{"id":2471,"date":"2011-01-07T12:54:51","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T17:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2011-01-07T12:54:51","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T17:54:51","slug":"the-day-the-hawk-swooped-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=2471","title":{"rendered":"The day the hawk swooped down"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ken Ilgunas<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was sprinting toward the fence gate. With arms pumping, eyes bulged, and teeth clenched, I flung one foot forward after another\u2014my shoeless soles making soft thuds in the grass as the wind swept my hair back, revealing my otherwise cleverly-hidden and regretfully-high hairline. \u201cNOOOOOO!\u201d I bellowed. \u201cTHE CHICKENS!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a clear, brisk afternoon. Moments before, I had been standing on David\u2019s porch, looking out at the garden while talking with my father on the phone.<\/p>\n

As I watched a shadow move across the yard, I couldn\u2019t help but tune my father out. The shadow, at first, was small\u2014maybe the width of a mason jar. But as it approached the garden fence, it got bigger and bigger\u2014like a the shadow of a UFO descending to earth, ready to collect samples for examination, experimentation, and an obligatory probing.<\/p>\n

The shadow\u2014moving at lightning speed\u2014advanced toward our three chickens who were close together\u2014as they always are\u2014innocently scratching and pecking the ground near one of the apple trees. That\u2019s when I saw the shadow\u2019s source. It was a hawk, mottled black and gray with wings outstretched, exposing a bone-white underside. It lowered its claws like airplane wheels and aimed its beak at Chastity, one of our two dark chickens.<\/p>\n

The hawk clenched its claws into the Chastity\u2019s back, and began flapping its freakishly large wings in hopes of carrying his meal to a more appropriate venue.<\/p>\n

The chickens have almost no way to defend themselves against a bird of that size. They can\u2019t fly very far, their beaks are too small to fight back, and the coop\u2014their only recourse to shelter\u2014was too far way. Our chickens, though, have one thing going for them: they are\u2014and I don\u2019t know how to put this lightly\u2014fat. I wouldn\u2019t go as far to call them \u201cobese,\u201d because obesity suggests poor health when our chickens, thankfully, are as healthy as can be. But they are, nonetheless, fat. And I don\u2019t say that disparagingly. If I was a rooster ambling through the property, I\u2019d likely be unable to continue on without pausing to admire their plump, healthy, feminine curves, before communicating my ardor to them with flagrantly obscene roadside catcalls.<\/p>\n

The hawk raised Chastity\u2019s body only about a foot into the air before they both came crashing down to earth.<\/p>\n

It was at this point that I screamed, \u201cNo! The chickens!\u201d I dropped the phone and ran to the fence where I hoped to put on a display of acrobatic martial arts maneuvers that\u2014because I\u2019d seen so many kung fu movies in my childhood\u2014I figured were second-nature to me by now.<\/p>\n

What was my poor father thinking? \u201cNo! The chickens!\u201d was the last thing he\u2019d heard before I dropped the phone onto the deck\u2019s wood planks and took off running. Perhaps he was left shuddering in horror as he imagined his firstborn begin pecked to death by a flock of ravenous chickens. He\u2019d picture me like a man covered in feathered flames, stumbling drunkenly as 20 of them clutched my every morsel of flesh.<\/p>\n

But it need not be said that I was running and panting and girlishly screaming to save<\/em> the chickens.<\/p>\n

It might seem odd for a man to get so worked up about an animal that people eat every day, especially an animal that everyone knows has no personality, an animal that is perceived to be clone-like and characterless.<\/p>\n

Meat becomes easy to swallow when we think of animals more like thoughtless robots, and less like sentient beings like ourselves. So who cares if a chicken\u2014that\u2019s eaten by millions of people every day\u2014becomes hawk food?<\/p>\n

I never thought I\u2019d say this, but I adore chickens. Well, I adore at least three<\/em> chickens.<\/p>\n

Whenever I walk into the fenced enclosure where the chickens roam free, the three of them (who I call \u201cthe girls\u201d) will come rushing down the hill\u2014running like diapered toddlers on wobbly legs\u2014to greet me like puppies. They\u2019ll surround me, and look up into my eyes, as I lavish their feathers with compliments. At night, when I go to lock them up in their coop, I can hear them all cooing at the same time\u2014a communal loquacity that brings to mind a circle of grandmothers with balls of yarn in their laps who talk purely for the joy of talking, unconcerned with whether or not anyone\u2019s really listening.<\/p>\n

Much to my surprise, I\u2019ve learned that each of \u201cthe girls\u201d is by no means a \u201cclone\u201d; they each have their own distinctive personality.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nRuth<\/em><\/p>\n

Ruth\u2014the red chicken\u2014is easily the dimmest of the three. In her wide blank eyes, you can see a mind that is ripe for conversion. Because she cannot think for herself, she can be swayed to the dark side, as well as the good. Her morality depends entirely on whatever the dominant ideology of the group is. Ironically, despite her dimwittedness, she also exhibits the most curiosity of the three. Every morning last summer\u2014when I had to forcefully remove Patience from her nest (because Patience was in some weird and unhealthy nesting mode)\u2014Ruth would always stop what she was doing to come up and watch as I pushed her broody friend out of the coop. During that time, Ruth used to reign supreme at the top of the pecking order when they all lived in the coop, constantly tormenting those bold enough to eat before her with sharp pecks to the neck. The two darker chickens, however, have benefited more than Ruth has from grazing in the yard, and they\u2014with due justice\u2014have since pushed Ruth down to the bottom of the order. Ruth\u2014desperate to dominate somebody\u2014began pecking our feet, but with a couple of artfully placed kicks to her rear, we\u2019ve avoided succumbing to the tyranny of ruthless Ruth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nPatience<\/em><\/p>\n

