A Rooster's Tale

Our family has been spending a lot of time at the local county fair this past week.
The children showed goats, horses, and calves.
Crafts and items that were sewn were also entered.
And strangely, on a wild trip back to retrieve horses, immediately after the goat show, my husband decided to also bring our wild, Buff Orpington rooster, Dash.
Welcome to the rest of the world, Dash!

I was bit incredulous at Dash being a "show chicken" at first.
Dash is a wild rooster and mean at that...the spittin' image of his Pa, the late Mr. Incredible.
Here is one of my favorite photos of Mr. Incredible.
I think it catches his true character. Mean.



Here are several posts that mentioned Mr. Incredible:

Life At Forty Acre Farm
Lots of Shtuff and a Planned Butcherin'
Birds on the Brain Again

Mr. Incredible was mean beyond belief. And we were told that B.O. roosters were usually docile.
Not so with Mr. Incredible. He was out for blood. When he died prematurely, I was not saddened.

But alas, this tale is about Dash and I must get back to the point of it.
A year ago, August, Dash was born underneath our porch.
I had let the chickens free-range because it was so hot. His mother, Myrtle, had decided underneath the porch was where she wanted her brood born. And he was born there, directly underneath the Welcome mat.
As we have cats, my oldest daughter was concerned the little fluff-ball would become a cat treat. With my blessing she crawled up under the porch and captured our soon to be named Dash.
Oddly that would be the last time Dash was touched by a human being until nearly a year later to the date when my husband decided at the last minute to throw him into a pet crate and bring him to the fair.
And so, I, exhausted from walking to and fro from barn to barn to Exhibit hall and back through the whole crazy sequence of tracking down kids and making sure they were dressed to show their animals, barely gave ole Dash a second thought but to tell my husband his precious time had probably been wasted in bringing the mean ole bird.
That was Tuesday.
On Wednesday, we were due back to the fairgrounds for several commitments and were also eager to see how the girls had done with their entries in the Exhibit hall. My husband met us in the Exhibit Hall after loading the horses to take them home. He had a funny grin on his face. I asked him what's up and he then told me I needed to go visit Dash in the poultry barn. I laughed and said something like, "that bird didn't place did, he?" All my husband said was, "let's go see."

And this is what I saw. Wow, who knew....who knew a ridiculously wild, ungroomed rooster could be transformed in a moment into a show chicken. I'm still somewhat in a state of disbelief. But hey, you know what they say, truth can be stranger than fiction.

Blessings, And have a great week!
Julie


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Homestead Barn Hop #77