So my Dell died again (lets not go into this, me and Dell have issues - I shall leave it at that). So I am currently working on my old (photograph shoe box) Compaq presario. While going through the photos stored on there to see which ones need to be moved from shoe box to new puter (once it is repaired - again) I came upon this one, of my darling, darling, Dweebe, my chow-german shepard cross who, earlier this year, decided in her 13th year that it was time for her to go and join Sox and Buddy at the rainbow bridge to wait for me.
and it also reminded me of my favourite Dweebe story which I thought I would share with you here, in celebration of her memory. Damn I still miss her so much, despite my three other dogs as companions there is like a void in my heart when I come in the door in the evening and she is not here to greet me.
Why did the chicken cross the Forest (because it was in Dweebe’s mouth).
One Saturday morning I awoke and as usual lay for a few minutes in the darkness to get myself fully awake. While I was still in the half awake half asleep mode I thought for all the world that I heard a gentle clucking sound. I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was still experiencing the residual effects of a dream, but no, there was the clucking sound again. I opened my eyes fully and looked across the room to the direction of the clucking. Dweebe stood in the corner of the room with what appeared to be a mouth full of feathers. I would have thought that she had perhaps just recently destroyed a pillow but the feathers also appeared to have feet and were, well not to put too fine a point on it, clucking. I went over to her and sure enough in her mouth, and strangely enough apparently in no distress whatsoever, was a chicken. She was resting in Dweebe’s mouth and clucking gently for all the world as being carried around in a Chow crosses’ mouth was a normal mode of transportation for a chicken. “Dweebe put the chicken down” I said, she dutifully complied and laid the chicken gently on the floor. I picked the chicken up and checked for any broken bones and/or blood. There was none, and other than being covered in Chow slobber the chicken appeared to be none the worse for wear as she sat calmly in my arms and clucked. I sat down on the bed and realized at this point that I had made a huge tactical error. In my haste to check out the chicken I had neglected to get dressed first, so there I was, naked, holding a chicken in my arms. I didn’t want to put the chicken down lest it decide that that was an opportune moment to make a break for freedom and it commence fluttering around the bedroom no doubt causing all hell to break loose once my other dogs and my cats saw it. Unfortunately, nudging husband awake and saying “here hold this while I get dressed“ was not an option as he was working. When you think about it however that is quite sad, I think that perhaps would have made a great cocktail party story for him “so there I was fast asleep on a Saturday morning and my wife wakes me up hands me a live chicken and says here hold this while I get dressed”, damn his work schedule, ruined a totally good story. Needless to say it was with a great deal of chicken juggling then that I dressed. Transferring the chicken from one arm to the next as I put on sweats, long socks, boots and a long sleeved shirt. I knew where the chicken had come from you see so I knew whence I was going to have to return it. There had been a wild flock of chickens and turkeys in the swamp since I had lived there. I am assuming that someone had thought that it would be a great wheeze to raise chickens but as often happens around here with cats and dogs when they had to move on they simply abandoned the chickens and turkeys and they in turn took off into the forest to look for food and freedom. We would be woken most mornings at approximately 2 am by the rooster of said flock crowing merrily, obviously his alarm clock was seriously out of kilter and no one had the heart to tell him. So, off I went into the swamp. The dogs initially followed me but once I got to the gate they were left behind but the cats of course, not being confined by silly things such as fences followed me. It must have been a funny scene, woman with chicken under arm being followed by at least seven cats through the forest. With a great deal of tiptoeing, hopping, stone stepping, log stepping and fighting of brambles I eventually got to the clearing where the chickens lived and smiled as I saw them going about their daily business. Some were on the forest floor, scratching at the leaves and the debris. Others were roosting in the lower branches of trees, obviously having just woken up themselves. When the chicken under my arm saw them she clucked gently. I put her down on the forest floor and she fluttered off into the nearest branch and snuggled next to another chicken who clucked as she arrived. I turned and walked back to my house but could definitely hear the conversation as I walked away “cluck cluck cluck well you would NOT believe what happened to me this morning, there I was minding my own business and along comes this Chow and picks me up and takes me to a house and there I was I mean the indignity of the thing, sat in a Chow’s mouth, I mean can you believe it” Other chicken “well I never!” The cats watched the chickens briefly and then quickly lost interest, they being too fat and lazy to even contemplate taking on a fully grown chicken so the Pied Piper routine went back through the forest to my house. I could still hear the chicken clucking.... “and so there I was and this human gets hold of me, and there’s me thinking well that’s it, I’m soup I suppose, then she starts walking down here, and I’m thinking well I don’t know what is going on” other chicken “well I never!”
