I have told you that one of my children lives across the road from us out here in the country. The child that is the animal lover and hoarder and accumulator of all kinds of tame and semi-wild animals.
One of her sons gets this innate trait from his mother. He is the keeper of the flock. There are two ducks and many chickens, all colored, that roam around in their chicken coop. There is one however that I may have some difficulties or perhaps impediments sharing the back yard with. He is a beautiful white rooster strutting around as if he owns the spread and he refuses to stay incarcerated or confined by the wire that keeps him jailed. He finds his way out every day and he is not a docile Mr. Rooster. He will fight with you if you try to catch him or sometimes just fight to be ornery.
I told my kids the other day it reminds me of my grandmother’s beautiful, big, sassy Road Island Red rooster she had in her back yard when I was growing up. He always stayed close to the back door because she would throw out scraps to him several times a day and he waited for the snacks. He loved my grandmother, but he HATED me! I tried several times to make friends with “RED” but he wanted nothing to do with me. Several times I tried as he would walk slowly toward me and silly me, I would think this is when we become friends. As he came closer, I would always stand very still and just as he got within flying distance, he would open his big ‘airplane like’ wings and fly straight toward me with his spur weapons ready. Of course, I would scream as if he was going to execute me just for standing on his turf. My daddy would always come to my rescue except for this one time.
I will always remember that fateful day of almost being killed, I thought.
We had just finished dinner and I was headed to the bathroom, a small wooden house sitting down the hill from, yep, the back door. I looked outside and Red was nowhere to be seen so I made a run for it. I had only taken a few steps and I heard that gosh awful squawk right behind me. I started running at warp speed, but he still managed to jump on my back. I made it to the little outhouse and slammed the door as Mr. Bully walked around shrieking and crowing. How much time have you ever spent in a little old outhouse? It’s not a very comforting or cheering place to stay for nearly an hour! I screamed and yelled from the little hole in the door for nearly an hour until one of my cousins came to use the facility. Red never bothered her. It was only me he disliked.
I’ve already told Sam if his little white bully ever comes after me, I do know how to behead a chicken and I make a delicious fried chicken or chicken and dumplings.
CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS – Boil a whole small chicken until done. Remove the chicken from the broth and pull all meat off the bone and set aside. To the chicken broth add a can of cream of chicken soup and a can of cream of mushroom soup and then one can of water each. Salt and pepper to taste and I also add 1 t. garlic powder. Bring the broth to a boil and drop the frozen dumplings from the grocery store one at a time into the boiling broth and cook for about 15 minutes and add the chicken back into the mixture and simmer until dumplings are tender. (Sometimes I have to add more water to the broth.)
