Friday 2 December 2011

One Rant Support

Trev and I have an agreement that we listen to each others rants and make supportive comments. But it tends to be a bit one sided. I rant, he listens. He rarely rants and when he does I, well... I tend to not support wild and exhausting rants about things like changes in sporting seasons and the lack of cricket on the radio. Sorry Trev.

However, Trev has gone for a new audience on Facebook where he posts some wild and woolley and entertaining raves. My rant support rates are way down. Hope this boosts them.


Some of you may have gotten the idea that I hate ducks and would prefer they were no longer the blight on my life they have until now been. This is true; what those of you who know me as a mild mannered fellow of little colour and few words may not realise is that this – let’s not call it hatred, more a malevolent indifference - applies to all animals, especially those we laughingly call domestic,... as well as certain select and pestilential birds, insects and other assorted life forms for which invective is inadequate but that I have not the time to name.

Trev in his longer haired days with Ehren, his gorgeous son

So in this humanitarian and far sighted vein, I move away from the duck and turn my eyes to chooks. There is a strong scriptural base to much of my ranting, and these thoughts on the chook are no different. Those of you familiar with Genesis (the book, not the band) will know that chapter 1 verse 32 says: “and on the eighth day, after having a bit of a spell, God created the chook and he saw that it was very good.” Now, some biblical commentators aver that on the seventh day, God rested the rest of a deity well pleased with his work, but I think that he was just totally stuffed after all that creating – I know creating tires me out – and that’s why the chook is missing a few vital parts, most notably the brain.

Genesis goes on to detail something of a falling out between God and man. Genesis 3 gives us the details:
And then the man, Adam, spake, saying, “Lord, that chook is everywhere in our garden; it scratcheth out the new seeds thou providest and crapeth over every surface and the light of intelligence shines not in its eyes.”
And God replied, saying, “ Speak not thus of my creations, thou into whose deplorable hide I blew breath but two days ago”
Then Adam (perhaps a trifle unwisely) said unto God “ Lord, if thou art too thick to realise that all this ‘on the second day god created’ business is a metaphor and that we’re really talking geological time scales here, that’s too bad; the fact remains the bird is an idiot and you stuffed it up”.
Then God waxed exceeding wroth and said unto Adam” Get thee gone from my garden; show thy face there no more and hereafter blame all thy woes on thy woman, who I created whilst thou weren’t looking.”

And so it happened. Where they got that far-fetched tale about the snake and the apple, I’ll never know.

3 comments:

knutty knitter said...

Chooks and brains - opposite ends of the spectrum! Mutually exclusive! Natures fatheads - can you tell we also have some:) Ours have a good solid run which helps (and we named one Houdini for very good reason - she now thinks she is a rooster and crows every morning instead).

"What us?? A rooster in suburbia??? Of course not!

viv in nz

Jan Morrison said...

hmmm...we have chooks. This is our second flock - my third. I love them but they aren't smart that is true. They are industrious and that is why I like them. They're also entertaining in their little ways. Perhaps they are moveable art more than anything. I'm a bit chuffed at one of our roosters. He leapt up on me while I was feeding them and now I have a big purply knot on my leg. It was like being punched in the shin. Unfortunately for him we recently discovered two of our hens were hims so the mean one goes for soup. Yep, that'll cure him.

Practical Parsimony said...

Linda,
I love your Bible verses. I have hens that appeared very smart and stupid by turns. Mine want to be house hens. The three of them had to live in a cage right inside the back door for 13 months after a raccoon ate one of the original four. So, the hen defense is finished and they stay full time in their outdoor pen. They still come to the back porch and sit on the door mat to go to sleep. I really miss them indoors at night.
Linda