archivist, and made sure the majority of pictures that he had were labeled.  For example, there is a picture of "Lisa Madden's great, great grandmother" that hangs in my living room.  Years ago, when Peter and I were cleaning out my grandfather's house to be sold, we came across two pictures in the attic that were in decent shape.  Peter asked me who they were, but of course I had no idea.  He carried them downstairs, and that was when we saw what my grandfather had written on the back of them.  How cool is that?  I still have yet to find out what her name is, though her daughter was Florence, who was my grandfather's mother, and she is shown in this fabulous picture, on the left, then her mother (Lisa Madden's great, great grandmother) is in the middle, but the picture is labeled "grammy!"  Oh, so close and yet so far to obtaining the woman's name!  On the right is Florence's sister, Antoinette, which is also labeled on the picture as never having been married.  Oh, the story a simple (and labeled) photograph can show.

The house is in Antrim, and I have countless memories of the house and grounds as my grandfather lived there the majority of his life.  Apparently Lisa Madden's great, great grandfather loved to build birdhouses, and I can remember much smaller versions in the back field when I was younger.  Or maybe it was my grandfather's father Tom who liked to build bird houses?  I get confused, and I would like to thank you, Grandpa, for labeling these photos, and I am sure you are seeing the fruits of your labor being appreciated.

This one is fun because of the story on the back: "Tom Madden (my father's grandfather) and my father, went in the ice business. Bought ice in Peterboro and delivered in Antrim during WW2.  Often the truck sat here with ice melting while he (my father) played baseball across the road and made the family furious."

Love it!

In this final photo, my great-grandmother Florence is at the top.  The photo is labeled "Ma at the top," and that is it.  So we can only use our imaginations as to why there were dressed so!

I have always felt a strong kinship to my Madden side, and this picture hangs in my dining room, and when I look at her (oh how I wish I knew her name!) I think we have similar features.

 

I apologize for the poor picture (with all of the reflections) but I took it off the wall and tried to picture it without light and it was too dark.  As you can see, as written on the back, she is ...

And all of the above is why it is so important to label photographs (though in this day and age they are put into a folder with the person's name on them I suppose).

One last aside, another picture that I looked at said that Florence (my father's grandmother) died at the age of 55.  My father doesn't remember how, and I was struck at how young that was.  And what about her mother?  Are there pictures of her grown old?  Makes me want to look through even more pictures!

Those books

We have a car trip tomorrow and I was looking for audiobooks when I started looking at Herman Wouk's body of work.  I downloaded The Caine Mutiny, as I have read all of his other books, not sure how that one snuck by, but I happened to see Marjorie Morningstar in the list and became very nostalgic.

Ahhhh, oh how I loved that book, the many times that I have read it.  I briefly considered downloading it, but the fact of the matter is, I know the story upside down and inside out ... but it got me to thinking.  What other books have affected me as much as that one?

The only other one I could come up with was The Yearling ... yet another book I could tell you verbatim what happened, and yet, the one and only time I read it I was just a kid.  I was at home, sort of kind of babysitting the other two .... so I was probably 13 or 14, but I say sort of kind of because I was in bed reading.  I was completely absorbed by the book, and had reached the end, and because I was so unhappy with the content of the ending, I kept re-reading it in the hopes that it would miraculously turn happy.  Instead, my cat jumped onto my bed at the same time my brother and sister did, and the cat vomited on me -- a full chipmunk skull fell onto my chest, my heaving chest from crying so hard at the story ... oh, yes, that was memorable.  Somehow all of that trauma is all wrapped up together, and I have been unable to pick up that book ever again!

