The Death of Lucky Clucky (The wonder chicken)

So, you may wonder, dear readers, why I have begun my entry into the blogosphere (many years and much harassing by friends later than might be desired) with the death of my mother's favorite chicken.

A question that can, I am very certain, be answered many ways. Perhaps it is a visceral response to the ephemereality of life. Perhaps it is just 'time', finally. Perhaps the psycho-analysts amongst you will discover more reason than I.

At any rate, it is not an auspicious beginning, one might think. But a beginning it is. So first, let me introduce myself. I am a knitter, a cowgirl-in-training (Thanks to having moved to my family's 160 acre ranch in the far northern reaches of California) and various other roles that will come to light eventually.

I do promise to include knitting, crocheting, and various fiber-rific content in futer posts, particularly after I have wrested the digital camera from its hiding place in the truck to document such feats as the 'ten-year jacket'.

However, today, I wanted to talk about Lucky. I don't know, honestly, how long leghorn chickens live, on average. But lucky, in her three years, had about ten lives worth of adventure. Bitten at the tail by a rattlesnake a year ago - an incident that left her rather tailless and a little bit wobbly - earned her her name. Not many small animals live through the full course of a rattler's venom, so we assumed it was a little snake that did the deed this time, and were thankful.

A few months later, an unfortunate event involving a horse shoer, a spooked horse, and again, our dear lucky, resulted in a profound limp in one leg, making it difficult for our wonder chicken to hop very high. And yet, she still made it all the way across the yard from barn to house every morning for her daily dose of bread. She still managed to wander far and wide in search of tasty bugs and the full adventure of a free range ranch chicken along with her siblings and 'cousins' the Guinea Hens.

She still got into trouble now and again with her disaiblities, most often wandering into the wrong horse feeder (The hens' nest is an unused feeder filled with hay) and, unable to hop or flap her wings wide enough, stuck there until someone got home from work to let her out, or needing a booster chair to get to the upper reaches of the night-time roosting space on top of the barn.

This is, alas, how our Lucky lost her life yesterday. The temperatures soared to 111 degrees, or higher, that's just what it read at 5:30pm when I got home. We don't know how long she was stuck in the feeder we found her in, but long enough for heat and lack of water to take its toll.

Her woeful cluck, the way she hobbled at high speed in an effort to beg for birdseed scraps or bread, and the sheer tenacity of her earlier adventures will live on in our family, and now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, in the minds of everyone who has stumbled upon this inaugral post.

K