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Saturday, July 21, 2007

Who's that boy?

Ooooh! Breaking news! He doesn’t have a name yet, but please meet Nefley and Jenni’s new play date! What a lovely day I had today – driving up to past Cooma to meet a wonderful woman called Lucy, drinking mugs of tea in her warm kitchen surrounded by dogs and talking chooks. Yup, a woman, her farm and her flock.

Lucy breeds Silver Appleyard ducks (the nicest I’ve seen), seabrights, buff orpingtons, english games, muscovys and off course, silly silkies. I have searched the earth (well, the immediate region) for a fine and handsome white roo to hang with my lovely girls, and today I found him!
Here he is, just settling in.
Serendipitously, Lucy had been hanging on to a number of silkie roosters from last year because they were just too good quality to get rid of. Yay!

Nestled amongst a series of wonderful moments, I reflected on how much I love the company of women much older than myself.
(Lucy must be into her 70’s) and about how chooks and ducks bring folks together, and make instant friends of strangers, and then when another friend of her’s dropped by (a young fellow from even closer to the snowline, but not as close at the cougarnaut) who breeds Rhode Island Reds, I just melted at the whole multigenerational cross genderedness of it all.

I am not really sure how silkies fit into the whole backyard sustainability thang, especially silkie roos. I mean, the hens are most useful in their cluckiness and mothering, if not their not totally pathetic egg laying. And lets face it, they are the only breed of poultry that you cant really eat the extra boys with relish and delight. I mentioned this to Lucy, and she just replied, in her wonderful pragmatic scottishness :

“oooch well you know, you just havnt been hungry enough”.

Please God that I am never that hungry!

Any ideas for names for such a handsome fellow would be gratefully received.

3 comments:

Sherd said...

Oooh, he's pretty. Let's see...

I like William Wallace for him because:
a) Willy sounds like Silly, which he is;
b) William Wallace's famous last words were Freeeeeedooooommm, which arrived at the same time as your silly fluffy rooster (yay!);
c) he looks like he has a brave heart (geddit?);
d) (this is a bit of a stretch but) if there was any actor who seems all puffed up and arrogant as a silly fluffy rooster it would probably be Mel Gibson. Or Tom Cruise, but that's just a silly name.

So, I support Tom Cruise as the name.

Wait, what?

The Duck Herder said...

well thats settled! William Wallace it is. Thanks sherd - Wally will be most gratful - you have just saved hom from being called "Fabio"!

love you!
tdh

Eilleen said...

Oh he really is pretty. Love Wally as the name!

BTW, Duckie, I have nominated you for the Frugal Subversiveness award. Check out my blog! :)