City Girl verses Rooster

I went out to my garden to take pictures for my blog this morning while my family remained fast asleep tucked in their warm beds. I got to the entrance and paused to capture the whole space in my camera lens when Frankenbelle the rooster came and puffed himself up in front of me. “Odd” I thought to myself. He’d never done this before.

“Hi Belle. Are you showing me your masculinity this morning? I know you must be very proud as a male and all.”

He stepped closer and closer pecking the ground while I focused the camera on a shot of the garden, and suddenly, like a whirlwind, he flew at me aggressively twice. What’s a city girl to do but beat him back with an expensive digital camera?

“What is WRONG with you? Having a bad day or something?”

I quickly decided I’d rather take the photos inside the safety of my garden fence. However, Belle stalked me outside the fence, so I was distracted and couldn’t decide what pictures I cared about more than another attack from an angry rooster. As soon as I lined up one photo, Belle had flown on the fence was contemplating his next move to take me down. I picked up clay pieces which took three progressively harder throws to knock him over. Then I dashed to the house.

I ran to my computer and wrote an email to my uncle who grew up on a farm to explain this strange aggression to me. I was afraid Pooh Bear would really be harmed if I didn’t do something about Belle. The thought of a rooster tearing at my little girl helped me revisitin my mind a section from a farming book about ways to wring a chicken's neck.

My children had risen and were munching waffles at the kitchen counter.

“Children, Belle is acting very strangely. He came after me to hurt me this morning and now I don’t want Pooh Bear going outside without a brother guarding until we can figure out what to do when Daddy wakes up this afternoon after working all night."

Tator’s eyes grew wide and he shed his brilliant ten year old wisdom on the situation, “Mom. He’s just guarding the baby chicks about to be born in the shed. The garden is right by the shed, and you were in the way of his patrol.”

Golly! Isn’t that boy sharp as a tack? My children are safe to play as long as it’s not anywhere near the shed. Now there is just the trouble that I all I want to do is be in my garden and am not interested in a rooster fight each time I approach my sugar snap peas and asparagus.

And watching the baby chicks hatch is out of the question for the moment.