Fancy Pants, Cottontop, Mohawk, Fluffy, Frouf, Q-Tip Head, or The Frizz - he may never have had a proper Christian name, but he was one special chick. And sadly, while we were on vacation in Maine, he was called up to that big chicken coop in the sky known as Chicken Heaven - or whatever it's called when an adolescent chicken finds himself in the belly of the beast.
Who ate Cottontop? Where did he go? These are the mysteries that can never be fully explained. But what we do know is that Cottontop was one of several chickens who fell victim to the Vacation Chicken Massacre of '14. Though, instead of scorning us for losing a couple of chickens to one of our many local predators, let's not forget that AGP and I are but simple city slickers who had anticipated a tragic lesson in our country homesteading journey: that chickens need a safe, completely enclosed run to frolic in. No more of this carefree free-range business. It's just not safe around here.
That was our problem - usually the chickens run free while we live and work in the yard all day, our presence keeping them safe. We never thought about how the dynamic might change while we were on vacation and our roommate was letting them in and out before and after work. Sorry for our ignorance, Cottontop.
But that's the brutality of country life, right? Now the flock has been pared down to a more manageable level, even if we did have to say goodbye to the more showy and less rugged chickens. However, I will miss Cottontop's ridiculous presence in the flock and the lesson of his loss will certainly protect the remaining chickens from this day forward.
Dearest Cottontop, your silly hair-do made your chickenly exploits all the more entertaining to watch, from the moment you arrived in the mail to the last day I saw you, looking as out of place as ever. You were the chick I sought to pick up over and over while I hand-raised you in a plastic tote in my bedroom until you were old enough to go outside. And even though you constantly regarded me with looks of abject terror, know that I always have, and always will, carry a special place for you in my heart and that I will strive to prevent such fatal mistakes from happening again.
Requiescat in pace, Cottontop!
Dearest Cottontop, your silly hair-do made your chickenly exploits all the more entertaining to watch, from the moment you arrived in the mail to the last day I saw you, looking as out of place as ever. You were the chick I sought to pick up over and over while I hand-raised you in a plastic tote in my bedroom until you were old enough to go outside. And even though you constantly regarded me with looks of abject terror, know that I always have, and always will, carry a special place for you in my heart and that I will strive to prevent such fatal mistakes from happening again.
Requiescat in pace, Cottontop!
Alas, poor Cottontop! Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?
ReplyDelete