When the Deathbird Sings

A lifelong friend of mine died yesterday.  Cancer is a terrible thing.

So very many people that I have loved in this life have passed away, but the deathbird didn't sing for all of them.  I remember the sound though.  So lonely.  So eerie and odd.  Not your normal bird call. 

If you hear it, the hair will stand on the back of your neck, your gooseflesh will rise, and you will wonder, if in times forgotten the wail of the Banshee heard screeching across the moors of the old country, was really just a deathbird singing its awful song.

I suspect it is some type of rare and dreaded owl sitting in a tree outside your bedroom.  Warning you that someone you love is about to die.

I've heard of deathbirds all my life, so I find it odd that if you Google them, there is little information available.  People don't speak of them much, I guess.  

Before my father's death in 1962, a bird sang every night for weeks outside his window.  He told me, when it would wake us up at night, "That is a deathbird.  It sings for me." It also sang at random times during the day, giving us pause, and hushing the whispered conversations in Daddy's sickroom.  What little breeze that stirred in that smothering heat brought the sound inside to us. Daddy did not survive the summer that year.  

We looked for that bird, but we never found it, although the sound it made was crystal clear.  Cold in the heat of the night.  

I've heard that sound several times in this life.  If I hear it more than one or two days/nights in a row, I always hear of the death of a loved one a few days later.  

Let's hope I never hear it ever again.  

I've never seen a deathbird, but I imagine it might look like this.

Tweety and Polly

Today I'm still thinking about birds, but not the barnyard variety.  I'm remembering Tweety and Polly, Mama's parakeets.

My Mama loved animals.  All animals.  When I was growing up we generally had big dogs outside and sometimes a chicken, duck or rabbit too, and small dogs, cats, and birds inside.  Mama added fish to the mix later in life, but when I lived with her it was just the cats, dogs, and birds.

There were always horses in the yard, but they were never our horses.  I did get to feed them at times, ride them at times, and pet them a lot, but they were not mine, and I was reminded of that often, but I digress.

Birds.

When I was growing up Mama had a big birdcage that looked like this without the thing on top:

At one point we had four parakeets living there, but most of the time we just had Tweety and Polly. 

Tweety was a green parakeet that looked like this:

He was a handsome thing and he knew it. Tweety was so spoiled.  He would let you hold him a very long time without complaining, and he would sit on your shoulder while you walked around the house when the cats were outside, but I didn't let him do that often because I had bird poop down my back too many times. 😉
  
Polly was a bluish white parakeet that looked like this:

She was so very pretty.  I always wanted to hold her and pet her, but she was cranky, and she would bite!

We still don't know why they died other than they were over a decade old at the time.  I imagine they died of old age.  It is so sad to lose a pet, but those two had as happy a life as any caged bird can have.

Sometimes Mama would put the cats outside and let Tweety and Polly fly around the house.  We had high ceilings and wooden valance boxes over the curtains in that old house. Tweety and Polly loved to perch on top of the valance boxes and stare down at us while making that smug little bird "nah nah" sound as if to say, "You can't catch me now!"

They'd always go back in their birdcage when they got hungry, so we always did catch them, of course. 

Mama would talk to those birds.  She'd say, "Talk a little bit?  Talk a little bit?" or "Polly want a cracker?" Over and over and over.  You see, her sister, Ellen, had a parakeet that she had trained to say, "Love you," and such as that.  Mama was convinced that she could teach her birds to talk too, but Tweety and Polly never really talked.

Later in life Mama had a cockatiel that could say a few words, but he/she (We were never really sure which.) mostly loved to imitate the alarm clock or the security code or phone number beeps.  It was pretty funny. 

Tweety and Polly never did any of that, but they sure did sing.  It was a happy sound.  Made the cats crazy, of course, which is probably why they did it, but I just loved to hear them sing. 

When Polly died and Tweety was very old and lonely, Mama was afraid at his age a young bird companion might hurt him, but she worried about him being alone and lonely, so she bought him a mirror.  Tweety would stand in front of that mirror and talk and talk and talk so happily.  He didn't feel alone anymore I guess. 

Tweety would turn his head and do those little lovey chirping sounds...almost cooing...to the beautiful bird in the mirror.  It was good to see him happy.  

Sometimes though that bird in the mirror would just piss him off (probably because it mimicked him all the time) and he would squawk at it menacingly.  They always made up in the end though. 😉   

One morning when Mama woke up, she went to feed Tweety and change his water and found him dead on the bottom of his cage.  She cried all day long and into the night.  Inconsolable.  It makes me sad to think about it.  We knew it was bound to happen one day, but that didn't matter.

