FINGER CLUCKING GOOD

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.

Theo in the meantime had positioned himself behind my dangly door thingie with his bow and arrow drawn and ready. The hunt was on. (I’ll elaborate on Theo’s home made bow and arrow at a later time). I stood between Curry’s retreat pathway with my camera poised while inconspicuously trying to heard Cocky Locky and Henny Penny out of Theo’s target range in case of a stray arrow. Curry sensed there was fowl play at hand.

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.

By the time the adrenalin and whiskey wore off, the bird was ready for the pot and looked just like the chickens you buy from the supermarket all cleaned up and ready to eat. Well almost, the feet, still attached and quite a delicacy here, was the only visible tell tale sign that it wasn’t a watered down, hormone injected, bland tasting excuse for meat.

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.

Mozzies from Mars

It seems as though we’ve got rid of the rat but now we’re concentrating on the dam mozzies. We’d almost used up a whole can of Tabbard spray when Theo remembered that we had a brand new anti mozzie net packed in the bus somewhere. Great stuff! He hauled it out, hung it up above the bed and wala, things looked very omantic as soft white netting draped around the bed and I was suddenly in the mood for love. Excitedly we crawled in under the thing but wham, I looked around and felt as if I was in a Sci Fi movie with gross sores developing all over my body and an alien about to explode out of my stomach. I tried hard to banish these thoughts but they kept coming back. If I looked up at the circular centre above my head, I felt like a giant bee catcher. Theo on the other hand lay there going ne nene ne ne and pulling faces at the mozzies buzzing around on the outside.

Oh dear. I needed to recapture the moment. If I downed my whiskey it might help but the problem was that the bedside table was outside our safety net, and with the light on we’d attracted enough flying insects to start an arachnid collection. Should I risk opening up the side to get my drink or should I just suck it through the dam net? I managed to get my drink safely inside, gulped it down and turned to the cheshire cat lying next to me. Let’s get it on baby. It’s difficult being romantic with a moth the size of a small bat flapping madly entangling itself into the folds of the net next to your ear but somehow we managed.

I have to share a bit of useful information here. Did you know that the reason why moths circle around a light continuously is because they use the moon to navigate? As they’re flying from lets say a Marula tree to lets say a Black Monkey Thorn tree they check out the position of the moon and use it to get their bearings in the sky and orientate where they want to go without getting lost. Ingenious! Unfortunately they get confused with other lights and will circle and circle it incessantly trying to get their bearings. Like ok, here’s the moon real close, this must be north, wait a minute, this must be north, hang on maybe this is north. Wait a minute; I’ve just seen another big moon under this net bouncing at a vigorous rate.

Anyway bottom line, the dark side of the moon is more diverse than a chicken drumstick.