I’ve gotten bunches of inquiries about my Canadians and about our baby chicken, so today I’m writing an update to try to fill you in on the latest.
First of all, the Canadians (the family’s word for caladiums) all came up. All three hundred of them. Yes, even the ones that were underwater during the flood! As a matter of fact, we have Canadians growing just about everywhere there’s not grass.
We even have Canadians growing in the place where we planted wildflowers, but they never came up. Wildflowers are basically pretty weeds, and I was under the impression that anyone could grow weeds. Well, something went wrong, the wildflowers decided they didn’t like our dirt, so we planted Canadians. I finally found something that didn’t die when I touched it.
Second, the chicken is still with us. I received lots of good advice and hilarious stories, but not a single offer to take him off our hands.
People wanted to know what color he was, assuming he was a colored one from Easter. My mom called and reminded me of the green chick we had when I was a toddler. We put him in the pen with a rabbit, and they grew up thinking they were related. Well, the chick grew up and became a very loud rooster, but always had a green tint to his feathers.
The milkman volunteered to take him, and we kids all assumed our chicken was going to live a happy life out in the country with this nice man. Several months later we asked him how our chicken was.
“He was good!” he exclaimed. As in good-tasty, not good-happy. He had eaten our chicken. We were devastated.
Anyway … our chick is black, as in natural, not dyed. He has grown into a gangly-looking teenage chicken and seems to be beating all the odds at staying alive in his urban home.
Amie, our dog has taken a new interest in this creature, mostly because it looks like a toy she should be playing with. She chases it around and wants it to chase back. Amazingly enough, she doesn’t want to eat the chicken, but she also doesn’t realize that if you pounce on a chicken, it’ll get hurt. The chicken runs for cover now when the dog goes into the backyard.
Last week I was babysitting for my mom’s dog, so the two of them went out and chased the chicken when I wasn’t looking. Apparently, they must have pounced pretty hard, because now the chicken walks with a limp. He’s getting better, though.
We’ve discovered the chicken doesn’t like thunderstorms but does like looking at himself in the mirror. We’ve put a little mirror out there so he can chirp to himself all day long.
We still don’t know his sex but call him a “he” anyway. Someone wrote that if he has bumps on his head that means he’s a male. Well, we don’t have any bumps, at least not yet. Somebody else said that most of the store-bought chickens are males because they keep the females for other stuff. So, we just don’t know.
We’re still putting out feelers for a good home for him. We have the name of the grandmother of a friend who lives in the country and she has chickens, but I’m still open to other offers.
If you take my chicken, I’ll give you a free Canadian. You have to promise not to tell me if you eat him, though.
