Construction on the little cottage drags on as slowly as the dog days of summer. While the walls aren’t closed, the gas hasn’t been connected to my cook top, and the sink is still missing from our only bathroom, life on the farmette is anything but dull.
The new tenant arrives
We have a new addition to our hen house, a handsome fellow named Frank. He’s a fully grown rooster with iridescent gold and turquoise tail feathers, a comb that looks like a red rubber back stop and a wattle that is half the length of his massive legs. Forget those operatic voices that can shatter fine china; Frank’s early morning cock-a-doodle-doo can crack a coffee cup.
The ladies in the coop seem to fondly remember him from when they used to live with him in the neighbor’s coop. One of the brown hens meticulously pecked a speck from Frank’s comb as if to ensure that he looked his best before leaving the house.
No match for the big boy
When Frank awoke me at the crack of five-thirty, I decided I’d better check on how things were going with him and the ladies since it was his first night on our farmette. I went through my usual routine of calling the hens to breakfast and then opening the door so they could enter the fenced area of the yard. The ladies rushed out with a dazed and confused Frank following close behind.
He stiffened when he heard the little rooster in the coop next door trying out his junior pipes. Not to be upstaged, Frank belted out a few strains of—you guessed it—cock-a-doodle-doo and the little guy shut up.
An unusual chase scene
I went into the house for five minutes and heard something like a hawk cry. I took off running to the hen house and that’s when I saw Frank making a daring getaway with all four ladies behind him. He was heading straight for the hole in the fence between our farmette and the neighbor’s orchard where he used to idle away the hours with the hens.
I dove through fence and pulled a board shut behind me. Facing me with puzzled looks were my neighbor and his wife.
“Help,” I croaked. “Frank’s made a run for it with the ladies in tow. He’s right behind me.”
It took maybe fifteen minutes for the chase to end. Handsome Frank is once again in the chicken yard, strutting and crowing as if to say that the whole affair was a spontaneous rehearsal for the real Great Escape… which will surely come later when I least expect it.
A fine-feathered ladies man, if ever there was one.
Frank was going to make his getaway through the fence hole.
