Every spring brings with it a stirring in me to return once again to the Brim Hollow. Imagine the chirping of birds, the air filled with fragrances from a thousand blossoms, and cool ground under my bare feet. And I breathe in the earthen smell of newly turned up ground in my grandmother’s garden. And I walk through rows of buttercups and marvel at iris blades fanning toward the sky, soon to bring the flower garden alive with colors that would rival a rainbow.
And I always think of chickens, hens and roosters and baby chicks.
It seems the springtime was prone to make a hen’s temperature rise. At least a few hens would want to “set” a nest of eggs. My grandmother Lena decided which hens got the “settin” eggs and how many. Some hens wanted to “set” whether they got the eggs or not. That created a problem for me when I was sent to gather eggs each day.
There were two rows of hen nests in the Brim Hollow. One was attached to the outside wall of the henhouse. It was comprised of sections, about 12-14 inches square, and covered with one piece of roofing tin. The other row of nests was attached to the back of the smokehouse.
It was always thrilling to me, as a boy, to be given the job of gathering the eggs. It was like a treasure hunt. My grandmother taught me to always look in the nest before I reached in to collect the eggs. She pointed out that chicken snakes were known to crawl into a hen’s nest occasionally. The thought of grabbing hold of a chicken snake made me a careful observer. I was afraid of snakes, but I was more afraid of settin’ hens.
When a hen is determined not to leave a nest of eggs, or even more determined to protect her baby chicks, she can make herself look bigger than she really is. And they make this clucking sound that sounds fearsome. Sometimes a hen is bluffing. When a hen is not bluffing, you are in for flogging. A flogging hen is not to be messed with.
But, in the chicken world, if there is anything worse than a flogging hen, it is a spurring rooster.
There were no aggressive roosters in the Brim Hollow. And now that I think about it, there’s probably a reason for that fact. I imagine if a rooster got out of line, he was on the fast tract for my grandmother’s frying pan. My Granny Lena stood only 5 ft. 2 inches, but she could ring the neck off a chicken with the best of them.
We did have a few aggressive roosters on our farm in Watervale (also known as “Punch, TN”) when I was growing up.
It is an intimidating experience to be “eyed” by a big rooster. We had one particular rooster that would put an eye on you as soon as you stepped off the front porch. What followed was always the same. If you turned your back on him, the next thing you heard was the rustling of feathers and fast-moving chicken’s feet as he made his charge. He was never successful in his attempts to spur me, but I did have to fight him off a few times. If, on the other hand, you continued to watch him as you walked away, refusing to turn your back on him; he would crow (like a rooster) as he strutted around, letting the barnyard know he was king of the roost. I never like him, but he commanded my respect.
You might say I grew in a day of “free range” chickens half-a-century before the phrase was even coined.
Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall
