creative writers' blog

ruffled feathers and a mud bath

 abuse

More antics from ROJO   

One fall a couple of years back, I let some corn stay in a plastic barrel. I thought it was pretty safe in the plastic. I had a locking lid on it. Or at least I thought it locked. We had an unusually large storm that brought with it great gust of wind. That wind blew so hard and powerful that it picked up watermelons from the field and hurled them toward the house and the barn. NOW THAT’S STRONG WIND AIN’T IT? Our melons weren’t the very biggest kind. Well, truth is the melons were planted in a field where the grade was downhill and the melons really rolled toward the house and barn. Still that was strong wind!

We had an electric fence around the hog lot. (That’s the pen where the hogs are kept. I know you already knew that. This explanation is for those foreigners from Mass. Con. NH, and places to the north.) Most of you know what an electric fence looks like. For those who don’t I’ll tell you. It is a strand or two or three on posts that is insulated from everything except the box it is attached to that sends an electrical charge at a pulsing rate to keep the hogs in. They don’t usually have to get on it but once and they learn fast where it is. The strands of wire are anywhere from 14 gage to 22 gage in size.

Now for the story:

Some of those watermelons rolling toward the house and barn also rolled toward the hog lot. That put them on a collision course with the strands of the electric fence. When those melons came in contact with the wire they were rolling so fast that the wire sliced them in half perfectly. That brought the hogs out in the storm to have their fill of melon.

Back to the corn:

The barrel with the corn in it was shaken so fiercely that the lid came loose. It didn’t come off but just kind of  “cocked up” on one side. That allowed water to get into the corn. There wasn’t enough water to let me see it from the top on the inside of the barrel and I didn’t know that the corn in the bottom was fermenting much like the mash that you make liquor out of. If you let it set there long enough the liquid, if taken internally, would render you drunk just like beer from the store.

This is the corn I had been feeding ROJO with. I kept feeding him corn from the barrel for a week or two and got down to the part that was really fermented. I knew what it would do to humans but I thought it would be allright to feed chickens. (As you are most certainly remember ROJO is a fighting chicken from Sorta Ricco.) I saw him drunk one time when I glued his hew beak on. Rojo loved the newly fermented corn and I needed to get rid of it pretty fast so I gave him a double portion (or was that a triple portion?) Anyhow, I put copious amounts at various places in the yard where he could get to it. Which he did! This particular day was a beautiful fall day that was a little warmer than the usual temperature for a day this late in the year. With this heat and that fermented corn combined to be one of the funniest days with ROJO and me in many days.   

As ROJO partook of the corn his little chicken brain began to be affected by the alcohol and he began to feel a little loose. He took a notion he wanted to fly. Chickens, as a rule, can’t fly. They can however run and flap their wings making it seem then are flying but they usually keep their feet on the ground. Here’s a word picture for you. Ole ROJO thought he was really flying. He ran and flapped, flapped and ran, all the time keeping his feet on the ground. You remember that time he got a hold on that hat at church don’t you? Well he did gain some altitude that time because he started out from the back of the pickup truck. He tried and tried but never got off the ground.

However ROJO finally quit trying to fly and began to hop along like he was skipping rope and walking at the same time. I stood and watched him for a long time. The more corn he ate the funnier he got. He finally went to chasing hens around the yard. Now usually he didn’t have a bit of trouble catching any hen in the yard, but not this time. He chased and chased but never caught a single one. Problem was he was so unstable by this time that he got to where he couldn’t even run. Every four or five steps he would trip over his own feet and take a tumble head over heels. When he fell he would roll about six feet and get up wobbling weaving back and forth trying to get hold of the ground. He fell beside one of those piles of corn and just had to eat a little more.  I thought about taking a flat shovel and putting the rest of the uneaten corn back into the barrel. Thing is, I was having so much fun watching him that I couldn’t tear myself away from the show.

Here’s more of the show. I told you about the electric fence around the hog lot. ROJO was strutting around the yard going everywhere (or at least running, rolling and getting up and doing the same again.) Guess what! ROJO went toward that hog lot and right into the electric fence wire. When he hit the fence (the first time) he went about five feet straight up. He hit the ground with a flop like a wet pillow thrown from the roof. He lay there for a few seconds and got up starting to run again he ran directly back into the fence again.  This time he actually flew. At least for about ten yards he flew. At the end of his short flight was a muddy area about thirty feet in diameter and two feet deep. His flying apparatus failing he landed right in that mud hole that was the delight of those hogs. He couldn’t free himself from that mud and I thought he was going to drown. He really was stuck in the mud. If I wanted to save ROJO I would have to wade out into that pool of slimy mud and get him. Well, I made up my mind to save him and pulled my shoes off to go after him. I thought of it so I pulled off my trousers too. Then I took off my shirt. I wasn’t yet wearing an undershirt so that left me naked from the waist up and wearing only my drawers. Wading out to where he landed I bent over to pick him up. He flapped a little harder than he had been and I stepped after him and lost my balance and took a header into the mud. I finally got hold of him and he and I made it out of the mud hole.

Picture me pot bellied and all toting a muddy chicken back toward the house. Never in the world did I think my wife had been watching all this excitement from a window. It took me an hour to clean up ROJO and myself. All the while my wife was laughing so hard she had pain in her sides. I guess that is what is means when someone “busts their sides" laughing.

Filed under: Personal