But Marjorie Morningstar, oh how I loved that book!  I can still picture my original copy, a black binder with gray covers ... I could even tell you the entire story right now.  But I won't, because everyone should read the book on their own!  But I loved every aspect of the story ... a Jewish girl who came from the Upper West Side (or east, I don't know about that stuff!) with her strict parents and their ideas of who and what she should become, and her ideas of who she was and what she wanted to be.  It all resonated with me, from the first time I read it when I was quite young, as well as throughout my adulthood.  My mother told me that her mother had hidden the book (the actual one that I had in my possession no less!) in a drawer because it was so scandalous at the time.  Of course this is what compelled me to read it at first ... but when she meets Noel ... the black turtle-necked clad musician ... ahhhhh, it is perhaps true that I have been searching for Noel my entire life.  When in fact, Noel turns out to be a dud ... but you kind of pooh pooh that part ... because it is the beginning, when he is older and mysterious and THE BOMB ... and you don't think about the fact that he is an older adult working at a summer camp, because that would be lame, but instead you think about how damn SEXY he is.

I loved Noel as much as Marjorie did, and I got why she did, and I got everything that she did afterward and I got that she wanted to change the world and I got when she realized that you actually really can't ... I got it.  I got it all, and I kept reading, hoping that Noel would turn out to be the prince, and ... it is like a fairy tale that has no fairy in it!  It is raw truth, spelled out, beautiful ... and I couldn't get enough.

The idea that some people can blow people up to be heroes ... all on their own ... and for a short period of time, everyone believes this to be so.  But in the end, reality sets in, and in the end, a woman has to be strong, because that is what women do.  And in the end, was Noel anything other than what he was?  Because in Marjorie's eyes he was one thing, but... ahhh, poor Noel.  I have championed his cause as much as Marjorie did over the years, but with each reading I became more aware of the fact that all of his faults were always right there.  How many of us women do that to men?  Turn them into rock stars when really all they are are who they are ... just regular guys doing their thing.  And what about Marjorie?  Who thinks that changing her name from Morgenstern to Morningstar will make all the difference?  When in fact, it changes nothing at all.

Loved that book.  You should read it.

The rooster's last crow

 

There is no doubt that Henry was a beautiful bird, and this picture of him, taken only a few months ago, showed a manageable rooster.  He wasn't crowing 24/7, he wasn't attacking the chickens on a regular basis and he wasn't attacking me.

About a month ago I went out into the yard and squatted down to say hello to the chickens.  They have been raised to be friendly, I have spent a lot of time with them, and they loved to run over and say hello.  They were all in the process of doing this when suddenly I was struck by something and nearly fell over, when I realized that the rooster was attacking me.  I stood up and managed to kick at him to keep him back, and I experienced real fear when he wouldn't stop!  Of course, I upset everyone with my yelling and kicking, and they all eventually ran away from the crazy woman!  Once you have been attacked by something, you have residual fear, but I tried to employ logic.  I was still bigger than he was, and he was still a BIRD!  Keeping these two things in mind, I would do my chicken things and it seemed as though we had drawn up a truce -- you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.  But this also created a division between me and the chickens I had raised, and that made me mad.  Whenever one came near me, Henry would dodge over and flap his wings and shake his head and intimate that he was going to go at me.  So I stopped communing with my chickens, and tried to tell myself that this was more natural -- a rooster protects his flock, people aren't supposed to be part of the equation, and well maybe I needed to learn that.

I did, however, miss them coming up and pecking at my boots and looking for treats, but ahh, well, what are you going to do.  This went on for a bit, and then Henry started to become a bit crazed.  As soon as I would let them out, he would start jumping any chicken he could get close to, like a crazed teenager, which I guess he was, but then one of the chickens looked as though her feathers were being affected.  But I couldn't get ANY where near her, because he said no.  Again, I reasoned with myself, googled overbearing roosters and determined that he had just come into full maturity (as noted by his very pink legs) and that hopefully he would calm down, eventually.  Advice ranged from grab him by the legs and walk around with him, to putting him in the stew pot.  The latter became more and more appealing as every time I went near the coop, he came charging at me.  To clean the coop, I would have to lure him into the run by offering up myself as bait, and then armed with a pitchfork I'd manage to get him in, lock him up, and then shudder as he banged himself against the small door inside the coop while I cleaned up.  He was CUJO THE ROOSTER,  a Steven King character in the flesh, and he was making me miserable.

