Imposter

A month ago, a friend asked if we could use some roosters, less than a year old.  Sure, we said, contemplating the usual destination of roosters.  When they arrived, nine of them, Karen wasn't feeling up to par, so we sentenced them to the garden shed, formerly a chicken coop.  After a few days, with no change in disposition, Karen advertised them on Craigslist.

The response was quick and enthusiastic.  Several asked if we would prepare the roosters for pick-up.  Right, we'll go to that trouble and post on Craigslist because we enjoy doing the deed for the fun of it.  Then Karen found a taker.  On his way, he informed her that he lived in a small apartment.  Could he kill them on our property?  Good grief.  I was in town at the time.  When I returned home, the man was holding a dead rooster. Karen, knife in hand, was waiting for the next to expire.  So why did we advertise on Craigslist?

Off in the distance, a rooster ran.  "He escaped," Karen said.  Lucky guy.  After the bloodletting, he gradually wandered back to our brood and food.

For most of the day, he treads carefully along the periphery of our flock.  Rooster number one keeps a sharp lookout.  The Imposter has become the only named chicken on our farm, except for Soossey, the Sussex.  He looks something like rooster number one, but he's smaller, he has a double comb, and he's a serf.  Or is he something else?  Check out his shadow in the photo.  Maybe he's a cat in disguise.  He nibbles after the others are satisfied.

At dusk, squawking to himself like me in the garden, he sets off across the lawn to a white pine tree, pecking all the way.  At the tree, he circles, catches a little more dessert, then flies to the lowest branch.  Fiddle, faddle, he jumps up a limb, another, and another.  The branch wobbles as in a stiff breeze and lets loose a final cock-a-doodle-doo.  A few more cackles and he settles down for the night.

"He's waiting," says Virginia, "like Prince Charles and his sons."

Maybe.