Life Lessons

This afternoon we lived one of the life lessons that come naturally when you have pets. Our beautiful rooster, Picksy, died. I knew it was coming...he just wasn't himself the past couple of days...but I'm still sad.

Poor little Farmer was heart-broken and cried most of the evening. He loves all of our animals and is so compassionate. Cowboy tried to comfort him, "Don't worry, he'll get exaggerated. I mean resurrected!" Picasso told him that eventually Picksy would get an even better chicken body and some new hens to love. It was hard to keep a straight, mournful face!

We've had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Picksy. He got his interesting name because he picked at everyone when he was young. The boys wanted to name him Pecker, but we convinced them that Picksy would be a much, much nicer name. I'll admit that there have been times where I threatened to turn him into chicken noodle soup, like the day he took a large chunk of skin from between my thumb and index finger. Or the day he went after Picasso in the chicken run. But for the most part, we've enjoyed having him around.

We laughed and laughed as Picksy learned how to crow - I didn't know chickens could make such terrible noises! Once he had it figured out, he'd flap his wings, arch his neck and welcome the morning, or evening, or anytime in between. He crowed anytime the sun was up!

He loved to eat the usual chicken diet, but his favorite snack was prickly lettuce. Sometimes he would come flying out of the coop as soon as I opened the door - it was a little intimidating, but he was only trying to get to the weeds before the hens. He also liked to eat the grasshoppers that jumped into the run. Our boys thought it was great fun to watch him chase them around and would often drop in a few just to see the show.

Picksy would hop up on the roost and walk the length of it, sideways, back and forth, while I filled the water and grain. He'd stand gaurd in front of the nest boxes, and that's where I found him today, still looking out for the hens.

We will really miss hearing Picksy crow. And we'll miss seeing his "rainbow" feathers shining in the sunlight. Maybe in the spring we'll raise up another rooster to rule the roost, but for today, we'll just remember Picksy.