The heart wants what it wants.  If the heart wants its little green bird, it is gonna break in two when it discovers the bird has passed away.

Sometimes I like to think of Mama up in Heaven with all her loved ones, her parents and siblings, aunts and uncles, and all her animals plus Tweety and Polly.  I bet Mama is in such a happy place right now.  A piece of her died everytime she lost a person or a pet.  I'm thinking she's whole again now.  That is such a happy thought that I think I will end here.

I'll write more by and by.

All About Chickens!

Today I've been thinking about chickens.  Don't ask me why.  I have no clue, but that is what is on my mind, so I decided you might like thinking a little about chickens yourself.

Now.  When I was very little (before Daddy died) we usually had at least one chicken in the yard.  She would give us eggs until she grew too old and then, well, you can guess what happened.

I always struggled with eating animals I knew personally, so as I grew older, I tried to never get attached to farm animals that were being raised for food.  It is not in my nature to be that way though, so I cried many times watching my family eat when I was little.

It just seems wrong to eat your friends.

Eating strangers now...that is different.  I know.  I'm crazy.

Anyway, I grew up in a very small town where there were a few chicken farmers.  I remember going in chicken houses with Daddy and his friends to gather eggs when I was small.  I can still smell those houses.  It is not a smell you forget. 

There were rows and rows of chickens squawking and flapping their wings and laying eggs everywhere, and there was always a rooster. 

Oh that rooster in the hen house thought he was hot stuff!  He'd swagger around like he was God's gift to women chickens, which, I guess he thought he was.  He would also jump on your head and spur your eyes out if you were not careful to avoid him...or at least that is what I was told. 

I was always careful to avoid him.

Then when I was a about a pre-teenager or so, a friend's sister got all involved with show chickens.  I had never seen such chickens in my life!  Gorgeous! 

Some show chicken breeds are:  Ameraucana (These lay blue and/or green eggs!), Ancona, Black Australorp, Black Breasted Red Cubalaya, Black Jersey Giant, Black Sumatra, Brahma, Campine, Cochin, Crevecoeur, Cubalaya, Dark Brahma, Dominique (America's First Chicken), Dutch Bantam, Faverolle, Hamburg, Houdan, Java, La Fleche, Lakenvelder, Langshan, Leghorn, Malay, Orpington, Phoenix, Polish, Rhode Island Red, Rhode Island White, Rose Comb Mottled, Salmon Faverolles, Seabright, Silkie, Silver Gray Dorking, Silver Phoenix, Silver Spangled Hamburg, Sultan, Turken - Red, Welsummer, White Faced Black Spanish, White Jersey Giant, Wyandotte...and the list goes on!

And you probably thought a chicken was just a chicken!  NOT so!

Leghorn is a breed of chicken.  Foghorn Leghorn, the cartoon character, was a Leghorn breed of chicken.  That is why he was white. 

This is a Leghorn chicken.  See?  Just like Foghorn Leghorn!

The chickens I loved the best that my friend's sister raised were the ones with feathers down to the ground like the Silkie breed.  I always thought they were beautiful, but as I look at pictures of the different breeds today, I find the Dark Brahma, the Wyandotte, the Orpington, and the Seabright to be my favorites.   

If you click the links above, you can see photos of all the different breeds.  Which are your favorites?  

Now.  A serious word about fighting chickens.  

DON'T FIGHT CHICKENS!  

I am so against throwing away any life for a human's amusement.  You have no idea how strongly I feel about this.  If you know of anyone participating in such a horrible thing, please call the police immediately.  If it were up to me, all people attending such functions would be sterilized so they could not breed more humans prone to such activities.  Be glad I am NOT in charge.

That is all I'm going to say about that lest my blood pressure rise too much.

Now...back to the more pleasant part of the post. ☺️ 

Clearing my throat now...ahem...

As you can see, chickens are much more than what's for dinner.  They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and dispositions...much like people, I guess.  They even lay different colored eggs!  How awesome is that?

I do enjoy chicken for dinner, but I also like to see all the varieties of chickens.  I also like to be very thankful to the chickens who give their lives so I can eat.  I think that is what saying grace should be all about.  We should acknowledge and bless the animals that die for us, as well as the animals that live for us.  We should be more aware and more thankful.  

Just my opinion.  Everyone has one, I know, but I thought I'd share mine with you today.  If you are still reading, I thank you so much!  I hope you found something interesting and new in today's post.  I'll post more random things by and by.  It is my nature, I'm afraid.