It was a charity case. A mercy. That much is clear.
Exactly on whom this merciful charity is being showered is less clear. It’s certainly not the rooster, who had been raised since a chick by a loving – indeed adoring – family. He enjoyed a good and pampered life right up to and well beyond the moment when he was revealed to be a “he.” Purchased as a “she,” Dwayne (for that has always been his-née-her name) embodies the truism not uncommon with such well-intentioned sales, “accidents happen.” Eventually the “cockadoodledoo” revealed the truth, punctuated by jaunty tail feathers and cocky strut. The young flock had one fewer hen.
Dwayne’s curious nom de plum stems from the playful intersection of his breed – Barred Rock – and the favorite actor of the young boy who had selected him – Dwayne, “the Rock”, Johnson. Hence, “Dwayne the Barred Rock Johnson”. What had seemed odd for a hen now proves prescient. “Dwayne” it is.
But therein began the problematic considerations. Not everyone is infatuated with roosters. Neighbor relations can fray. Restrictive city ordinances can prohibit. That, and for those who get into chicken keeping for the eggs, roosters add little return on investment. They consume but don’t produce – unless, of course, you hope to hatch your own, which intrudes its own level of complexity. None of these were concerns for the family or their sole neighbor – they loved Dwayne. He was a treasured member of the flock. There was, however, that pesky ordinance. Keeping Dwayne would be a rather voluble violation of the law.
Enter Taproot Garden.
We have chickens, the family well knew, and remotely situated as we are – well beyond the reach of the restrictive anti-rooster law – they knew as well that we had once included two such stately and similarly accidental residents among our flock before meeting an untimely and tragic end in last summer’s raccoon wars. They had even heard us lament their absence.
“Would you possibly be interested in having Dwayne come to live with you?” they wondered.
I have to admit that we smiled at the offer. It hadn’t been long before that we had cursed the gender reveal within our own flock. We didn’t want roosters – one, let alone two. We were not interested in enduring the crowing, refereeing the aggression, dealing with the fertilization, or disturbing the neighbors. Roosters would have no place in our flock…until they did. We came to listen for their calls. We chuckled at their demonstrated pride. We almost saluted their soldierly protective vigilance. Our hearts melted at the eventual chick that hatched from a craftily hidden egg. And when the chicken yard fell silent with their absence, we…well…missed them.
And so what might charitably be called the “reciprocal mercy.” A twin generosity: our friends needed to give, and as it turns out, we needed to receive. And at the center of it all, Dwayne moved from happy home to happy home; loving hands to welcoming ones. All with visiting privileges anytime.
A happy resolution. Once or twice I have seen our older hens rolling their eyes as they hop up on the parallel bars, out of reach. As if to say, “Here we go again.”
But they don’t really seem to mind his spreading around the largesse of his love.
His reliable crowing – morning, noon, afternoon and evening - like Benedictine prayer, remind us that life is larger than we settle into presuming, and is animated by a community of affection, receptivity, and mutuality.
We genuinely are better together.
Cockadoodledo.
