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11/10: Chickens Part II – The Delawares
Eventually a call did come about the Delawares – This time a came home with two, plump, beautiful white chickens with speckled black around the neck and tail feathers. I brought them home in a cat carrier, and Tory introduced them to our other chickens, who immediately turned on the Delawares with a vengeance, enough that Tory felt compelled to separate them, and over the next few days there was a lot of squawking and flying feathers as they were slowly integrated into the rest of the flock and a “pecking order”’ was established. The introduction was made a couple weeks ago, but squabbles still break out, the chickens raise themselves up on there toes, fluff out their neck feathers and dance and dart at each other. Lead by the Delawares, they have quickly found out how easy it easy to fly over the little white picket fence that surround their coop – and scratch around under the hydrangeas, staying close to wherever Bodoni is in the yard. It appears that one, if not two, of our red hens are actually roosters – announcing their presence and gender with a loud crow in the morning.The weather continues warm, no frosts have come to kill our green plants – and so tomato plants continue on in the garden, but the October rains have started, heavy fogs in the morning lift, leaving the red and yellow leaves glossy and wet. The colors are particularly vibrant this year – and have not reached their peak yet here in the valley. The days are in the sixties and the evenings dip down into the 40’s. The Art Department secretary and I are in a competition to see who will cave in first and turn on the heat.
03/10: Seeking Chickens
As our major trips were over for the foreseeable future, we decided that it was time, once again, to have chickens. To late in the season to raise chicks, we decided to search around our area for pullets or laying hens. I was frustrated after running into several dead-ends until I met Beth one late summer day at the church if the Nazarene farmers market. Impressed by a variety of heirloom tomatoes – I was going on to the next booth when I saw she also sold fresh eggs and frozen chickens.“I don’t suppose you would have any live chickens for sale would you?”
“No”, Beth replied - “But if you leave your name with me, I know a Canadian gentlemen who summers down here – he raises a couple dozen of a different breed of chicken every year. They won’t let the chickens back across the border – so he sells them to me. I could sell you a couple, they will be about five dollars a piece, but they won’t be ready until fall.”
“Great” I replied, and scratched my name down on a scrap of paper.
“They are Delawares this year” Beth went on – “beautiful chickens.”
I nodded my head vigorously, as if I knew precisely what she was speaking of – and rushed home to tell Tory the good news.
We rushed to the bookshelf, and scrambled to pull out our 1942 Standard of Perfection – a photographic guide to judging chicken breeds. Only, a good hour had passed since I spoke with Beth at the farmer’s market, and my mind a done a geographic reconstruction. “I think she said they were Pennsylvanians” I said, but the index gave no indication of any such breed, “maybe Virginians?” and so we went up and down the east coast – eliminating out of hand a “New Yorker” variety, we eventually arrived at the right spot – there in glorious black and white photographic reproduction was the Delaware, and handsome, cold hearty, good layer with a friendly disposition. The chicken was mostly all white, with a sprinkling of black feather near the head and tail, we were satisfied.
When we pushed the button on the answering machine about a week later, we were surprised to hear a very non-Canadian voice declare “Yeah, I got some layin hens” I returned the phone call, and was relieved of any lingering beliefs that this was the Canadian when the girls and I pulled up outside a big white double-wide with an extended family on the porch, and various animals sectioned off into pens and cages throughout the surrounding yard.
The girls and I climbed out of the car and introduced ourselves to a short man in a muscle shirt who came out to meet us. “Yeah,” he said “I got your name from the lady up the road – she said you might be looking for chickens, come on back.” We passed three bunnies in a play pen, and a huge bull dog tied with a two-inch thick iron chain to a picnic table. We wove our way through a tangle of pens full of pigs, cows, turkeys and donkeys, made from chicken wire, fence posts, and sometimes bits of furniture, until we came to the chickens. He had a variety of breeds from Barred Rock, to Rhode Island Reds – but Zoe took an immediate shine to the homeliest chicken available - a goofy looking thing with mottled feathers and a long, naked neck. “that’s called a Turkey Neck” he told us, but I thought that was being unkind to turkeys. It looked more like a buzzard to my eye. “I am sorry Zoe, but we are not getting that chicken.” I held up chicken wire as he crawled in to various small pens and gathered them up – as the girls kept pointing in various directions saying “I want that one!” I would answer back under my breath “we will take the ones he catches.” We walked away in the end having spent five dollars for five chickens – two Barred Rocks, two Rhode Island Reds, and an Araucana (hoping to get some blue eggs).
