Well, a long time has gone by since my last post, and there have been some changes in the yard, but instead of bringing the story up to date, I'll just plunge in with today's report.
Prologue: Last week, my son in law sent me and email with the subject line "Woosta?" and even though it was a retrograde Mercury I was weak, and agreed to take on this animal, even though I only have 2 girls left, both non-oviparous by now. They are not interested in romance, they are, I think, a couple, so I had my doubts about how this was going to go, but all the same, I went and picked up the big handsome rooster and brought him home.
In transferring him from cage to coop, he muscled past me and ran off in an easterly direction putting his full attention on the job.
Well, that's that, I thought, but today, reports of a rooster hanging out in the parking lot up the road came to me, and so I stalked him for about an hour, following him at a distance around and around the woods, up the glacial erratics, throwing pine cones near him as he skittered out on the ice. He wouldn't let me get within 30 feet of him, but like I tell my granddaughter, "You gotta sleep some time".
He climbed a tree and before roosting, let me know what he thought of me and my attitude in short sentences. I waited until it was quite dark and netted him, popped him in the coop and retired for a nice cup of tea.
He has been on his own in the woods for a week, it has been cold at night, his only food has been forage, he has not been under cover the way my princesses have been, his comb was frostbitten, and yet he did not get grabbed by one of the many predators in the Sanctuary.
He has earned a place in the coop here, and a name: Buck Rogers.
Prologue: Last week, my son in law sent me and email with the subject line "Woosta?" and even though it was a retrograde Mercury I was weak, and agreed to take on this animal, even though I only have 2 girls left, both non-oviparous by now. They are not interested in romance, they are, I think, a couple, so I had my doubts about how this was going to go, but all the same, I went and picked up the big handsome rooster and brought him home.
In transferring him from cage to coop, he muscled past me and ran off in an easterly direction putting his full attention on the job.
Well, that's that, I thought, but today, reports of a rooster hanging out in the parking lot up the road came to me, and so I stalked him for about an hour, following him at a distance around and around the woods, up the glacial erratics, throwing pine cones near him as he skittered out on the ice. He wouldn't let me get within 30 feet of him, but like I tell my granddaughter, "You gotta sleep some time".
He climbed a tree and before roosting, let me know what he thought of me and my attitude in short sentences. I waited until it was quite dark and netted him, popped him in the coop and retired for a nice cup of tea.
He has been on his own in the woods for a week, it has been cold at night, his only food has been forage, he has not been under cover the way my princesses have been, his comb was frostbitten, and yet he did not get grabbed by one of the many predators in the Sanctuary.
He has earned a place in the coop here, and a name: Buck Rogers.
