“I dream of a better tomorrow. One where chickens can cross the road and their motives remain unquestioned.”
The sun was here earlier then it disappeared behind the clouds but has since returned. According to the weatherman it will come and go all day. Rain is predicted for tonight, heavy rain. The temperature is fall, in the 50’s. When the sun is out, the morning is quite pretty. Everything is gleaming. The breeze is small but enough to move the leaves. My yards, front and back, are covered in leaves. My driveway has disappeared. Amazingly, though, many more leaves still hang from the oak trees. It rains leaves when the breeze blows.
In Ghana I became a chicken person, as in a still walking and breathing chicken. Before that the only chicken I knew came in pieces from the meat department at the supermarket. When I was young, I liked chicken legs. I loved chicken pot pies. My first visit to the chicken market in Bolga, my town, took me aback. The chickens were alive and were tied by a leg in lines to ropes. I was supposed to pick one. I walked up and down the lines trying to figure out which chicken would become my dinner. I tried to find a plump one. I remember the chicken I chose was brown. The man handed it to me upside down with its legs tied. The chicken and I did not get acquainted.
One of my Ghanaian friends brought me a chicken and her four or five eggs. I put her on the bottom half of a broken piece of pottery so she could roost and keep the eggs warm. I never liked that chicken, and she did not like me. Thomas, who worked for me, put the chicken and the pottery in my toilet room to keep her safe. That was a tiny room. She was right beside my foot. If I got anywhere near her, she pecked my feet. I always wore sandals. I did like when the eggs began to hatch. If she was out and about, I’ll check the eggs. I could the chicks tapping the shell and watched the shells begin to break and the beaks appear. She hatched every egg.
Every morning she lead her brood out my back gate. That hen was the worst mother. She’d come back to roost for the evening with one less chick. I figured predators got them. Finally, she had only one chick left. When it was big enough to be on its own, I ate its mother for dinner. That was the most productive that hen had even been.
My next hens were good mothers so I had a lot of chickens. They came home every evening to roost against the side wall of my backyard. Chickens are tasty, their only asset. They can’t be house-broken so my concrete backyard had to be cleaned often. Chickens are also creatures of habit. Mine used to walk the same route across my backyard to the gate then on to free ranging. One time another volunteer was traveling and asked to stay at my house. Courtesy dictated I say yes even though I didn’t like this guy and hadn’t since training. It was the hot time of the year so I moved a mattress outside for him to sleep on. I showed him where to put the mattress. In the early morning, I heard him scream. I knew why. I had had him put his mattress on the chicken route and they all jumped on him as they walked their usual route to the gate. I feigned innocence.
Today I have a concert.
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