Undaunted Joy #154

The one where a City Slicker falls in love with a Rooster

Our family has been working hard.

I’ve been trying to get my latest book out to new readers; marketing instead of writing has never been my forte. My husband, an attorney, has several cases that needed his attention for weeks. My oldest son, a trumpeter, has been playing in several bands, practicing before and after school, teaching one student and preparing for his most exciting audition to date. And well, my youngest, a violinist, as he put it, has hardly been working (dad jokes before he's even a dad). But he’s great company, so we decided to bring him along anyways for our weekend getaway.

We rented an Airbnb on Bainbridge Island which is only 15 miles away but can take an hour or two to get there depending on if you take a ferry or not. Yes, you can get to the island without a ferry. Even fifteen miles away, on 2 acres of land, it was a different life than the one we live off Martin Luther King Blvd and a few blocks from a fire station. This property had a lush thriving garden, with tomatoes, beets, leeks, kale and chard, which we were encouraged to harvest from for meals. And it had the nicest chicken coop I’ve seen in my life.

The chicken coop was fenced in its own yard. The building itself was gorgeous wood and possibly the same size as my own bedroom at home but three chickens, a duck and a rooster slept in it. There were little benches and chairs for humans to sit upon inside, a few small trees and a very small pond, the size of a child’s blow-up summer pool for the duck to swim around in. Covering this exclusive club, around 15 feet up was thin wire crisscrossed across the top of the coop.

My husband spent his summers on a goat ranch in Mexico, so he was the only one of us brave enough to go into the coop to gather the eggs, for the Rooster was fierce. “Never turn your back on the Rooster,” our Airbnb hostess had text me. You don’t have to tell me twice. I wasn’t even going to look at him cross-eyed.

On our second day, I received another text from our hostess, “Just a heads up: The neighbors say there is a Bald Eagle circling the chicken coop.” As if on cue, I heard what sounded like a naughty child banging on all the keys of a piano at once. I realized this was the eagle, swooping down to gather one of the chickens in its clutches but hitting the wires instead. I ran to look but missed the action shot. The rooster was crowing like mad. I ran out to the bottom of the property to see what was going on. The rooster had corralled the chickens and the duck under the shade of one of the small bush sized trees. The chickens were clucking under their breath, they seemed shaken. The Rooster stood in front of them, guarding and protecting them.

I ran back inside to text our hostess that all animals were accounted for when I heard the piano keys again. Our hostess tells me she’s been out there when the eagle does this. “It is both terrifying and awe inspiring.”

My sons and I watched from the window hoping to catch sight of the drama, but the eagle was frightened off for now. I couldn’t see much from the window but the brilliant shock of red from the Rooster’s cockscomb. He stood out in the open, not one to hide under a tree but protect his women, crowing to the skies as if to say “Oh, you want a piece of me!? “

My son saw this, too. His fear turned to respect, he said “That Rooster is LOCKED IN.”

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