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Jun. 28th, 2004 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oakenguyEarly Saturday morning our dogwalk went down a slightly different street than usual. We noticed a little park we hadn't seen, Toby explored it...and then we heard something that sounds like a rooster crowing.
Bear in mind, this is the city. A fairly green part of it, where a lot of MIT professors live, but still.
We heard it again and investigated. We turned the corner and, sure enough, outside an ordinary-looking duplex, perched on the metal fence that runs along the sidewalk, was a gorgeous rooster, red with speckled yellow highlights. He crowed again and preened a little.
We got a little closer and noticed a speckled hen in the yard below the rooster. She's adorable too--pale white with black-blue specks, like the inside of a mussel shell. But there's something about the rapid-fire way she was clucking that sounded a bit distressed. And then on the sidewalk, on the *other* side of the fence, I saw a little brown bird about the size of a sparrow wander out and then scoot back into the grass. A baby chick who'd found a way though or under the fence and now couldn't find their way back, with the rooster doing the only thing he could and standing guard over it.
Some of you with good memories will recall how uncomfortable it felt to have a dozen semi-wild goose beaks at crotch level. I tell you now, compared to having an upset rooster at eye level as you try to take a chick out from under it, geese are a piece of cake.
The fact that I can tell you this story with two good eyeballs is a tribute to the rooster's short attention span, that and the fact that D and Toby were helpfully making noise up the street to distract him. (I had no idea D could make a noise like a hungry raccoon. Neither did she.) He turned his back on me, I bent and scooped up the little downy squirmer, I scurried to get the gate open with my elbow and slip inside and managed to get the wee one on the ground and reunited with Mom before the rooster could fully comprehend what was going on. Disappointed hisses are heard across the neighborhood from the local cats, who want to hang me in effigy but, well, no thumbs.
Just when I think I've figured out roughly how odd my neighborhood is, it throws me a loop like this.
Bear in mind, this is the city. A fairly green part of it, where a lot of MIT professors live, but still.
We heard it again and investigated. We turned the corner and, sure enough, outside an ordinary-looking duplex, perched on the metal fence that runs along the sidewalk, was a gorgeous rooster, red with speckled yellow highlights. He crowed again and preened a little.
We got a little closer and noticed a speckled hen in the yard below the rooster. She's adorable too--pale white with black-blue specks, like the inside of a mussel shell. But there's something about the rapid-fire way she was clucking that sounded a bit distressed. And then on the sidewalk, on the *other* side of the fence, I saw a little brown bird about the size of a sparrow wander out and then scoot back into the grass. A baby chick who'd found a way though or under the fence and now couldn't find their way back, with the rooster doing the only thing he could and standing guard over it.
Some of you with good memories will recall how uncomfortable it felt to have a dozen semi-wild goose beaks at crotch level. I tell you now, compared to having an upset rooster at eye level as you try to take a chick out from under it, geese are a piece of cake.
The fact that I can tell you this story with two good eyeballs is a tribute to the rooster's short attention span, that and the fact that D and Toby were helpfully making noise up the street to distract him. (I had no idea D could make a noise like a hungry raccoon. Neither did she.) He turned his back on me, I bent and scooped up the little downy squirmer, I scurried to get the gate open with my elbow and slip inside and managed to get the wee one on the ground and reunited with Mom before the rooster could fully comprehend what was going on. Disappointed hisses are heard across the neighborhood from the local cats, who want to hang me in effigy but, well, no thumbs.
Just when I think I've figured out roughly how odd my neighborhood is, it throws me a loop like this.
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Date: 2004-06-28 10:36 am (UTC)Chaos Happens
Date: 2004-06-28 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-28 10:55 am (UTC)I love your neighborhood. :)
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Date: 2004-06-28 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-28 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-28 11:21 am (UTC)"Crikey! Look at that roosta! Isn't she a beauty?"
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Date: 2004-06-28 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-28 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-28 04:51 pm (UTC)heh. I've seen a lot of people who keep chickens and whatnot as pets. Granted, they're in Concord, not Cambridge...