And Dudley Comes Home to Roost

One day this past summer I was awakened by the sounds of a rooster crowing.  Okay, so living in the country as we do, we often heard this rooster crowing of a morning, but this time it sounded as if it were actually under our window singing its head off.  It was a happy rooster, happy to have a voice, happy to flap it's wings, happy to be alive.  As we discovered  later that same day , it's gladness was the latter more than the former.  Our neighbors, Tara and Sam (he's Greek, so can't pronounce the last name much less spell it,  therefore I won't trouble you with the minor details) have a farm complete with horses and cows, chickens and at one time even a goat, etc...and once they had plenty of barnyard cats too,  but seems they've all migrated our way.  So, as I've rambled way off the subject here,we'll get back to the rooster crowing beneath my window.  Well, since he was sitting on the porch railing greeting the sun and the new day with a fervor I've hardly ever heard before, I had to get up and pull back the curtain to check.  And yes, there he was.  A beauty of a rooster, all luscious reds and bark browns, blacks of several different depths and he had an attitude.  Later that day we discovered that he also had a number of tail feathers missing from his considerable plume.  I asked Tara that evening if she was missing a member of their  menagerie.  Seems she was missing quite a few.  Her doberman had gotten loose and gone on a chicken killing spree that defies description.  The rooster of the flock was lucky to escape with the few tail feathers he had left attached to his backside.  He had made a hasty departure through the woods to seek asylum(looney bin?) with us.  I'm not sure if he figured the myriad cats were a protection from  or a distraction for the dog.  But he made it safely here, and here he stays.

Now, I know having a rooster in residence  isn't much of a big deal for a lot of people.  It's not much of a big deal for us either since luckily we have plenty of corn and seed on hand to feed the squirrels guineas and song birds.  But the oddest thing of all is the rooster much prefers cat food.  And he prefers to eat the cat food out of the cat food dishes.  And he prefers to eat it with the cats.  The first time I saw Dudley (as we have since named him) eating with the cats I could only stand and watch.  That he tolerated the cats was not what amazed me.  That they tolerated him as a dinner companion rather than dinner...now that really got my attention.  The first time he raced me to the food dish (starting at a dead run from 1/2 an acre away, he beat me handily) made me laugh out loud.  I've never seen a rooster running with cats before.  Away from them, yes, with them no.  This has been going on for months now.  I think it's safe to say that Tara and Sam no longer have a rooster.  Their Guineas (hens) claimed us as family at roughly the same time.  The guineas only capture Dudley's attention once in a while at which time he will condescend to eat a morsal or two of corn with them.  But mostly, he likes the cats. 

Now that fall is upon us Dudley goes to roost on the porch railing at around 5 pm each evening.  He prefers it if we will kindly  not be banging in out of the front door from 5 on.  He needs his rest.  He begins his sympony to dawn somewhere roughly between 3 am and 0dark30.   I've asked Craig, our neighbor on the other side to stop referencing dumplings whenever he sees Dudley.  It's giving him a complex.