In the first 10 years of my painting career
I was part of a church, whose male members were mostly all equal partners in a paint business.
We painted Central Maine, and had a contract with a large company whose business was eggs.
They had huge football field size rooms that
had cages crammed full of chickens that ate, and laid eggs all day.
It was like painting in nursing homes as well.....there was some shock value to what we saw, but as we went there....we noticed that after a while, we were more and more used to what was going on.
One day....we all arrived in the morning, and I saw some 55 gallon barrels full of live breathing yellow chicks. I mean completely full like an ice cream cone!
We froze. I asked...."Whats happening with these chicks....?" The guy there pointed to a cement building out in the dirt field. It had a shoot on one side, and another shoot on the other side.
He said...."These chicks are the males, so we auger them into that building, and they are cooked down to the pellets that we use to feed the female chicks so they can lay eggs!"
We were horrified, but realized it goes on all day every day all over the world. What could we do?
I had a medium sized cooler type lunchbox, and got a sneaky idea!
I looked around, grabbed a breathing little fuzzball, and put it in my lunchbox to take home to my two little stepdaughters. We were going to save this rooster I named Lucky!
My dog Molly and cats loved him too!
I read a ton of books, built a big chicken house, with a run, and a nice little house with a perch.
I got Lucky 12 female chickens, and He was stylin'! Mr. Lucky went from "chicken Auschwitz" to a Dream Harem....fit for a King!
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I learned many things about eggs....
* New eggs stay round and built up like a little breast.....Old eggs spread in the pan....( I never had a new egg, I guess!) And Boy!
Do they taste "eggy!" Hmmm Good !
** When the grass clippings went into the pen from the mower, they ate them, and their yokes got darker and stronger! I learned to control the flavor and color of my eggs!
*** When an egg was dropped in the cage....I just couldnt believe how those ckickens ate that egg! They ran over and started pecking at the yoke and whites, and had that egg up and off the ground in its ENTIRETY in a matter of seconds! It was amazing! Completely Clean!
Every morning I could crawl into the cage,
vist with the girls and Lucky, and even catch an egg as it was coming out, or "fish" for one in the hay, and have it for breakfast!
I learned two ways to hypnotize chickens, which was so funny, even to the old farmers there around my house in Maine. Thats for another story!
Well.......the summer flew by, and the harem members grew, and it was then the Fall of the year.....and it was time to butcher the females. (First pronounciation....BOO-tcher)
Check It!
One by one we chopped their heads, boiled the feathers out, and the women prepped the chickens for the freezer. (By the way...they werent that good at all....)
Then there was Lucky!
By the way....He was one rooster!
He was huge........so white, you wouldn't believe it. His "comb" was so red....it always made people stop and comment! It was like a Chinese red, so vibrant you wouldnt believe it! Even his legs were full, and so golden yellow......this rooster was quite a bird......
with an attitude to match!
(By the way...the pic above is NOT Lucky!)
He'd circle around me, leaning to one side a bit, tracing the ground with his wing tip....and running a circle around me......threatening me or something! He was a character!
His song was the proclamation of the Morning, and the unstoppable announcement of the day....."I Am Here, and you better know it!"
Well, needless to say....winter was coming, and my wife didnt want Lucky in the house or basement, and I didnt want to kill him or lose him really....I Loved my rooster buddy!
One evening.....there was a knock at the back door.
My "neighbor" in my duplex house came over one night, her father is a farmer. She said that her father asked if he could have Lucky, he had the barn and he could accomodate him there.
I said..."Sure, under one condition.....that he never put him down...let him live his life out completely!"
She said that he promised that would be the case, so I gave him up.
Two weeks later, another knock at the door.
It was she again, and she had news.....
Her father had brought Lucky the Rooster to the Maine State Fair......
......and he took the Blue Ribbon as the Best Rooster In Maine!
Now THAT was one Lucky Rooster!
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I just love that story!
I could draw parralels to other stuff...but take it for what its worth! I certainly feel like a lucky guy when I realize all the ways God has helped me in my life, and how what I need is always supplied, even when I dont deserve it or even know I need it.
Amen and Amen!
comments
great story
I loved your story!
Julia
very good
very very good story have you ever thought about writing a childrens book about lucky?