Patience\u2014the plumpest of the three\u2014is like the crazy gay aunt of the family. You know the aunt\u2014the one who has a mysterious personal life about which no one in the family knows anything, except that she has eccentric hobbies like skydiving and some weird new Asian religion. You love it when she shows up for family gatherings, only because you have no idea what to expect when she\u2019s around. The more conservative members of the family write her off as insane, but only because they feel threatened by some faint hint of brilliance in her eccentricity. Patience is constantly making strange noises, and flapping her wings at all times of the day. As mentioned above, she spent the whole summer sitting on her nest for no useful reason. Patience is my favorite and the most dog-like of the group, loyally following me around during my rounds in the yard. She\u2019s taken a special liking to me, which is especially evident when she turns her back and squats in front of me, as willing hens are wont to do in front of courting roosters. Of course I haven\u2019t taken her up on the offer, but I\u2019m always flattered nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nChastity<\/em><\/p>\n

Chastity\u2014the dark chicken who was targeted by the hawk\u2014is the most stoic and matronly of the bunch. While Ruth\u2019s eyes sometimes appear cold and reptilian, Chastity\u2019s are human-like, sometimes even sagely. She carries herself with more awareness and self-composure than the others, rarely permitting herself to become involved in petty, pecking-order politics\u2014not because of highbrowed haughtiness, but because she is unconcerned with the trivialities of the present. She seems to have been blessed with an empathy that comes from living close to nature and her kind, but also a wisdom\u2014bestowed to her by noble blood\u2014that allows her to \u201cremove\u201d herself from the limits of the physical world and to shift her thoughts to a higher plane. From this vantage point, she can see how she fits into the larger scheme of things. Chastity is both smarter and stronger than Ruth and Patience, and while some chickens would use this power for personal gain, or to revel in the perverse glee of subjugating others, Chastity, rather, sees her role\u2014not as an \u201copportunity\u201d\u2014but a duty to care for those weaker than she\u2014a duty that she is\u2014by honor\u2014obligated to accept.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong> <\/center><\/p>\n

My Chastity. My dear Chastity. I saw her flipped upside down in the air with wings flailing, now headed to the ground headfirst. The hawk\u2014unable to pick her up\u2014had his claws planted on the ground now, figuring he\u2019d devour Chastity on the spot. He snapped his beak at the heap of feathers until he became aware of the moaning apelike figure that ran after it with beak-dropping haste. The hawk left Chastity on the ground, took off for the trees, sat on a limb, and looked down on its kill, eager for the chance to strike again. Chastity was lying down and motionless, huddled with the other two chickens.<\/p>\n

I was devastated. David, at the time, was in Winston-Salem shopping for groceries. I knew it would break his heart when I had to tell him that one of his chickens had been killed.<\/p>\n

I wanted revenge.<\/p>\n

I could still see the hawk, brazenly perched above. David has a pellet gun, I remembered. That would do the trick. I rushed back into the house, found the rifle, and opened the canister of pellets to load it up. Having never grown up with guns in my house, I hadn\u2019t the slightest idea how to load it. Puzzled, I must have looked like a caveman holding a Rubik\u2019s cube as I swiveled my head from the rifle to the pellets and back to the rifle again. Okay, forget the gun idea.<\/p>\n

I ran outside again, and figured I\u2019d stand by the chickens until the hawk left the premises. I walked over to Chastity\u2019s body, still motionless, sandwiched between Ruth and Patience who both looked frantic.<\/p>\n

Oh poor Chastity. I remembered the time when\u2014in this very spot\u2014she launched herself at a invading groundhog, bravely throwing her beak into its ass like a mining pick. This garden, I thought, will seem awfully empty with just two chickens.<\/p>\n

And just as I went to pick Chastity\u2019s body up to bury her, she flung her head up and twisted her neck to see me. I looked over her body, and couldn\u2019t find even a scratch.<\/p>\n

As each chicken has developed and displayed their personalities, they\u2019re no longer just barnyard animals who give us eggs every morning, they\u2019re members of the family.<\/p>\n

That night, I put them up in their coops early, brought them out a bucketful of leftovers, and packed their nests with fresh hay. And while they are now a little wary about being out in the open, they still spend their days pecking, scratching, and cooing, living as happy as three chickens can possibly live.<\/p>\n

Ken Ilgunas’ blog is at SpartanStudent.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ken Ilgunas I was sprinting toward the fence gate. With arms pumping, eyes bulged, and teeth clenched, I flung one foot forward after another\u2014my shoeless soles making soft thuds in the grass as the wind swept my hair back, revealing my otherwise cleverly-hidden and regretfully-high hairline. \u201cNOOOOOO!\u201d I bellowed. \u201cTHE CHICKENS!\u201d It was a … Continue reading “The day the hawk swooped down”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-land"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}