The fate of our eunuch rooster
was finally decided. We’d been considering turning him into a
Sunday lunch for some time, and Philen assured us that slaughtering a
hen was old hat to him. Theo had previously been indecisive,
claiming that he wasn’t prepared to do all the dirty work while I
profess to be an animal lover yet am quite prepared to eat the meal
so long as I don’t get my hands dirty. I have no qualms about
keeping animals for meat so long as they are respected and cared for
during their time on earth. In fact I support eating chickens that
roam the yard as apposed to those kept in a cage no bigger than their
body for the short duration of their life. Clearly Theo was not
listening as usual or perhaps he needed time to figure out how to
catch the rooster.
So Philen’s visit brought
the dispute to an end and our longing for some delicious tasting
Xhosa chicken sealed the deal.
The eunuch rooster, who, I’ll
now refer to as “Curry” surveyed us with one beady eye but he
seemed much more aware of the red rooster, who I’ll call Cocky
Locky for now. Cocky Locky came sprinting across the yard to chase
Curry away from little Henny Penny who pecked daintily at some
mielies. Her alluring tail fluff had long been the cause of Cocky
Locky and Curry’s conflict. Curry, even though he was 3 times the
size of Cocky Locky, was very wary of his adversary and clearly had
no balls, pardon the pun.
Theo and Philen plotted their
attack by arming themselves with weapons of mass destruction. I
grabbed the camera. Curry was way too clever for the boy’s initial
attempt to lure him with their Hansel and Gretel mielie trail so they
tried a more direct approach. Philen stalked Curry with his rope
lasso and a towel at the ready which he planned to through over the
rooster, confuse him and then pounce.
After a half an hour we
eventually gave up to regroup and re-evaluate our situation. We were
hungry and tired of being out manoeuvred by a sharp-eyed chicken.
Luckily, just then, a friend phoned and invited us to join him for a
chicken potjie and a bottle of whiskey. We welcomed the drinks so the
three of us squeezed onto the XT and headed down the road to Marius’s
house. I haven’t mentioned him before, although he is an unusual
character; an ex rekkie who has been hiding out from the SWAPO team
since he left South West Africa in a big hurry a number of years ago
and has been hiding in the hills here in Transkei ever since. His
extraordinary life story, washed down with a couple of whiskeys,
always captivates his audience and on this day, he recounted his
Rekkie training days. By the time we left, we were all revved up and
rearing to go. We raced home the 3 km’s on the bike, and jumped
into action within seconds of arriving home. Theo and Philen marched
over, had the rooster down, slit its throat and minutes later I was
plucking it.
The bird weighed 3 kg’s and
was more than enough for 2 cookings. Philen made a delicious curry,
feet, giblets and all which simmered a few hours that day and Theo
made another yummy curry the next day with the other half.
I still have a bag of feathers
to stuff a pillow or do something useful with. In fact ive just
thought of a damn good idea – we can stick them on owl masks next
project day at the centre.
