Venus
Every spring José and I say the same to one another, “I think we should try for more hens.”
And every spring we try … and more often than not, we end up with more roosters.
It’s not that we dislike roosters. Actually, one of our favourites — hen or rooster — was Tucker. Every day, when I would approach the coops, Tucker would come running, and I would feed him by hand. We name all our birds, and our roosters are named after operatic singers and composers. Over the years we’ve had Pavarotti, Bocelli, Rossini, Caruso, Ezio, and Monteverdi. But, in general, roosters can be aggressive and, when it comes to their hens, very protective. Too many roosters for a given number of hens and there’s trouble in the coop, — and it wears out the hens.
So, when José says to me — or I say to José — “I think we should try for more hens”, it’s a serious decision.
We have one tiny hen — Picollina — who only wants to nest, even in the winter. When José and I decide — “I think we should try for more hens” — we leave eggs under Picollina, to get her started nesting. Picollina continues to sit for three weeks, only getting out of her nest to eat and drink, and at the end of twenty-one days the chicks are hatched.
Waiting for the chicks to hatch can be stressful — for José and me. I check every day — like any expectant father. We’re constantly watching Picollina, to be sure she’s on the nest and not shooting the breeze with her fellow hens. After the chicks are hatched, we place Picollina and her chicks in the maternity cage, in a fenced-in area. As the chicks mature, they eventually are allowed to roam under the protection and watchful eyes of Picollina.
This time, three of the eggs under Picollina hatched. All three chicks appeared to be normal. They followed Picollina to the bowl of crumbles and to the water container. It was perhaps two weeks after they hatched that we noticed that one had a slight limp. As the days passed, the chick seemed to be dragging one of its legs. This was not normal, José said. José had attended veterinary school in Cuba. One of our friends — Claudia — who runs a small animal sanctuary near our property, gave us the name of a vet she said understood and could treat deformities. The vet bandaged the dragging leg to the normal leg, thus forcing the deformed leg to conform to the healthy leg.
“Bring her to your house, put her in a cage, and keep her there for three weeks,” the vet told me. “She has a good chance of recovering,” which made me happy. Both José and I were becoming attached to the chick who we named Venus.
During the following days, Venus ate enormous amounts of food — layer crumbles, lettuce, and canned corn — and chirped day and night. We would take her out of her cage every evening, and she would rest either on the couch while we watched the news, or on José’s chest while he took his siesta. Having her legs tied together didn’t seem to bother her.
After the three weeks, Venus chewed through the tape that bound her legs, — and stood on the couch … on both legs. A quick consultation with the vet told us to monitor her movements.
“I don’t see how we can return her to the coops,” I said one night when Venus was comfortably watching the news, lying between us on the couch.
“I agree,” said José, “but she’s a chicken, and I don’t think it’s right to have her as a house pet.”
But Venus was pooping all over the house, and, being Cuban, José couldn’t live in a house with some filth, especially chicken poop. Being American, I could.
A couple of weeks — and more pooping — later, José made our decision: Venus must be returned to the coop and join the other hens. She walked without a limp, she hopped up onto the couch to watch the news with us, and when we weren’t there, she slept on the couch as she was allowed to roam free.
When we brought her to the coop, she was quite timid — for the first week. I would feed her by hand, like I had in our house, and she ate voraciously. She began to gain more weight and fill out.
“You know, I think Venus is a rooster,” José said one day.
“Why do you think that?” I asked.
“Look at her tail feathers,” he told me. I looked, but they didn’t look any different from the other hens.
“Venus’ tail feathers are becoming long, and see how they’re beginning to curve? That’s the tail of a rooster,” José informed me.
“To me, Venus looks like all the other hens. Venus is a hen.” Secretly, I saw what José saw, but if I willed that Venus’ tail feathers were like all the other hens, well then, Venus was a hen.
At the time of my writing, we had but one rooster — Puccini. Over the ensuing days, I watched Venus, and I observed that, instead of being chased by the other hens, she was chasing them, — and her tail feathers were starting to resemble Puccini’s. I became worried. At night, I prayed for her tail feathers to stop growing, and for her to become plump — like the other hens.
Then one morning, when I was cleaning the coop, I heard the crowing of a rooster. I looked around for Puccini, but he was outside mounting one of the other hens. The crowing continued, — and there she was. Venus was roosting on the gate behind me, crowing.
I had to admit — though I would never say this to José — Venus had decided: she wanted to live her life as a rooster.
Pronouns
Dear Peggy,
Not much doing today, other than the usual: drive to Morrisville for supplies, submitting to journals, and revising Chronicles of An Innkeeper. Our forecasted rain has been delayed — like air flights — with the possibility of a total cancellation — like air flights. It seems that here is a shortage of workers or supply-chain issues in the heavens, perhaps both.