Then I was in the coop while the chickens were far away across the lawn and carrying out the water container to change it, when he came out of nowhere and rushed me.  I had the big water thing, and I swung that at him, but he kept doing it.  I was unprepared for an attack because I thought he was so far away, and I, at one point to get a rest, locked myself in the chicken run to get away from him!  And that was when I realized that I was in an abusive relationship, and it needed to stop.

I have never had any tolerance for people who talk about their abusive relationships and know what they are experiencing, and yet stay in them.  And yet, here I was, doing exactly that!  I was making excuses for him, oh well, he is a ROOSTER after all, and that is how rooster's behave.  And then I would think, well I am sure I can change him, we'll get through this rough patch and then things will be just great.  I was an enabler, and I was working around his abusive patterns, not hanging with my chickens because he didn't like it, not cleaning the coop as often as I like because it is so stressful having him charge at me, and rushing in to check for eggs with a pitchfork in hand, waiting for him to have at me.  And then I thought, how will I get through the winter with him?  Now I was afraid to go into the coop to open up the door to the outside, because he was coming at me.  Now I had to dress up in boots, jeans and gloves in order to protect myself, as opposed to running out in my nightgown as I had been doing.  And the past week I was begging Charlie to let them out, because I was afraid!

It had to stop.  I kept telling myself that I hadn't asked for a rooster, it had been thrown into my order, and it was quite clear that he wasn't enhancing anyone's lives!  I have no need to raise my own chicks from eggs, and that is the ONLY reason one needs to have a rooster around.  And the premise that he was protecting the chickens while out free ranging seems a tad ridiculous when I realized he was protecting them FROM ME!  And my good lord, he cock-a-doodle doo-ed all the livelong day.  In fact, as I sit here, the silence is freaky.  I sort of liked it at the beginning, but I would find myself screaming out the window, shut up Henry, no one wants to hear you.  This is not normal!

So I told Peter that I was in an abusive relationship and that he needed to come to my assistance!  I was riddled with guilt that I seemed to have failed as a chicken parent, he was a beautiful bird and it seemed such a shame ... and I tossed and turned at night trying to decide if I could personally kill him and I determined that I could not.

Even as I watched Peter go out to the coop to catch him, I thought, well, maybe I just need to do what he did, and kick him around and show him who is boss, because Henry did back down pretty quickly and when Peter finally did catch him, he settled right down in his arms.  Even then, I thought well maybe ... and yet, I didn't open up my mouth as Peter climbed onto the gator and drove slowly down into the lower field.  Because in my heart I knew it was the right thing to do.  Even if I personally couldn't do it.

First I went out to the coop and calmed the chickens down, as the catching of a rooster can be a bit traumatic!  Then I went out onto the back deck, and through the haze of the foggy morning could see Peter standing over the body, just watching.  Then I saw him pick it up and walk it into the woods.  We had both determined we didn't have the stomach or desire to eat him.  And as I watched all that, I realized I am only in this for the eggs.  I had originally thought that I might like to get some birds for eating purposes, but there are no processing facilities around, really, anymore, as big government doesn't want you eating your own food, and well, I'm just not going to be able to kill chickens.  At least not yet.  Peter came back and I asked him if he was horrified, and he said yes, but then he said that next time he would know what to do, that a chicken's neck is pretty tough!  So who knows, maybe it's something you have to work into.

I spent a little while feeling pretty sick to my stomach, and very much like I'd done the wrong thing.  But I was in an abusive relationship and I needed to get out of it.  I am sure every morning as I go out to my coop to let out the chickens and don't have to fear a crazed bird coming at me, it will become quite clear that we did the right thing.