Last summer, when that girl from New York was here, we got some chicks. The folks at the feed store said that they were Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, a new breed not yet registered. I’m not sure why, maybe they have to wait for the markings to be consistent…or something.

When you buy chicks, you either get ‘straight run’, which means that there’s a mix of roosters and pullets.

Or, you just get pullets. And that’s what I usually do.
The chicks grew into beautiful adults,

and sure as shootin’,

their markings were not consistent,

especially as far

their combs are concerned.
There was this one big chicken that resembled a rooster,

but I dismissed that idea because it never crowed…and roosters do that a lot, once they get the hang of it. As far as I was concerned, she was just one big mama.
Anyway, the night the boys stayed with us (when we played pirates) I slept in one of the guest rooms to be near them. The next morning just as dawn was about to crack, I heard this…well, you would call it a noise, but it was actually a rooster crowing. The sound was not high pitched and smooth like normal. Instead it was deep and rough.
As I laid there I thought, “I’ll be John Brown if ‘Big Mama’ isn’t ‘Big Daddy’ after all. And…

Daddy sings bass.”