My husband woke me up this morning to tell me he thinks we're going to need to "cull" two of our male ducks. Yep, you got it...he wants to off two of the boys. Of course, I was morally outraged. What have my duckies done to deserve a death sentence?

Apparently, they're fighting. Fighting? Our kids did far worse than that to each other when they were younger and no one was calling for their executions. Ok, so maybe that's a lie...executions were occasionally ordered, but never carried out. Honest...they're all still alive! But the poor duckies may not be so lucky.

So, despite my desire to stay cocooned within the warmth of my layers upon layers of blankets (and at least one very warm dog) I climbed out of bed, pulled on a coat and my slippers and stepped onto the back porch to see what he was bitching about.

I didn't get far when I heard the mad quacking coming from the middle of the yard. There in the center of a circle of ducks were the two males, violently bumping chests, beaks flapping and biting at each other. Surrounding them, the rest of the ducks were chanting, "Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!"

After a quick translation, I decided they were yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" And that's when I decided ducks were not much different from children after all, and ordered (at least for now) a stay of execution. I mean...I haven't even had a chance to catch this shit on video yet!

Until the next time...I'll be carrying my camera around at all times!

Well, it finally happened. Clooney’s number was up, his days ran out, and his chips were cashed in. I’d like to say he went out like a man, but the truth is he went out like a crazed chicken, screeching like a little girl staring down the business end of a spider. And, well…I would have tried to save him, but the whole thing happened so quickly I didn’t even realize it was going down until the deed was done.

The first scheduled execution at the haunted farmhouse.

Baby ClooneyThe sad end to Clooney’s tale (or tail depending on your point of view) was actually set in motion last weekend when Mike and I ran across a full grown rooster for sale in the breed Mike wanted (a buff orpington for chicken lovers out there). Chester (the new resident cock) will make perfect chicks with the ummm…errr…chicks around here. So for the bargain price of five dollars cash (counted out in coins because who carries cash anymore?) we had ourselves a new stud for the fock. Unfortunately, this addition didn’t go over so well with the current big man on campus and we witnessed our first ever cock-fight in the yard. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be, and I found myself torn as to who to root for. In the end, it didn’t matter. Chester was in. Clooney was out.

As it turns out, poor Clooney’s days were numbered from the minute he came out of his shell. He wasn’t supposed to be a rooster. And like Mike said from the day we realized he was exactly that, “Well…he’ll make a good crock pot meal.”

Of course, I fought for the big cock right from the get go. He may not have been the right kind of rooster, he might have even been a big dick most of the time (crowing at all hours of the day and night with no regard to normal rooster schedules) but he was my rooster, and I wanted to keep him.

Clooney last weekSo the Save Clooney campaign was born. People from all over the world wrote in, begging for Clooney’s life (and a few asking for the recipe we intended to use if we cooked him). The neighbors even seemed to like him, despite his tendency to go off like a broken alarm clock.

But sadly, in the end, no amount of petitioning or begging would save the little pecker from the executioner (my husband). And now it would seem instead of feeding Clooney dinner, we’ll be having Clooney for dinner sometime in the near future.

So here’s to you Clooney. You were a damn good rooster…I hope you’ll make a damn good chicken stew too!

Until the next time…I’ll be making room in my refrigerator for one of my favorite pets.