Flown the Coop

Roosters start crowing at the very first hint of sunshine. The rooster's crow increases in frequency and volume with each ray of sunshine.

Roosters are afraid of cats. And when a cat approaches them, they run until the cat starts to gain on them. And then they take off in flight and can fly all the way to the peak of a neighbors rooftop.

Roosters don't just crow in the morning. They crow all day long. And the crow doesn't sounds like cock-a-doodle-doo at all. Perhaps in its rhythm but definitely not in its sound.

As I sat staring out our front window with dark circles under my eyes taking slow sips of my second latte of the day, I wondered who ever started the rumor that a roosters crow sounded like a cock-a-doodle-doo.

I have often thought that my time in Morgan Hill happened for a reason. Like there are lessons I still need to learn about life, family, simplicity and apparently, farm animals.

We confronted our neighbor about the crowing rooster that his family adopted as a pet. Adopted after our other neighbor found the rooster and his hen hiding in their motor home that they leave parked at a nearby farm.

Our neighbor agreed that the rooster was too loud. But his family has grown attached to the hen who apparently laid two eggs in their backyard last night. They were putting the rooster in a cage and taking him back to the farm.

"What about the hen?" I asked Norm as I started to get surprisingly emotional. "Won't she miss him? How will she raise the eggs without him?"

Norm smiled and patted my head, completely unphased by the difficulties a hen might face as a single mother raising two chics in our neighbors backyard. "We need to get you back to a major city," he said as he walked into the other room.

I looked out the window and watched my neighbor drive off with a the rooster locked up in a cage in the back of his truck. The rooster didn't look so sad, I thought. See, even farm animals don't really like it here.