José's family will be driving back from Montreal. I hope they aren't stuck at the border.
Nights, we now place Venus in the outdoor former goat coop as she/he harasses the hens when we leave her/him in the chicken coops overnight, but she/he flies out of a high window that we leave open for ventilation. Actually, during the day when we let her/him mingle with the hens, one of our mature hens chases her/him and she/he runs away as fast as her/his legs can go. Yesterday, when I placed her/him in the goat coop, she/he flew out of the open window after I closed the door. I decided to wait until I returned from dinner and then picked her/him off of the outside fence where she/he likes to roost, and placed her/him back in the goat stall where she/he will stay all night as it's dark, a time when she/he will sleep.
Aaron
Peggy and I email one another daily, a custom — I hate to think of it as a habit — we have been doing since Jeanne died. Peggy and Jeanne were friends, dating from the time Jeanne began training dogs for Guiding Eyes for The Blind; Peggy was the State coordinator.
Dear Aaron,
Not much to write about today, other than I’ll be at the Lister’s office filling envelops. But what’s all this she/he, her/him business? Are you on something?
Peggy
“Hi Peggy.” I decided to call as we hadn’t spoken in a couple of days.
“Oh, Aaron, glad you called. What’s all this funny stuff in your email about?”
“I thought I’d told you about Venus.”
“Yes, you said you and José raised her in your house as she had a slipped tendon, but that doesn’t explain your odd use of pronouns when telling me about her.”
“Well, after the tendon healed, José decided we should place her back in the coops with the other hens.”
“So? But why this she/he, her/him business?”
“Peggy, you know that José and I need more hens, so we raised Venus as a hen.”
“Yes, I know all that.”
“But after her slipped tendon had healed and we put her in the coops with the other hens, José noticed that her tail was growing.”
“Aaron, are you playing with me? I don’t have time to joke around; just get to the point.”“Well, hens’ tails don’t grow.”
“So? I just don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“I will.”
“Please make it quick; I have to be at the Lister’s office in thirty minutes.”
“The tails of roosters grow up and curve down.” I hoped Peggy was following me. “I ignored José’s theory about the tails of hens until a few days later when I heard crowing. I was cleaning the coops.”
“Aaron, that was probably Puccini.”
“Exactly what I thought, until I noticed that Puccini was outside, mounting a hen, so you see, Peggy, it couldn’t have been Puccini.”
“Then, who was it? Do you have another rooster you haven’t told me about?”
“After seeing Puccini on a hen, I turned around, and to my utter dismay I saw Venus, on the gate to a coop and she was crowing,” I explained.
“I still don’t get what this is all about. Aaron, I have seven more minutes. Please, get on with what you want to tell me.”
“Venus was crowing like a rooster.”
“Are you telling me that your use of multiple pronouns in your email this morning — which is totally against all the rules of grammar both you and I were taught when we were in school — is the result of Venus being both a she and a he? Now I really believe you’re losing it.”
“Peggy, José and I raised Venus to be a hen, but when we placed her in the coops with the other hens, she decided to live her life as a rooster. Now you know my reason for using multiple pronouns when I tell you about her/him.” “Aaron, you lost me a while back. Take my advice and make an appointment to see your doctor.”
Venus aka Adonis
“We need to choose a new name for Venus,” José said one evening after returning from the coops.
“Why” I asked. “I like the name we chose for her/him.”
“Well, for one, after we returned him/her to the coops and he/she decided to live his/her life as a rooster, Venus just isn’t appropriate anymore, as he/she now wants to be a rooster,” he explained. “Remember, you were the one who thought we should name our roosters after operas, composers of operas, or opera singers, and I don’t recall an opera, a composer, or a singer named Venus.”
José was right, of course; I couldn’t disagree with his logic; he was simply repeating what I had told him when we got our first rooster who we named Pavarotti.
I decided to Google, to find some way to justify keeping Venus, Venus. I was in luck. In the 17th century, there was an English composer of operas, John Blow, who wrote an opera called Venus and Adonis. Perfect, I thought; so, the following day when José and I were in the coops, I told him, “We can justify calling Venus, Venus.”
“Aaron, Venus is a female name; how can we continue calling Venus, Venus when he/she has decided to live his/her life as a rooster?”
“In about 1683, an English composer by the name of John Blow wrote an opera he called Venus and Adonis. When Venus feels she/he is a hen, then she/he is Venus, and when Venus feels like she/he is a rooster, well, he/she is Adonis.”
DoubleSpeak 