Barnyard Musings
I was
walking across the yard this morning to look into the chicken coop. Something
of a raucous nature was going on down there, which isn’t unusual. Chickens seem to spend a lot of time
gleefully marveling ova the laying of an egg, maybe: “How long have you been
holding that one in, or my-my-my if you don’t mind I’d like to sit on that one
later, or oh my aching ovaries…” In any
event, on the way across the grass I stepped in dog crap. Nice and fresh too, that tarry conglomerate
consistency, with the stickiness of super glue (super poo?)
Fortunately,
I was wearing my barn boots, so I didn’t get any on the cuff of my pants. Unfortunately, I was wearing my barn boots,
which have treads deeper than many canyons in Arizona. So for the next few minutes I was doing that
dance, you know the doggie shuffle; dragging my foot through the tall grass,
looking for a puddle to dissolve some of this sh*t, a stick perhaps to scrape
(notice the word crap is in the word scrape?)
it from between the labyrinth of cracks and crevasses, while at the same
time hopping on one foot, while at the same time trying not to step on the same
land mine again. Been there?
I must
mention that this is not the first time recently, for me to have this special
event. The last two occasions were the
moment or two just before I entered a vehicle.
Once the door was shut with windows up, all occupants got the pleasure
of sharing the olfactory by-products of the lower gut of a canine, which might
have originally been dog kibble, plus a thousand and one other edibles
available at ground level. Let me just
remind you that this is a farm…lots of interesting objectionable objects on the
ground and dog-reachable. Some real
taste sensations… And have you noticed
that dogs are not all that discriminating? No, not at all. So apologetically out of the car I go and now
I get a chance to do the dog-do shuffle by the roadside, to the amused pity of
most ever passer-by. We all know what
that scene looks like, right up there with drunks puking in the bushes and
little boys peeing onto the rear wheel hubcaps.
I swear I saw a couple slow down to get a better look, camera in
hand. I fear a posting on YouTube is
next.
But alas,
boot passably clean, I found my way to the chicken coop to check out the hens and
see what the ruckus is all about. We
worry about the potential of a Mongoose, those sly opportunistic devils. They too are willing to wade through a fair
amount of excrement to visit the chickens, and snatch an egg or maybe a hen…
And then to
my surprise, I discovered two Mourning Doves caught by their own devices in the
empty section of the last coop. Maybe
they were enticed by the chance to fill their bills with a bit of chicken
scratch? I, of the prefrontal lobe, have
determined that they got in through the wire mesh, but in panic, were flying
from one end to the other, helter-skelter crashing and freaking out even
further, then flying and crashing again.
Not a good strategy for escape. First dove to second dove: “ok, that
didn’t work…ok, that didn’t work, ok…”
But eventually, befuddled and exhausted, they dropped to the coop floor,
and there within minutes, simply walked over to the wire mesh wall, stepped
through, and discover freedom from this claustrophobic cage. Duh!
So am I
witnessing a moment of avian Zen, some sort of dove dharma? Maybe, maybe it’s that easy. Maybe we all should stop thrashing about and
avoid the panic, and find our freedom?
Or at least watch where we fly, or step.
Duh!
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